What is it called when you proclaim beliefs on moral absolutes?

Answer 1

Absolutism, which can be either religious or secular depending on how it is used in the context.Moral absolutes depend on the nature of the discussion because these absolutes can be based upon theological or philosophical premises. If the answer is a moral absolute with theological justification included it can be seen as representing a particular religious proscription, e.g., The Ten Commandments. Those who would not admit any interpretation other than of how they are written in the King James Bible, would be moral absolutist's because they admit no exceptions. They accept only a literal sense and are often referred to as strict fundamentalist's. Catholics are often accused of moral absolutism because they look to the Official Church interpretation or a hierarchical guidance on most moral questions. Actually,the official interpretation is always assumed to be the correct answer but in the strictest sense of Catholic teaching, a person is allowed to follow his own conscience when he has exhausted all reasonable answers on a theological question that has not been defined by a pope as an "ex cathedra" doctrine that must be believed by all men. This is indeed rare although commonly misunderstood. The last such statement was issued by Pope Pius XII in 1950' when he defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary! Although this was to promulgate officially a dogma that had been held by all Christians since at least the second century when Mary was referred to by the Greeks as the "Theotokos"' or "God-bearer", it is disregarded by non-Catholics as insupportable by the Scriptural evidence used: "Hail full of grace!" Philosophical interpretation of morality can be considered secular when, for example, Kantian absolutes such as what we "should" do or "ought" to do refer to non-theological imperatives e.g., I ought to finish my shopping because I should be home in time for dinner. Although political absolutism was based upon a religious premise held by many under a religious guise of the "Divine Right of Kings", it was never universally believed or adhered to; it waned toward the end of the eighteenth century. Today it is largely symbolical. The initial premise of International Law in the 16th century presupposes the existence of universally applicable moral behaviors which confer absolute legal power to all such laws, is today largely a matter of consensus only.