Absolute Morality...again.

Here's a question I've thought about some but am not sure about.Might there not be a difference between relativity and circumstantiality?Say our rule is, "Thou shalt not murder," and we define murder as an unjustified killing. The problem, of course, is, what is meant by "unjustified"?One might claim that whether a killing is justified or not is to be decided on a case-by-case basis (whether it was self-defense, etc.). A "case-by-case basis" means circumstantiality. Whether a killing is murder or not depends on the circumstances of a given case. But is this the same as "relativity"?It might not be quite the same thing if we equate relativity with subjectivity.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

Let's see if something can be eliminated. Suppose there was this powerful but benevolent king who wanted a very consistent justice system. So he instructed his counsels to write up a set of criteria for what constituted murder. They wrote up a set of criteria so elaborate that it covered every possible case in which a killing occurred. The judge would not have to do anything subjective. All he would have to do is look at the circumstances of the case and see if it matched the criteria. It would be like solving a simple problem in arithmetic. Is this theoretically possible? There would also be a precise, definite answer: either a killing was murder or it was not.We need not consider problems with evidence, because that's not a moral matter. That's a factual matter.

The question I'm considering is whether enough fine print would do the trick.

I'm not quite sure what you mean.But there's no reason to assume that an absolute rule has to be SIMPLE--something that you state in 25 words or less. It might be complicated and yet still not relative. So if we take our rule, "Thou shalt not murder," and define murder as "unjustified killing," then we have to set up criteria for judging a killing as justified or unjustified. If we were elaborate enough with our criteria, perhaps we could cover every base. If we covered every base, our law would be absolute in one sense of that word.

I would respond to this witticism, but my blackeye is killing me.

Now I'm wondering what the relationship is, if any, between absolute/relative and objective/subjective.

Can we say that a mathematical principle, such as that rule about the hypotenuse of a right triangle, is an absolute? I would think so. It's true at all times, in all places. And it's certainly objective.So I suppose an absolute rule has to be objective. Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

Yes, definitely.But let's imagine this scenario. Let's suppose that it was God that gave that rule to Moses. Let's assume also that this God, when he thinks about morality, thinks objectively, as we do when we think about arithmetic. Let's say the rule is "Thou shalt not murder." Murder is an unjustifiable killing. Now we have to figure out what "unjustifiable" means. We write out an elaborate set of criteria, which we got from God via prayer or something, that will let us determine in each and every possible case, with no interpretation necessary, whether a given killing constitutes murder or not. The question is, would it be possible to write up such a set of criteria?I tend to doubt it.

It all depends on what we think about the nature of language, and I'm not sure about this matter myself.One idea is that there's no such thing as a text which doesn't have to be interpreted. Look at the Constitution. It's not an obscure symbolic poem. Its language is plain, and yet it's constantly being interpreted and re-interpreted. We pay people in black robes lots of money to keep on interpreting it and other texts.Somebody writes up an elaborate contract and thinks he's covered all the bases, and yet later on we have lawyers haggling over what some passage means. Of course, there may be bad-faith arguments involved, which we can dismiss, where somebody pretends that his interpretation is reasonable.Another idea about language is that there can be a natural and primary sense in which a statement is to be understood if clearly expressed, which needs no interpretation. In fact, I would say a Biblical literalist would have to have this view of language.The idea is to avoid interpretation, because there you have an opening for subjectivity. The question is whether it can be avoided.

I'm not willing to dismiss the second idea of language that I mentioned earlier completely. Let's call that "literalism."Consider the word STOP on a stop sign. What does it mean?The literalist would say it means "stop." That's the sum total of what it means. There's nothing to interpret. If we understand the meaning of the word "stop," we understand the sign. If we want a snynonym, it would be "come to a position in which your vehicle is no longer moving."Now let's consider the other view of language, which we can call "relativism."The relativist might say, "It's by no means clear what 'stop' means. Does it mean 'pause'? Stop for how long? Two seconds? a millisecond?The literalist would reply that those questions are irrelevant.I don't know. I might side with the literalist here.

I want to say, I think, that an Absolute rule would be by definition objective.

I think this need not be the case. As discussed in other posts, "relativity" is not the same thing as "circumstantiality," in my view.ABE: In other words, just because we have to decide something on a case-by-case basis, this does not necessarily mean that the judgment is relative (i.e, that one could have two different conclusions that are both equally plausible).Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

I'm talking about a theory of language. I just called it "literalism."If one word does not need interpretation, then there's no reason why many words should.

What I called "relativism" could be called "poststructuralism."

The idea of post-structuralism is that there is no way any text can be interpreted definitively. But a text can be one word or many words.