Conversations with God

duplicate postadjust headspace and timingEdited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Yeah I can because there is nothing absolute in any of his subjective evaluations. Relative morality is not just the standard it is the only course available to reality.And Phat, why would you hold up this radical religious nazi as your "boy"?Man, please don't tell me you've fallen into fascism.

Oh posh.Just because morality is relative does not mean it is immune to human ideals as the specie's humanism evolves.And on both of these issues the consensus in the human community is that female mutilation is disgustingly barbaric and that astrology is bullshit. We, as a world, will now work to stop the one and marginalize the other.Morality is still relative. The human give-and-take over larger populations determines morality. Maybe coded into law or just social mores.The society, en masse, determines its social morality and determines, en masse, what conduct we will and will not tolerate. And, being separate human societies, these can differ one to another. Where two come together, as the Somalis are finding out, is where one will dominate the other.I make no judgement right or wrong on whether one should dominate or not. It is a fact of the human condition. And as the world community interacts more closely certain moral practices will need to alter at the demand of the whole world.Morality is still relative and we, as a society, will determine how, when, why it will change and ...... as societies become more intertwined the larger global community will determine what actions are/not moral if your dinky little Somali region wants to join the rest of us as equals.Even our morality is not out of the jungle and like everything else only the fit memes will survive as society, ever and ever larger, evolves its zeitgeist.Where does this eminent philosopher get off on calling differing opinions on morality differing truths?This has nothing to do with the relativity of truth, but the relative perceptions of human actions. What our eminent philosopher is going on about is not truth but one’s personal religious-like zeal for what one perceives as moral.Then they take these perceptions as truths and treat them like mathematical truths, put them through their philosophical gristmill and, lo and behold, contradictions, controversy and existential gnashing of teeth.No, opposing female genital mutilation does not equate to excusing the holocaust any more than natural evolution can excuse the excesses of eugenics.Truth should be reserved to absolute knowledge. But since there isn’t such a thing we have to settle for what we can evidence more or less strongly. The laws of physics are as close as we come to truth and even the strongest of them are tentative.I will respectfully reject the treatment our philosophical friend offers on moral relativism. He is so high up his ivory tower he has lost the reality of the human condition.Philosophers are just so useless. Each and every one of us.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

I don't know, PaulK. When the man says so in his own paper I have a tendency to assume he accepts such.

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We might happen morally to disapprove of, say, polygamy. Other cultures happen to approve. For us, the claim ‘Polygamy is wrong’ is true. For others, it is false. And surely there’s no independent ‘fact of the matter’ about whether it is right or wrong really. Moral truth is relative. That’s precisely why it would be wrong for us arrogantly to impose our own particular moral point of view about polygamy on these other cultures.

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Certainly, to commit yourself to the existence of non-relative truth is not to commit yourself to the view that that you are incapable of error. You can acknowledge that truth is non-relative while also acknowledging that your ability to discover what’s true may be quite limited.

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He keeps switching his definition of truth from opinion to factual knowledge and back trying to treat them equally. Only in philosophy can one screw up definitions so badly that differing opinions become fodder for absolute vs relative truths.They are opinions. The fact that you have opinions does not convey a truth value to that opinion.Societies do not possess differing physical facts on moral issues but differing opinions on how to react to those facts.A black man is still a black man in America or in Egypt. The facts don't change. What may change is the opinion of whether it is moral to hang him for looking at a white girl. That is not a difference in Moral Truths. That is a difference in opinion on the value of human life. It is a difference in moral conduct not moral truth relative or otherwise.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

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But if this is true, then must we not at least accept relativism about moral truth? We might happen morally to disapprove of, say, polygamy. Other cultures happen to approve. For us, the claim ‘Polygamy is wrong’ is true. For others, it is false. And surely there’s no independent ‘fact of the matter’ about whether it is right or wrong really. Moral truth is relative. That’s precisely why it would be wrong for us arrogantly to impose our own particular moral point of view about polygamy on these other cultures.

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Undoubtedly, it can be tempting to appeal to relativism — particularly moral relativism — in order to encourage people to be more tolerant of and sensitive towards other cultures. Relativists often present themselves as the defenders of open-mindedness and freedom. Those who oppose relativism are somtimes portrayed as arrogant, as believing themselves incapable of error, and as fascistically wishing to impose their own brand of ‘absolute’ truth on everyone else.

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The above argument for relativism about moral truth has a certain superficial appeal. But it’s fatally flawed.

