Moral New-speak - they've stolen our words

New-speak : They've stolen our words

I posted an article last week entitled “Absolute Rule or Blanket Rule”. I've had to withdraw it because of a language problem!

In my defence let me say this post was an update of material I had developed during my research in about 1989.

At that time I was introduced to the difference between a “blanket rule” - meaning one to which applied in every circumstance - and an “absolute rule” meaning one which did NOT apply in every circumstance but was absolutely binding where it did apply. This idea straightened out my own thinking considerably. Once this difference was pointed out to me I found that there were moral philosophers around who used this concept in the same way.

However last night a friend who had read my post pointed out that language had changed during the intervening decades. “Absolute rule” now meant “Blanket rule”! So my post was incomprehensible.

Checking online this morning I see his point. There is now, at least in accessible philosophic discussion, no word for what I had been used to calling an “absolute rule” !!!!

I am not a conspiracy theorist but this does smack of “Big Brother” in 1984 where new-speak was introduced precisely so that there were no words in which ideas counter the Big Brother's could be formulated. What has been achieved over the past couple of decades is a change in the language of ethics with the same effect as 1984's new-speak.

* I want to say that there is an absolute standard of morals – namely God's moral character.

* I want to say that if and when we can establish a certain course of action as conforming to this absolute standard and the opposite action as opposing the absolute standard then this course of action is morally non-negotiable! (absolutely binding I want to say)

* I also want to say (see my early posts) that “rules” make human life liveable – we just can't work out what to do in life on a situation-by-situation basis. So we need general rules to cover general situations. But we just don't live in a “one rule fits all” universe! There will always be exceptions to the general rule.

The exceptions to the rule may be so frequent that we can develop another general rule such as: “In XYZ situation this is the rule that applies.

A classic example of this is where King David cursed Joab for murdering Abner in peacetime on the grounds that Abner had killed Joab's younger brother Asahel in battle when they were on opposing sides. David later orders Joab's execution with the words: “He Killed them (Abner and later Amasa), shedding their blood in peacetime as if in battle ...” (1 Kings 2:5ff) So wartime rules are different from peacetime rules!

Some situations are so new or rare that all we can say is “This situation is outside the purview of the general rule” We will need other resources to work out what is the right course of action.

Some may fall so far outside the circumstances envisioned when the general rule was formulated that we may even be unable to say what the “right” course of action was. We may have to uphold the law but withhold censure for what seems a breach of it.

We might declare: “we must maintain the law – and by that law what you did was murder, but the circumstances were so unusual and extreme that we cannot blame you for what you did. (This notably happened in England in the case in the 1800's where shipwrecked sailors attacked, killed and ate the ships cabin boy: They were subsequently tried for murder. The jury refused to bring in a verdict; the Privy Counsel (the highest court in the land) found them guilty of murder, expressing that the law must be maintained and what they did was murder, but that what person could in their heart blame these sailors for what they did under such duress. They were promptly given a royal pardon and set free.

So my point is that humans have long recognised that even the strongest taboos – even ones so strong that society has said “Anyone who does such a thing must be put to death!” - have exceptions. And human societies have managed to deal with that!

The fact that over the past few decades popular moral philosophers have so bent the meaning of ethical labels so that there is no longer a term which means what I have been describing merely demonstrates their own moral bankruptcy!