DoubtingThomas wrote:
There is at least one Casino that gives free alcohol, I read it on a news article. Some drunks ruin their life in just one night. It does feel Casinos do take advantage, especially if they give you more and more alcohol.
Think about it. If a Casino just gave away free drinks, why would anyone gamble there? Why not just go in and drink for free? I suspect either the article was factually wrong, factually incomplete, or you misunderstood. Casinos will give you all kinds of stuff, depending on how much you are betting. It's called being "comped," and there are tons of internet articles you can find that discuss the practice. Lots of Casinos today make the comping rules explicit by having "players clubs" you can join. The more you gamble, the more points you earn. The more points, the more free goodies.
Res Ipsa wrote:Why do you think this should be a unilateral decision on your part? If your spouse is in a wheelchair, why doesn't she get a say? Why can't you explain to your spouse that you want to change the terms of your marriage and give her the choice as to whether to agree to the changes or not. Why not give her the chance to say: I would rather not be your wife under those circumstances.
DoubtingThomas wrote:Like you said, "The tough thing about different cases is that they are, well, different. So why would you expect the same standard to apply the same way to different cases? "
Most spouses would never accept a "change of terms", or an open marriage. To most LDS “Sexual sin . . . stands, in its enormity, next to murder"
What you quoted from me is not a get out of jail free card. It doesn't mean you never have to justify any decision. It means that each case needs to be examined on its own merits. So let's drill down a little deeper into this example.
In most marriages, the partners agree as part of the marriage relationship to not have any other sexual partners. My wife and I have that agreement as part of our marriage. Suppose my wife and I have a great sexual relationship. But a really attractive woman at work makes a pass at me and I decide to have a sexual relationship with her. I've unilaterally changed the terms of our marriage. And, under those facts, I think we would agree that changing those terms unilaterally without disclosing the change would be immoral.
Take the same example, and instead of having the affair, I tell my wife I want to have sex with the hot woman at work. If she says OK, then she's agreed to change the agreement. And I think you and I would agree that having sex with the other woman under those conditions would not be immoral.
So, what makes one example moral and the other not? We could say, for example, something like "it's immoral to unilaterally change an agreement without the consent of the other person." We could drill down deeper to something like: it's moral to treat people the way I want to be treated. I wouldn't want someone to break an agreement and hide it from me. It's moral for me to treat others that way, too. Whatever it is, we can think through why we feel the same conduct (sex with the other woman) would be moral in one case and immoral in another.
Now, let's take the case of my wife being in an accident that leaves her incapable of satisfying me sexually. What is it about those specific facts that would justify changing the terms of the agreement without getting my wife's consent? If I'm reading you correctly, it's "the other person wouldn't want to continue with the agreement." But that's true any time you make an agreement. If you don't perform your part of the agreement, it's very unlikely that other person won't perform. In other words, you'd be saying something like "It's moral to unilaterally change the terms of the deal if you want to and if the other person is unlikely to accept the change." But do you think that's really a moral way to treat fellow humans? Would you think it moral if the tables were turned?
That, I think, is the kind of process you have to go through to develop a moral code. You can develop general standards (or even specific rules) while, at the same time, knowing those rules might break down in a specific case. Then you find one of those cases, you think through it as best you can to figure out whether the case is really different.
DoubtingThomas wrote:Like I said affairs are not a good thing, but some people report that affairs save their marriage. Affairs are better than abandoning your spouse for someone else. Dr. Darrel Ray argues that affairs as a last resort are understandable, an affair can help your marriage.
I've read lots of stories where the death of a child has had the effect of bringing the parents close together. However, no sane person would recommend killing your child in order to get closer to your spouse. There is also a world of difference between observing that some people report that their marriages were better after an affair and advocating an affair as a means to improve a marriage (even as a "last resort") I'd be shocked if the good doctor had ever said to a client "Your marriage sucks. I suggest you have an affair to improve it."
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951