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What he is referring to as fatally flawed is the argument that relative morality "... (is) precisely why it would be wrong for us arrogantly to impose our own particular moral point of view about polygamy on these other cultures."He is still referring to these things as "truths". They are not. They are moral opinions. That is my objection. Not his example of polygamy. The facts are the same. The little girl's clit is being brutally cut off.Yes, it is "moral" in that culture. It is an acceptable social practice. That is their moral opinion.The rest of the world abhors the practice and demands it be stopped. It is not an acceptable social practice in the greater world society. It is not moral in the greater world social culture.This has nothing to do with any truths of human conduct but differences of moral opinion. What is or is not acceptable human behavior.And when two moral opinions conflict we humans get to decide as a larger global society which is the superior acceptable conduct and to enforce such action by social strictures, education, punishment. Of course personal likes and dislikes can be wrong. I like to have sex with 8 year old girls. In this relative moral environment that is wrong and we all accept and support that moral opinion for the conduct of humans in our society.Other societies may have a different opinion.The truths are not different. The morality is. The restrictions, or not, on specific human actions may differ. That is the relative nature of morality.There is no absolute morality to guide society. There is only the morality we make for ourselves. And societies negotiate, or war, to resolve differences in moral opinions.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Well then you missed the nuance. I never claimed he endorsed one over the other. His misuse of the concept of truth is my objection. We're talking morality here. The facts that inform the morality can be said to be true or false. The morality itself has no truth value. The social opinion is that such is either acceptable conduct or it is not and that opinion may differ by who and when the question is asked. And which do you think it is? Get real. We're not talking the personal, non-intrusive, strictly internal feeling about sausages. We're talking about the violation and mutilation of another human being. Personal likes and actions can be very wrong. We really aren't communicating at all are we.

And I am talking moral evaluation not truth.When I spoke of wrong I was speaking of the human action as seen by my personal moral judgement. The action I see as wrong. That is my personal, and this society's, moral judgement.The morality is not right or wrong, true or false. It just is. It's a thing, a vessel (as abstract as that may be)The concept of an equation is neither right nor wrong. What matters is what is inside the equation.The concept of morality has no right or wrong. What matters is the specific human action being constrained (or otherwise).The question then becomes whether morality (right or wrong set aside) as manifested in human society stems from some evolution of ideas or from some absolute source.Now I can say your morality is wrong, meaning I disagree with the constraints (or other) you place on specific actions. But the morality carries no truth value of its own. And my view of your morality (the specific action being done or barred) carries no force if I am alone in that opinion.My contention is that relative morality is the only game in town. Which means morality (good or bad notwithstanding) ... floats, but it also evolves. It is a population of memes in the Dawkins sense.The moral judgement of global society is that female genital mutilation is an abhorrent barbarity.The view that says because all morality is relative we, as a human society, need to accept such barbaric bloody mutilation on children is humanely abhorrent. That view may be consistent with the philosophical purity of the ivory tower but it fails, miserably, as a human construct.On that basis alone, let the philosophy go to hell (another personal judgement) and let the reality of the human condition prevail.All morality is, and always will be, relative but who cares. That presents no bar to doing humane things for people, if that's what we want to do.Which would be nice.I, for one, would approve. I accept that.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

No. Never said that.It's ok. My bad.

And you translate that as no moral facts.Ok.

Morality having no truth value is not the same as a denial of moral fact.A moral fact would be that Texans think Oklahomans don't wash on Sundays. I will not dispute that Texans think this. The moral judgement being that Oklahomans are smelly dirty critters. That now forms a meme in your morality, like thousands of others.What is the truth value of this morality? It hasn't got one.We talk about your morality being true. That's shorthand for your moral judgements being compatible with mine.No, I do not deny moral facts, which have a truth value. I deny the concept of a truth value as applied to morality.

That may be so but that still doesn't negate the fact that relative morality is the only morality that exists in our world.And no matter how the ivory tower may twist their philosophies because of it we do not need to accept FGM as some morally acceptable cultural practice.

Your poor interpretation.Morality certainly exists, subjective and relative, peoples' moral opinions exist.

Moral truth as in someone's opinion? Subjective? Born of acculturation?Or are you thinking some other kind of moral truth?

Again, your misinterpretation.Regardless, moral opinions (truths) have a truth value.Is your definition of moral truth limited to the subjective opinion of the holder born of the holder's experience or does it include something else?

From whose perspective?And a follow on, please.Other than personal subjective opinions are there other sources of moral truths?