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Quote by: Alive  What do you mean by "universal"? That all humans actually have it as a moral standard? That all conscious beings in the universe have it? That would be pretty hard to prove. Again, you are mixing up the normative and the positive. What is moral is not necessarily how things are, or how people think they should be.
A moral standard that is universal is a pretty boring moral standard; if everyone truly agrees with it then no one will violate it.
Is your argument that there are no moral universals? Ok, why not just say that then? If you mean slavery specifically is not immoral, then make an arguments about slavery in particular. |
Universal indicates that it is the moral standard for all of humanity; that whenever a person transgresses that moral standard, he is in the wrong, regardless of whether his peers happen to condone his actions.
Not all may agree with that moral standard, but it is the standard that applies to all of them nonetheless, whether they abide by it or not. For instance, it's generally agreed that murder is morally wrong, but that doesn't mean some people won't murder anyway, or even consider it morally appropriate. Ted Bundy, for example.
A universal standard could be proven by indicating that it is somehow central to human nature and thus necessitated by what makes us "human."
Alternately, it could indicated by the laws of the universe, or the laws of how society's components must interact efficiently, or some other core value.
The difficult lies in 1) showing what human nature is, or what the indications of the universe/society/core values are, and 2) showing that what we consider human nature is important or substantial enough to necessitate moral standards for all of humanity; or that some core value is indeed that important.