Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
4 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,819 Year: 3,076/9,624 Month: 921/1,588 Week: 104/223 Day: 2/13 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Moral Absolutism v Relativism (and laws)
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 9 of 44 (362443)
11-07-2006 1:44 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Hyroglyphx
11-07-2006 12:34 PM


Sorry to muddle your thread, holmes. But here I go anyway.
quote:
The fact that there is a huge chart at the ice cream store with a variety of flavors to choose from is enough to support that it bears no reflection towards any kind of morality.
But that is exactly what morality is. It is a choice from a large selection of possible choices. Different societies have made different choices concerning morality. Within each society, different people have also made different choices, sometimes believing in a moral code that is different from the overall society's.

Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-07-2006 12:34 PM Hyroglyphx has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-07-2006 3:21 PM Chiroptera has replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 13 of 44 (362458)
11-07-2006 3:29 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Hyroglyphx
11-07-2006 3:21 PM


Re: What is morality?
quote:
Do morals have anything to do with truth?
Probably not. But I thought this was supposed to be a discussion about morality, especially whether there is an external, objective standard for morality.
If we want to discuss "truth", I'm not sure that a thread titled "Moral Absolutism v Relativism (and laws)" is the place for it. Is it?

Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-07-2006 3:21 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 24 of 44 (362809)
11-09-2006 7:59 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by Hyroglyphx
11-08-2006 1:27 PM


Re: Circular logic
quote:
Like mathematics, for anything to be true, there must first exist some absolute standard or criterion, otherwise it loses all meaning. For instance, if relativity is certainly true, then 2 + 2 could = 21 for you, and we'd all have nothing to say against it, because that's what is true for you. We would be in an indefensible position because we could both be right. Everyone could be right. 2 + 2 could = giraffe, and we really couldn't have an argument. But that isn't truth. In order for someone to define what is factual, certain rules must have been established prior to receiving the answer.
It could be that I don't understand your analogy, but that may be because you might not understand what mathematics really is. Mathematics is, basically, a set of rules that allow us to transform one set of sentences into another set of sentences. If we arbitrarily say that the first set of sentences are "true" then the we will say that the sentences that we can derive using the mathematical rules are also "true". That these sentences can often be interpreted as representations of the "real world" is interesting, but the fact that so far the representations have always been imperfect (requiring us to continually be searching for more "accurate" theories) indicates to me that this is largely accidental; a Platonist would argue against me on this, but the rules of logic and of mathematics are largely arbitrary, and chosen for their ability to model the real world, but this ability has, so far, been largely imperfect seemingly to indicate that there is no reality to logic or mathematics except in our heads.
This isn't a thread to argue the philosophy of mathematics, but I just felt that if your analogy requires mathematics to have some sort of "objective" truth, then it is going to fail.
Finally, again I may be misreading your point, but even if we were to accept some sort of independent objective reality to mathematics, I don't think that holmes is saying that everything is relative. Perhaps the word "relative" is causing some sort of confusion here. All a moral relativist says is that there is no external, objective standards by which we can measure morality. Morality is, basically, a set of beliefs and emotional responses concerning the actions of people, beliefs and responses that are dependent on the different cultural norms and the different emotional make-up of the individual people.

Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-08-2006 1:27 PM Hyroglyphx has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-09-2006 10:16 AM Chiroptera has replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 29 of 44 (362904)
11-09-2006 1:25 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by Silent H
11-09-2006 12:13 PM


I am going to use this one in the future.
quote:
Someone is going to shoot you so how will you stop them with relativist philosophy? I'll stop them the same way an absolutist will have to... hit them fast and hard.
I really like the way this one was put. I was trying to make a similar point in a similar argument on another board, but once again someone shows me how to state the point succinctly and clearly.

Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by Silent H, posted 11-09-2006 12:13 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by Silent H, posted 11-09-2006 2:30 PM Chiroptera has not replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 30 of 44 (362906)
11-09-2006 1:56 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by Hyroglyphx
11-09-2006 10:16 AM


