Moral Relativism

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

Relativism boils down to good and evil not existing-they are just handy constructs made my man to make himself feel good or something like that.

[Forge]

And since they are, according to Relativism, man-made, thay can be man-unmade. So why have laws in the first place?

Correct?


By the way Bgood, I haven't met you before. Welcome!

[BGoodForGoodSake]

And since they are, according to Relativism, man-made, thay can be man-unmade. So why have laws in the first place?

Correct?


By the way Bgood, I haven't met you before. Welcome!

Thanks Forge, welcome back.

Perhaps from an athiest point of view, going against the law would cause a breakdown in the social framework of human beings. So either they are maintained or society falls apart. In the latter we would be living in an anarchist world.

In the formal a society builds in which mechanisms to curtail cheaters are ingrained in the social psyche.

See game theory, a professor at the University of Maryland just won the Nobel prize for his efforts in developing the theory.

This theory has been incorporated into modern theories of politics and economics. We can go into more detail on game theory if you wish on a new thread.

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

But, BGood, what you're saying...assumes that anarchy is bad, society is good...so relativism still doesn't make sense-since it supposes certain things to be good and bad...seconds before claiming the opposite

[Forge]

Er... could I get some help. I'm sure I'm missing their logical fallacies somewhere...

[Kurieuo]

This is hard. I would like to say, because we are not obligated to perform a wrong action for good ends, that I would not push the man... but...

However in this case it is too personal so the train and everyone on it is doomed to destruction.

This is crux of the matter. This is the origin of moral-relativism.
Not that I am a proponent, only trying to provoke thought and understanding.

The scenario you presented does nothing to say morals are "relative" though. By the very fact your scenario presents a "moral dilemma" does not signify morals are relative. If anything they signify Forge has run into a dilemma where two moral values he can't help but to believe "absolutely" exist, clash with each other. Therefore he has to trade off which absolute value is less important than the other. By the very fact he has to go through this process of weighing which absolute value is more important than another, does not so much as prove moral relativity, but if anything further provides evidence that we consider them to be "absolute".

Kurieuo

[BGoodForGoodSake]

But, BGood, what you're saying...assumes that anarchy is bad, society is good...so relativism still doesn't make sense-since it supposes certain things to be good and bad...seconds before claiming the opposite

You're right! In this account, moral relativism doesn't make sence, I was speaking from the point of an athiest evolutionist.

I suppose a moral relativist would think that there is no such thing as absolute good and bad, but then I don't think they would be able to explain why certain things are considered bad.

Anyone here a moral relativist?

[BGoodForGoodSake]

This is hard. I would like to say, because we are not obligated to perform a wrong action for good ends, that I would not push the man... but...

However in this case it is too personal so the train and everyone on it is doomed to destruction.

This is crux of the matter. This is the origin of moral-relativism.
Not that I am a proponent, only trying to provoke thought and understanding.

The scenario you presented does nothing to say morals are "relative" though. By the very fact your scenario presents a "moral dilemma" does not signify morals are relative. If anything they signify Forge has run into a dilemma where two moral values he can't help but to believe "absolutely" exist, clash with each other. Therefore he has to trade off which absolute value is less important than the other. By the very fact he has to go through this process of weighing which absolute value is more important than another, does not so much as prove moral relativity, but if anything further provides evidence that we consider them to be "absolute".

Kurieuo

You are quite right, I need to think harder to see through the eyes of a moral relativist. Let me sleep on this one.

[Kurieuo]

You are quite right, I need to think harder to see through the eyes of a moral relativist. Let me sleep on this one.

If I may help a little, I'm not sure if there may be some confusion as to what "moral relativism" you were originally advocating. I've found there are two understandings of moral relativism, and they often get equivocated.

One understanding is that one can only make moral judgements "relative" to a given situtation. This is because situations differ, such as the situations you presented to Forge. Sometimes this is what I've found people mean by "moral relativism", and I personally have no problem with this concept, for in moral dilemmas decisions become blurred and will likely differ to a situation not involving as much or no moral dilemma.

