Below is a case I drafted as a springboard for intelligent discussion on morality. Please limit the discussion on the case para dili malubog. To make the discussion interesting, let's SET ASIDE our bias for the scriptures (Bible, Qu'ran etc).
In summary, the case presents, more or less a dichotomy of morality from a religious and secular perspective and throws to the reader (on the later part) some points of reflection or questions that complicate the secular theory to its affinity with divine morality.
Thanks...
Bp
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Antigone: The side of Creon
Antigone (by Sophocles) is a very familiar play for any student of Literature. As we know it, Antigone has been dramatized as the heroine and her story thematically depicts the clash between one's duty to the state and loyalty to and love for her family.
Here, King Creon of Thebes decrees as an act of treason burying anyone who had been known or were identified to have fought against Thebes.
The defiant Antigone, who is also the King's future daughter-in-law, is willing to sacrifice/give up her marriage to Creon's son Haemon and will go even as far as being martyred if only to properly bury and honor his rebel brother, Polyneices, like all Greeks deserve that "If I die for it, what happiness!"
Antigone's choice (to bury her brother) may appear predictable but I tend to see the wisdom of her choice NOT in the light of her love for his brother alone which compelled her to go against the promulgated edict BUT the "justifiability" of the edict itself.
Antigone believes that honoring the dead is an act sanctioned by the gods. Thus laws that tend to nullify the right to bury the dead render these laws as immoral, unjust and repressive laws. She, in other words, questions the morality of such promulgation.
Let's revisit the positions offered by Creon and Antigone in their conversation found in the Second Episode:
Creon (to Antigone): “You, tell me not at length but in a word. You knew the order not to do this thing.”
Antigone: “I knew, of course I knew. The word was plain.”
Creon: “And still you dared to overstep these laws.”
Antigone: “For me it was not Zeus who made that order. Nor did that Justice who lives with the gods below mark out such laws to hold among mankind. Nor did I think your orders were so strong that you, a mortal man, could over-run the gods’ unwritten and unfailing laws. Not now, nor yesterday’s, they always live, and no one knows their origin in time....”
Reflecting on the above, we recall the long tradition of invoking an "unwritten but universal law" which stands higher than the written laws and customs of a particular government or authority.
Conversely, however, 1) could Creon (or any legitimate ruler) not also appeal to a higher law to argue that there is a moral duty (prior to any civil law) that binds a ruler to do what is necessary to preserve civil peace and order? 2) How do we know the existence of such "unwritten law" if we were to invoke them? hmmm...?
Case Study on Moral Philosophy (Please read the case before commenting)
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Originally Posted by Sol_Itaire
yes to universal laws
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