What is a moral relativist?
I am not going to go on about the philosophy of mathematics; it is off-topic, and nwr has said what I was going to but much more clearly than I would have. However, I can't resist:
quote:
The rules for mathematics are absolute. Never is 1 + 1 going to = 4.
Actually, in the field Z2 we actually do have 1 + 1 = 4. And this is not some esoteric mathematics, it is a very important and useful field. So this does sort of show how interpretations and choice of rules do matter.
But I think we should leave this. We can argue about mathematics, but the fact that the arguement exists shows that the analogy is not showing what you want it to; at the very least it is distracting from your point.
-
In fact, the reason I am interjecting myself into you and holmes' discussion is that I am not sure what is the point being argued.
A moral relativist is a person someone who recognizes (heh -- note the choice of word here) that there is no absolute standard to which morals can be compared. One can make determinations that another person's actions are right or wrong, but those determinations can only be made by comparing to the one's or one's culture's standards. A moral relativist recognizes that her own moral standards, as well as her culture's, are largely arbitrary.
A moral relativist is someone who recognizes that different cultures have different views of morality, and even within a given culture individuals may have differing opinions of morality; further she recognizes that there is no objective standard to evaluate them, that is, no standard that does not depend on the arbitrary choices of a given culture or the subjective feelings of a particular person.
A moral relativist may have very strong opinions about morality herself. She simply recognizes that there is no objective standards by which to declare her opinions the unique correct opinions.
A moral relativist may feel so strongly about a certain moral behavior that she will seek to compel (throught the enactment of laws, for example) others to behave accordingly. She will simply recognize that there is no objective standard by which her opinion will be more correct than others on the issue; she will recognize that the only way she will convince others to adopt her views is by appealing to the common feelings and ideals shared by the others in her community, by appealing to consequences of contrary behavior that are commonly felt to be undesirable, or, occassionally, by pointing out logical contradictions (if any) in opposing moral frameworks. But she will recognize that there no objective standards that will work to convince all people in all cultures in all times of the preferability of her view point.
I have the impression that you are trying to describe what a moral relativist should be doing in order to point out a contradiction in the moral relativist position. But I think you are having some difficulty here because you don't quite understand what the moral relativism actually is. At least that is the impression that I am getting.
A moral relativist does not say there is no morality. A moral relativist says exactly the opposite; there are lots of different moral frameworks, none any less valid than any other, at least not by any objective standard.
Nor is a moral relativist necessarily immoral, amoral, or a hedonist. She might very well have a very strong code of ethics and a strong sense of morality.
Edited by Chiroptera, : Clarity. And to change the subtitle.

Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-09-2006 10:16 AM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 34 of 44 (363195)
11-11-2006 9:14 AM
Reply to: Message 32 by Hyroglyphx
11-10-2006 3:19 PM


No source of an absolute morality.
quote:
an absolutist could say that God instituted the policies that would affect the affairs if the universe, to include man and morality.
There a couple of problems here. First, since the existence of such a God has not yet been established, such a claim would not help out the absolutist. If someone is trying to convince an atheist, for example, that some sort of absolute morality exists, then this argument would be entirely unconvincing.
Second, most of the time that I see someone trying to show that there must be some sort of absolute morality, they are actually using this as part of a proof that God exists. In that case, this is claim would be an assumption of what is meant to be proven, making this a circular argument.
In any rate, to make this claim one then adds the additional burden of having to prove that God exists.
Finally, this claim is of no help to the absolutist. All this does is say that the absolutist's moral system is based on an arbitrary standard of morality, in this case the personal preferences of God. There is no reason to think that God's preferences are any less arbitrary than anyone else's
Of course, one can argue that an omnipotent being has complete power to punish those who go against his wishes and to reward those who comply with his wishes. But acting out of fear of punishment or hope of reward is not what most people think of when they speak of "right or wrong"; in fact, "right" often means engaging in behavior despite the threat of a punishment, and "wrong" often means refraining from behavior despite the promise of a reward. The concept of morality usually includes the idea that behaviors should be engaged in (or avoided) without regard to any benefit to the user; so someone who is only being "good" for the sole purpose of recieving God's rewards and avoiding his punishments is not really being good.
Another argument that some use is to insist that the creator of the universe has the right to set the rules of what is right and wrong; however, that is only the subjective opinion of the person making this claim and so does not really help us in understanding what exactly is an "absolute" standard.
-
quote:
Every culture has a concept if unjust killing.
Every culture has a concept of "up and down" as well. However, the world is a sphere, and so different places will have different directions where up goes and where down goes. Even if one claims that the center of the earth provides an absolute standard for "up and down", someone on the moon or on Mars will use the center of those planets, thereby using a different standard. And someone in route to the moon or to Mars will have no standard at all for "up or down" except for a purely arbitrary one, probably determined by the position of her body relative to some part of the space craft.
So, every culture sharing some sort of concept does not make the standards universal. And at least "up and down" is pretty concrete. "Unjust killing" is hopelessly vague. "Killing" is neither just nor unjust -- it depends on the actual situation, and it depends on the social context. The fact that in every society there are situations where a killing would not be allowed has nothing to do with the existence of a "law of nature" -- it may simply be a reflection that societies that allowed killings in any and all circumstances did not last for very long. Or it may be a reflection that the impersonal forces that selected our ancestors to be a social species produced neurological systems that produce feelings of empathy for our fellows.
Edited by Chiroptera, : Edited the last sentence of the second paragraph.
Also took the opportunity to change the subtitle.
Edited by Chiroptera, : Edited the fifth paragraph for clarity, and the sixth paragraph to improve readability.

Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-10-2006 3:19 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024