Gallup has a poll out this week with the question
Next, I'm going to read you a list of issues. Regardless of whether or not you think it should be legal, for each one, please tell me whether you personally believe that in general it is morally acceptable or morally wrong. How about [X]?
The results are displayed below.
My first reaction here was twofold: a) all these behaviors are morally acceptable to me, b) what does 'morally acceptable' mean anyway?
What does 'morally acceptable' mean and how can it be apllied to categories of behavior like divorce or extramarrital sex or gambling? My initial understanding of the quesition was along the lines of 'which behaviors are always morally unacceptable?'. But that's an nonsensically stringent interpretation that makes my reaction that none of the above behaviors are always morally unacceptable pretty uninformative about my actual views, maybe a bit more informative than my converse view that none of the above behaviors are always morally acceptable. It depends on context. Indeed, always morally unacceptable behavior is defined by reference to context, for instance murder, which is defined as morally unacceptable: (socially) unjustified premeditated killing for base motives. With a socially acceptable justification premeditated killing for base motives isn't murder (but is it still morally unacceptable? hm, probably, but only because of the base motives?).
More later, my family just showed up in the driveway...
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