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Ratbarf wrote:

asimo77 wrote:

DarkHound wrote:

asimo77 wrote:In the day and age will live now it would pretty hard to get away with slavery and the like towards fellow human beings. Yes people were enslaved and tortured in the past it was terrible back then and it's still terrible now. We don't practice it anymore because we've gotten to a point as a society where we recognize its evils. I guess I needed to make it clear that I meant humans in the real world today don't regularly engage in acts of slavery and torture of other sentient beings.

We've got an entire continent where this is the daily routine: it's called Africa. Not to mention North Korea and Cuba.

Yeah and it's viewed as horrible by nearly all civilized peoples right? That's the whole point, that most people consider that kind of stuff terrible because it is terrible. To tie things back to the original comments: as a whole humanity isn't fond of slavery and torture, the entirety of the Dark Eldar are, that's why they can be called evil.

Slavery in the West, which seems to be the only place you're drawing your conclusion from, has only been outlawed for a few hundred years. Out of thousands. The West's stance on slavery and equal human rights is pretty much an incredible anomaly in comparison to the vast majority of human history and culture.

Secondly, the Dark Eldar are only evil to you because you're they're prey. I'm pretty sure his slaves felt that George Washington was evil. (Well maybe not but it is the strange consensus that slave owners were evil.) We don't think twice about destroying an ant colony or a beaver hut. To the Dark Eldar we are no more evolved than an animal which has the ability to create, that's it.

Ants and beavers are not sentient, sapient species we are; there's a big difference. I also hope you're not trying to say slavery was good in the past because it was widespread but it's evil now because we finally got around to passing the legislature. DE society is built around slavery and torture the majority of them accept it and practice it. I would be totally floored if most humans considered slavery and torture ok. You seem to think that these things are still accepted in today's world they are not. That's the difference between the DE and us right now. If you asked everyone if they were down with slavery and torture I assure you most humans would say no, DE however would disagree.

@ Captain I think you're confusing "good guys" with prtotagonist


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Of course philosophers wouldn't like this because it would give them a lot less to do everyday. You can label behavior whatever you want but in the end the term good and evil are methods to describe the majorities accepted and disapproved behavior. The only definative line of behavior is not good and evil so much as what is needed to survive. I also find it funny that this was not in response to your post so I think you need to read more. People adapt their behavior to survive in what the majority deems socities ways.

We already don't do much everyday....

On a more serious note relativism has already been addressed in the topic at this point I suggest you do some reading on moral philosophy. It'll teach you the subject better than we can.


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Heh...I can only picture the smugness you typed this counter-argument with. But the answer is still yes. Speaking relatively, what you've done is still quite immoral, but to let the million perish is even more immoral. So relatively, you have done the more moral deed by sacrificing the 999,999.

The whole 1,000,000 versus 999,999 example is really more about utilitarianism than anything else.

Ah more people stating absolutes in philosophy.. priceless.

Philosophy in not a subjective field though...In fact the more we can objectively define things the better, philosophy concerns itself with that idea quite a bit.

Yeah, i had the same problem, I start empathizing with the protagonists (IOM) and Have a hard time not rooting for them. I like the fluff of the other factions, but the IoM fluff is the strongest.
As far as 40k goes, there really are just shades of Gray, as everyone has been saying, but I always root for imperials (unless my Necrons are involved)

Ants and beavers are not sentient, sapient species we are; there's a big difference. I also hope you're not trying to say slavery was good in the past because it was widespread but it's evil now because we finally got around to passing the legislature. DE society is built around slavery and torture the majority of them accept it and practice it. I would be totally floored if most humans considered slavery and torture ok. You seem to think that these things are still accepted in today's world they are not. That's the difference between the DE and us right now. If you asked everyone if they were down with slavery and torture I assure you most humans would say no, DE however would disagree.

Actually yes, the only reason Slavery is now considered bad is because public opinion changed. The public's opinion on slavery changes drastically depending upon era and geography.

As for torture, again it's much the same thing. Heck some cultures have rituals that revolve around torture! Native Americans for instance. (At least in Southern Ontario and North Eastern United States.) When a warrior was captured he was tortured by his captor. His response to this was then gaged and he was assigned honour in accordance with his reaction. Many different religions and cultures practice rituals that encompass some form of torture, and many cultures have practiced human sacrifice at some point in the past. Our views on it have changed but the rightness or wrongness has not.

Final note, how do you classify sentient/sapient? If it boils down to, "Are they sell aware?" then Chimpanzees and Orangutans are both self aware and we treat both species like crap.

"Our views on it have changed but the rightness or wrongness has not."

Ok good we're on the same page then I think one of us (or perhaps both us) mixed up moral relativism as a ethical theory and moral relativsm as a simple description of human culture. I can easily accept the latter.