Moral Relativism

[_Robert_Participant]

For people who think morality rides on the whims of dictators and is the just fashion of the day. You are the problem. Can’t use you own brains to determine what is doing harm or not. Just like every Jihadist, or SS soldier or flock member of the church. Every Southern soldier who picked up a gun to defend slavery.

Morality never changes. It just requires mature rational people who can see harm and not join in with the tribe. This is why morality is so rare. It can be a costly and fatal proposition.

Epic literature through the ages challenges the individual against the cult and calls them out. From Homer to Dickens. The so-called holy books teach the opposite, that we should do as commanded when we know it to be wrong. To murder your own son even.

So, we call morality “relative”, go with the flow and survive. Staying alive is our first responsibility, right? Ones’ own self-interest overrides everything else, right?

 

 

 

[jakelafortParticipant]

That is very well stated by Robert.

That is why i harbor no real hope for our future.

Beliefs and morality or even beliefs about morality are transferred from the greater culture/family to our feckless actor. There is nobody home. Absolutely vacant and amenable to you name it. AI could cause us to believe in any way it intends if it attains some greater level of intelligence. Even its algorithms are having a big impact.

From Germans you know when, to Christians, Hindus, Communists, progressive woke morons to primitive and isolated peoples it is the same phenomena. At some point neurology will identify the regions of the brain and pathways that reduce our feckless actor to a puppet.

[jakelafortParticipant]

* In The Stranger by Twain there is a scene in which the villagers are stoning a witch. The friend of the witch picks up a rock and joins in for fear of being not one of the group. So yea it can be dangerous to go against the flow.

[UnseenParticipant]

@ Robert @ Jake

How do you define moral relativism?

If morals are not relative, then they are absolute which means factual. How would you go about proving that morality, which varies vastly from time to time and place to place is factual and not simply local beliefs at a given place and time?

I can’t wait to hear the answer.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

How do you define moral relativism? If morals are not relative, then they are absolute which means factual.

Yes – what exactly is moral relativism?  Is it the moral philosophy that nothing is better than anything else?  I don’t believe anyone lives like that.  Everyone has values by which to evaluate their own behaviour and others’.

Morals are factual, in the sense that moral principles or values are ideal ways to collaborate towards joint goals of mutual benefit.  All of those things are factual.

But there are many types of mutual goal (thriving, surviving and reproducing) and many methods of achieving them.  Hence, multiple competing values.  How to choose between them – which one is “better” and which one is “worse”?  Each one is correct according to itself – it is a valid method of reaching a valid goal (it works and the goal is acceptable).

I think “human well being” is the ultimate value that trumps all the others.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I have a long read post in Sunday School this week on morals.

[UnseenParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Yes – what exactly is moral relativism?  Is it the moral philosophy that nothing is better than anything else?

Moral relativism isn’t a simple concept. On the one hand, it’s an epithet meant to describe ethical anarchy. In the historical sense, it’s a recognition that the values that conform to right and wrong vary according to time and place, which is obvious. In Sparta, if a baby was born with a club foot, it got tossed off a cliff. It was the right thing to do. And it functioned for them. Today, the average person would find such an idea appalling and an extreme Christian fundamentalist would want to keep a baby born without a functioning brain alive forever.

Everyone has values by which to evaluate their own behaviour and others’. Morals are factual, in the sense that moral principles or values are ideal ways to collaborate towards joint goals of mutual benefit.

As soon as you mentioned “ideal,” you revealed that you were not actually talking about facts

All of those things are factual. But there are many types of mutual goal (thriving, surviving and reproducing) and many methods of achieving them.  Hence, multiple competing values.  How to choose between them – which one is “better” and which one is “worse”?  Each one is correct according to itself – it is a valid method of reaching a valid goal (it works and the goal is acceptable).

You lost the argument at “Each one is correct according to itself,” because that is pretty close to a definition of relativism.

I think “human well being” is the ultimate value that trumps all the others.

Yeah, well “human well being” is something that societies define for themselves through mutual agreement and acceptance, and what that will be (we’re back to this) will vary from time to time and place to place.

There is a condition under which values become objective and not relative: Accept Jesus as your Savior. LOL

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

As soon as you mentioned “ideal,” you revealed that you were not actually talking about facts

Yes, but an “ideal state” is a factual state, that has certain factual qualities (ideal qualities).

Moral realism is not simple and does not get defined.  I think morality has a number of factual aspects, as far as it refers to factual things such as behaviour, and factual (abstract and concrete) principles required to realise mutual benefit.

You lost the argument at “Each one is correct according to itself,” because that is pretty close to a definition of relativism.

Well, it’s true, and wishing it is not true isn’t golng to change anything.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

Yeah, well “human well being” is something that societies define for themselves through mutual agreement and acceptance, and what that will be (we’re back to this) will vary from time to time and place to place.

