Brian Iverson

There are lots of philosophers who still talk about “moral truth” and “correctness”

They do so within their moral systems. Not outside of them, unless they are theologians. It is an extremely important distinction. It’s come thing covered in the Oxford short introduction to ethics.

it’s been recognized by moral philosophers for centuries that you cannot point to any moral truth.

There are lots of philosophers who still talk about “moral truth” and “correctness” etc.  I don’t agree with them.  However, it’s interesting to consider that they have a point, in that, the roots of human morality lie in the biological/physical uni…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
it’s simply making an objective moral claim.

It’s appealing to different norms – of kindness and human dignity.  FGM is a patriarchal norm, to do with female subjugation and sexual control by society/males.  Sometimes, norms clash, as in this case.

The point is, people who practice FGM also believe in kindness and human dignity, it’…[Read more]

If killing babies and not killing anyone can be the result of the same “form,” what makes such a form useful for anything?

Because that form is cooperation, and it can plausibly be shown that it gives rise to a family of human moral values.

Why did the Spartans kill their own babies – or leave them on hillsides?  Because they wanted the best sold…[Read more]

You have to draw a distinction between moral relativism as a meta-ethical view and moral relativism as used within a moral system.

In the first case, outside of recieved dogmatic morality (like from a Church or say in an oppressive dictatorship) it’s been recognized by moral philosophers for centuries that you cannot point to any moral truth.…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Is there really any such thing as a form that allows one society to “help” by the institution of infanticide while the other “helps” by forbidding killing under any circumstance.

Both societies are collaborating internally towards a joint goal (the survival of individuals and the group). Helping each other arises as a consequ…

[Read more]

Is there really any such thing as a form that allows one society to “help” by the institution of infanticide while the other “helps” by forbidding killing under any circumstance.

Both societies are collaborating internally towards a joint goal (the survival of individuals and the group).  Helping each other arises as a consequence.  The people in…[Read more]

Karuna wrote:
I think what Simon Payton is saying is that each culture has forms. Like platonic forms or archetypes. There is such a thing as Spartan, and Quaker helping as a structure. Or there is such a thing as law. Is it the form which is universal, compared to the specific content. The relative part is the contents of the structure so…

[Read more]

Exactly.  The structure of cooperation, and its shared evolutionary heritage, are universal.  The content of the structure varies locally.

The Spartans and the Quakers both cooperate(d) internally towards their goals.  The proposed universality of helping, fairness and obligation comes from its hypothesised small-group origins.

I think what Simon Payton is saying is that each culture has forms. Like platonic forms or archetypes. There is such a thing as Spartan, and Quaker helping as a structure. Or there is such a thing as law.
Is it the form which is universal, compared to the specific content.

The relative part is the contents of the structure so Spartan laws would…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
Versions. Relative the the particular cultures. Relativism.

Versions of the same concepts. Helping is simple, fairness is complex, and different cultures carry them out in different ways. That’s the universality we have. We might expect the answer to be fairly abstract.

I don’t know why you can’t see that o…[Read more]

I was thinking, if humans went through a Hunter gatherer stage and later formed complex societies. Then when they were in small groups they needed cooperation to survive.
That cooperation requires group norms like don’t kill don’t steal stuff like that.
This cooperative behaviour would actually be adaptive.
Culture would aid in the transmission of…[Read more]

Ever ask a Christian if it OK for a woman to covet their neighbor’s husband? Why is there no commandment against this??

Religious people seem to want or need moral absolutes, for things to be definitely right or wrong. I’m not sure why this is….

It is because they are religious! They think they are being watched by a celestial dictator (Hitchens’ term) so must do what they are commanded to do by their Bible.  Their rules are absolutes. They constantly talk of “a…[Read more]

Religious people seem to want or need moral absolutes, for things to be definitely right or wrong.  I’m not sure why this is.  I think each person is like the large groups of the world – morally unique, but sharing some morality with other people.  We all have things we think are definitely right and wrong.

Can we then forget about Biblical morality as it talks of absolutes and consign it to the dustbin of bad ideas. Any sentence that begins with “thou shalt” is a command that upon consideration of its potential value become meaningless.

Yes, I think “objective morality” is people’s own morality: the morality of the group.  The large group provides the objective point of view, the “view from anywhere”, where all rational people agree on what’s right.

As soon as we start comparing moral systems morality becomes relative (to our own).

Unseen wrote:
Versions. Relative the the particular cultures. Relativism.

Versions of the same concepts.  Helping is simple, fairness is complex, and different cultures carry them out in different ways.  That’s the universality we have.  We might expect the answer to be fairly abstract.

Simon Paynton wrote:
All cultures have versions of these, and all cultures have norms.

Versions. Relative the the particular cultures. Relativism.