Is it moral

To punish someone for a crime they did not commit. 

Special thanks to Falneze for the idea.

Yes, If you think so. It's moral.  You can call it fun.

If no one sees you..

If they are in the mafia or some other Gang.  Yes.

Manslaughter charges.  Intention.

People are punished even if what they did wasn't a crime.

But sec , i have to ask. 

Meaning of ( To Punish ) someone ?  From Go to your room to execution

Meaning of ( A Crime ) 

Is it immoral to not punish someone for a crime they did commit. 

And sometimes its not up to you.    If you're a Correctional officer for example

This all boil down to.   IT'S ONLY ILLEGAL IF YOU GET CAUGHT. As it's

So many scenarios 

If you are the one making judgment on this.

Of course it is moral. Everything is moral. The question is not about whether it is moral, but about whose morals are we talking about? 

For the sake of argument we could use the laws enforced in your region.

Morality isn't like the capitol of a nation. What is moral changes situationally even if you agree with my stated goal of maximizing wellbeing. 

For example it would generally be wrong (under this stated goal) to cut someone but a surgeon might be behaving immorally if he refuses to cut someone.

Does "a crime they didn't commit" include things like giving a getaway driver in a stick up that ends in murder? In the US you can be charged for murder under that pretense. Technically, he didn't commit murder but he does bear culpability.   

I think that is only a problem if you ask 'is X moral?' without being specific enough about X.

It might be that the morality of 'cutting someone with a knife' depends on circumstances, but i would argue it is always wrong to knife a stranger in the street with intent to harm' and always ok for a surgeon to make a necessary incision.

 

And under my stated goal you would generally be correct. But my stated goal is not universal. Mother Teresa believed that suffering brought us closer to god and felt that she was behaving morally when she promoted suffering. Considering all morality as if objective is like asking the capitol of a country without telling you which country I mean. Suddenly there are many 'right' answers.

On its face, the answer is no. But I'm an atheist, so most of these folks on the other side of the fence will likely accuse me of having no moral compass to begin with or borrowing my opinion from Jesus somehow, and therefore I either have no right to weigh in, or I actually believe in Jesus but don't know it. I'd love to have this conversation but I'm withholding my optimism for it progressing very far :). 

Any supporters of Jesus clearly feel that in at least one instance punishing someone for a crime he did not commit was both moral and necessary. Otherwise their god has a lot to answer for.

This will then edge into divine command theory: God did it, therefore it was moral, or at least it was that one time.

Indeed it may prove an inroad to discussing Devine command theory.

Would a colour blind martian believe in divine command theory?

As an atheist I can see one slight problem with DCT.

Please share your thoughts.

God doesn't exist.

If true this does rather invalidate devine command theory.

What do you mean 'If it's true'!

I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this edit box is too narrow to contain.

 

I only know that I have no sufficient evidence for any god(s) and that I cannot maintain a belief in the absence of sufficient evidence. This is the totality of my atheism.

I think I have answered this before. I think everyone on this planet believes that their morality is correct. Otherwise they would think otherwise. Hence it is probably fair to say that for many people morality is subjective. Most people - if not all people - decide for themselves what they believe is right and wrong. I say this was the result of eating the forbidden fruit. We as a general rule are not content to believe that someone else - In particularly God, can decide what is right and wrong, we want to do it ourselves after having thought about it for  a while, using whatever source we so decide is the correct one.  Hence secularist think such things are decided by reason or evidence they see, others look to a holy book, others to intuition, others to the starts etc. Of course, if morality is truly subjective - then all of these sources must be correct, because that is the nature of subjectivity. 

Yet, once we start down the path of pure subjectivism, we soon realise the idiocy of such a journey. After all, if morality is truly subjective, then no one really has the right to suggest that anyone else's morality is incorrect, wrong, bizarre, or odd. Everything is permissible. Yet we could not live or function in such a society. There could be no rules or laws or ways to enforce such rules. What is mine suddenly becomes everyone else's who wants it and likewise - life and human rights become nonsense. 

So practically, it could not work to really have subjective morality - despite the fact that many people are drawn to it. Once people are themselves confronted by it - and it hits them personally - they tend to take a less subjective point of view. All communists I know - lose full identity with communism when I ask for the money in their wallet or to sleep with their wife. Why? Because suddenly people move from subjectivity to wanting to rely upon a more objective position. 

So I think the question of morality is more complex that asking whether it is either /  or subjective /  objective. 

It appears that all people take the view that morality is subjective personally. Yet we all in general accept that there are seemingly objective principles which are necessary in order for society to function properly. On one hand we all want to be philosophers and be all wise - and on the other hand we want to be scientists and nail down every objective fact. Science requires hard objective facts. Philosophy does not. Morality seems to be a mixture of both. 

This is why I am happy to conclude that God's subjective morality is objective morality for the rest of the universe - while acknowledging that every person is going to subjectively do what they think is right or wrong. But something are always wrong. there is no right reason for an adult human to have sex with a two month old human. There simply is not any right reason to do so. Yet people do it - tragically and I would add evilly. And I don't think that there could be any good justification for doing so.  You might take a different view. 

I suppose we could speculate. After all, what good reason was there for dropping a nuke on Japan? To end the war. To save millions of lives. The end justifies the means. Utilitarian morality. An alien might say to an adult male - how much do you love this world? Would you rape this child? and if you do so - I will spare the world from extermination.  Would that be justification? I would say no. But I dare say - some might think the end justifies the means. 

but that is the difference.  Morality. What is it based upon? How do we measure it? I could say - that without God people cannot be moral. But all of the non- theists would jump up and say - we are moral people. Do they mean subjectively or objectively? How do they determine that morality? According to whom? or what? 

What a gish gallop you have presented me with.

Why don't we just cut to the heart of it then. How do people determine morality without god(s)? In my case the promotion of wellbeing and the minimizing of harm. So if we are to use this standard (wellbeing vs harm) then the god described in the bible does and commands some pretty harmful (and therefore immoral) things. 

Including but not limited to 

Genocide

Slavery 

Murder

Torture

Discrimination

Infanticide

Regicide

and

Mysogyny

I would like to think your morals are rather better than your god(s) my friend.

I can see you're still swinging and still missing on the idea of Divine Command Theory. The question is simple. Is something moral because god says to do it, or is something moral independent of god's command? Change the 'alien' in your second to last paragraph to 'god' and your question becomes more interesting. Is it ever moral to kill your own child? Even if you say "PSYCHE!"? 

This is the question at hand: is it ever moral to punish someone for something that you absolutely know they didn't do? If god says to do it, is it moral? Voila, divine command theory. 

Atheist don't believe in morals. The question is fake. 

@Polytheist-witch

Blanket statements like this are 9ften at least partially incorrect.

This is completely unconnected with your first statement. I'm not even sure what a fake question is... perhaps you mean rhetorical?

The bible says that what a man sows, that shall he reap. and that every man will be judged according to their works.  It is not just for someone to be punished who didn't know sin.  This of course is show in Jesus Christ, he did no sin and yet the wrath of God fell on him. Therefore it was mercy that intervened for our sake that we might be free from sin.  It is just if everyone who ever committed sin was thrown into the lake of fire and burned for eternity. yet we live, though by our nature we are enemies of God.

Sorry but is that a yes or a no? 

its not just for a person who did no wrong to be punished for it.

So the crucifixion (if said event actually took place) was an unjust event?