Morality is less about human well being, than about the process itself, of achieving it; and one way is through helping others in need, and rescuing or restoring their well being.

Helping those in need is a slightly different proposition from well being in itself.  Need is recognised first.

If all of that changes over time – it seems to be in the direction of more widespread fulfilment of need, and more recognition of need.

[UnseenParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Morality is less about human well being, than about the process itself, of achieving it; and one way is through helping others in need, and rescuing or restoring their well being.

That’s fact-free jibber jabber. It’s idealistic fantasizing. By saying “one way,” out the window goes any pretense of absolutism or universality or objectivity.

[jakelafortParticipant]

“I have a long read post in Sunday School this week on morals.”

Can’t believe i read the whole thing.

Naa…wa’nt too long.

I am ready for a pop quiz.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

By saying “one way,” out the window goes any pretense of absolutism or universality or objectivity.

Sorry to burst your bubble – but I’m not sure what you’re after.  It’s factually correct that people in need, need help.  It’s always been the same the world over.

[_Robert_Participant]

The test is really simple. Would I want someone to treat me this way? Do I want to be a slave? Do I want my 8-year-old self to get bung-holed by an adult priest? Do I, as a women feel good not have voting rights? If not, don’t do it. 

There’s no god needed, no ethics of the day. This shit is timeless. Every critter with a brain from a rabbit to a monkey to a child knows when they are getting screwed. Use that as your moral compass. No need to ascribe this to Jesus or Confucius. It comes from the evolution of the social advantage.

Problem is, we all have to behave this way. As soon as someone does not, we have to make our actions relativistic. To justify ourselves for raising armies or executing a criminal. Then you get into all the meaningless relativism. We try to using 2000 year old nonsense to feign objectivity.

Take abortion. We all know that as un-born babies we would not want to get extracted as a blob. We all want to be born. To live is an objective goal of biological creatures. So, we make up a bunch of bullshit about when life begins. We all know that’s relativism after the objective truth is violated. Take war. We have to defend ourselves when the objective truth ” do not cause harm” is broken by an invader. If that is truly your motive, to regain peace, I will give that to you. So many terrible acts must be done in defense, and they are all relative to the original objective goal of self-defense.

Conclusion. We use relativistic ethics in an effort to maintain simple objective principals that we all expect from our innate in our social fabric. Please, keep the applause down. People are trying to sleep.

 

 

[UnseenParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:

By saying “one way,” out the window goes any pretense of absolutism or universality or objectivity.

Sorry to burst your bubble – but I’m not sure what you’re after. It’s factually correct that people in need, need help. It’s always been the same the world over.

It’s not factually correct, it’s formally correct. Tautologies are formal artifacts and have a very special and irrelevant kind of meaning in the everyday world. Take another tautology that is free of emotional content. So, a Post-It is a Post-It, a torque wrench is a torque wrench, and a burp is a burp.

“It is what it is” is a classic instance of saying something so obvious it carries no relevancy along with it.

What was I after? I’m refuting the notion that ethics can be anything but relative to a time and place. You use the example of someone in need? Well, name a need and how to fulfill it will tend to have been responded to differently according to time and place. In Sparta, a baby with a club foot or breathing problem was tossed over a cliff whereas obviously today we have far different approaches.

Slavery, women’s rights, treatments for mental illness, the diagnosis of homosexuality and the “remedies” thought to be proper, etc. These are all examples of how morals/ethics change over time and with place.

That they do change is evidence that there are no universal values, and there aren’t because there is no God to make them so. They are also not built into the fabric of reality so that they were true, like 1+1=2, even before the Big Bang and after the last atom falls apart.

Morality is simply not objective and can’t be. The upshot that the “truth” of any moral or ethical claim is tentative and bound to a time and place.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

There’s no god needed, no ethics of the day. This shit is timeless. Every critter with a brain from a rabbit to a monkey to a child knows when they are getting screwed. Use that as your moral compass. No need to ascribe this to Jesus or Confucius. It comes from the evolution of the social advantage.

“Every critter with a brain from a rabbit to a monkey to a child knows when they are getting screwed”? So, people never wonder if they are getting screwed? I don’t believe that. When someone decides they are being “screwed” they refer to the standards of their particular time and place. Take the duties of a wife. In one time and place, it’s the duty of a wife to provide sex on demand and it was the privilege of a sexually needy husband to satisfy his needs whether his wife consented or not.

Problem is, we all have to behave this way. As soon as someone does not, we have to make our actions relativistic. To justify ourselves for raising armies or executing a criminal. Then you get into all the meaningless relativism. We try to using 2000 year old nonsense to feign objectivity.

You’re very schizophrenic on whether morality/ethics are relativistic or objective, which is binary.

To clarify, for a moral/ethical choice to be factually right, it has to be right not just today but back in Pharaonic Egypt, ancient Sparta, antebellum Mississippi, or modern day Israel.

[Author]

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