Just because a large number of people agree something is bad does not make it objective.
You can of course pick examples 99% of people agree with. Hitler is bad, killing kids is wrong, beating your wife is bad, Mao killed millions, stalin killed millions, etc. This still doesn't make these objective. Just agreed upon. An objective system is one in which there is no other possible answer. I'm am sure we can find at least one person for each example of these whose moral and ethical system is consistent with the tyrant's behavior. It runs afoul of society at large and generally how we expect people to behave. But it is still subjective. Whether it deserves respect is what I think you are conflating objectivity with.
Take a less inflammatory (but still inflammatory) example: dropping the nuke on Japan. Was that evil? On one hand it's true it killed hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. However, on the other hand it stopped an unnecessary blood bath that could've killed millions more. You would be neither right, nor wrong, if your moral and ethical system agreed or disagreed with this behavior. For you and me we have the upside of hindsight to make a final call.
All right and wrong is dictated by a moral and ethical system. What I consider wrong is my subjective view of morality and ethics. Just because society often agrees with me because I am a polite member of society does not suddenly make it objective. Society has a commonly agreed upon moral and ethical system but it does not make it right for every single case. If you really wanted to corner me you'd have brought up abortion. But, in fact, abortion is the perfect example of a subjective interpretation of morality and ethics. What a religious person might refer to as the laws of man. In the case of Kevin Mitnick, I do not see him as a criminal. I see him as a victim of a system that failed to understand computers. You may disagree. Your opinion is as valid as mine. But to drive home we've talked about, the hacker community at large has a moral and ethical framework consistent with Mitnick's behavior. That makes you the odd man out.
Yes, generally it's the legal system we live under. When you boil it down laws are technically just an encapsulation of the larger view society takes on issues of morality.
Now, you may not agree with every law. I don't. But I think most people would agree stealing, killing, etc are bad. This is sort of what I was getting at with a commonly agreed upon moral and ethical framework. People expect you not to kill from, or steal from them, or whatever else. If someone killed your son/daughter/wife/husband/etc your framework might justify seeking revenge. You'd run afoul of societies agreed upon framework but consistent in your own. Does that make you evil? Not necessarily. Perhaps society would think you are though. It's interesting when you think about things that way. How far afoul of the agreed upon framework can you run before you end up having more people hate you than love you.
Thanks for the response, it is more than my facetious remark deserved! I don't particularly disagree with you, I was mostly observing (pedantically once again) that "commonly" is a bit of a stretch there; I think it would perhaps be more accurate to say that a society has a sort of skeleton or high-level overview of a moral & ethical system that is broadly agreed upon.
You can of course pick examples 99% of people agree with. Hitler is bad, killing kids is wrong, beating your wife is bad, Mao killed millions, stalin killed millions, etc. This still doesn't make these objective. Just agreed upon. An objective system is one in which there is no other possible answer. I'm am sure we can find at least one person for each example of these whose moral and ethical system is consistent with the tyrant's behavior. It runs afoul of society at large and generally how we expect people to behave. But it is still subjective. Whether it deserves respect is what I think you are conflating objectivity with.
Take a less inflammatory (but still inflammatory) example: dropping the nuke on Japan. Was that evil? On one hand it's true it killed hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. However, on the other hand it stopped an unnecessary blood bath that could've killed millions more. You would be neither right, nor wrong, if your moral and ethical system agreed or disagreed with this behavior. For you and me we have the upside of hindsight to make a final call.
All right and wrong is dictated by a moral and ethical system. What I consider wrong is my subjective view of morality and ethics. Just because society often agrees with me because I am a polite member of society does not suddenly make it objective. Society has a commonly agreed upon moral and ethical system but it does not make it right for every single case. If you really wanted to corner me you'd have brought up abortion. But, in fact, abortion is the perfect example of a subjective interpretation of morality and ethics. What a religious person might refer to as the laws of man. In the case of Kevin Mitnick, I do not see him as a criminal. I see him as a victim of a system that failed to understand computers. You may disagree. Your opinion is as valid as mine. But to drive home we've talked about, the hacker community at large has a moral and ethical framework consistent with Mitnick's behavior. That makes you the odd man out.