On the other hand people also treat the above "moral relativism" as evidence for moral values being relative, and that therefore there are no absolute moral values. This is wrong-headedness as I hope I've been able to reveal in my previous post. For although someone's moral decisions may differ from one situation to the next (especially within moral dilemmas), they differ because moral values they hold as absolute run into conflict, not because their values differ from one situation to the next.

I hope I've been able to make sense in what I've just written. I believe you may have been advocating the first form of "moral relativism", and then perhaps equivocated onto the second. The first I think is fine and I have no qualms with, but the second is by no means obvious and requires further arguments (and a great deal in my opinion).

Kurieuo

[Forge]

One understanding is that one can only make moral judgements "relative" to a given situtation. This is because situations differ, such as the situations you presented to Forge. Sometimes this is what I've found people mean by "moral relativism", and I personally have no problem with this concept, for in moral dilemmas decisions become blurred and will likely differ to a situation not involving as much or no moral dilemma.

Am I right in calling this philosophy "strict morals, flexible applications"?

[Kurieuo]

One understanding is that one can only make moral judgements "relative" to a given situtation. This is because situations differ, such as the situations you presented to Forge. Sometimes this is what I've found people mean by "moral relativism", and I personally have no problem with this concept, for in moral dilemmas decisions become blurred and will likely differ to a situation not involving as much or no moral dilemma.

Am I right in calling this philosophy "strict morals, flexible applications"?

I think you grasp the general idea of what I mean. I would perhaps re-phrase it though as, "absolute moral values, relative applications". Where by "absolute" I advocate moral values existing unchangingly, and by "relative applications" I mean they are applied relative to a particular situation.

Kurieuo

[Forge]

Ah, okay.

So... "murder is always wrong"
Action X happens
Now to determine is X was murder or something else.


Right?

[Kurieuo]

You may have noticed that whereas you used "morals" in giving a title to the philosophy, I used "moral values". To take your "murder" case, you a right it now has to be determine whether X was murder. And this involves knowing facts about the world and the circumstance the killing took place within. For example, would strangling your parents be murder? I've heard tribes in Hudson Bay would strangle their parents once they got too old. Children had an obligation to perform this ritual act and if an elder had no children to perform this duty, the custom was to request the service from friends. Refusal was viewed as a humiliation for the person making the request for dying for the sake of the group was a point of honor in these tribes.

Does this mean morals really are relative? No. I see that apparent moral differences often only represent differences in perception of the facts of a circumstance and not a conflict in the values themselves. To quote Gregory Koukl (where I obtained the Hudson Bay tribe example from):

Facts are descriptive, answering the question, What is the case? A fetus is or isn't human. Euthanasia is or isn't an example of murder. Values, on the other hand, are prescriptive, answering the question, "What ought to be the case? One ought not murder. Life ought to be more important than choice.

Unjusified killing of human beings (murder) has been wrong in every culture at every time in history; what has changed is the concept of justification. Hitler justified killing Jews because he considered them subhuman. In the Hudson Bay tribes, children strangled their own parents as an act of kindness instead of letting them live to what they saw as an unproductive old age. "Dying for the sake of the group was a point of honor in these tribes." They underlying moral rule that it is noble to die for the welfare of many is one all cultures share. Indeed, that's what soldiers do." (Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-air).

Now I see "moral values" as being raw qualities such as "honor", "nobility", "respect", "honesty", "kindness", "bravery" and so forth, which everyone seems to recognise as good (and if they didn't, we would perhaps call them morally corrupt). What we see in the Hudson Bay example, is a different application due to beliefs held, but what seems apparent is that the values you and I would identify as good appear to remain the same.

Kurieuo

[Forge]

Ah. Well, I've known that, but thanks for giving me concrete examples Kurieo.

[BGoodForGoodSake]

You may have noticed that whereas you used "morals" in giving a title to the philosophy, I used "moral values". To take your "murder" case, you a right it now has to be determine whether X was murder. And this involves knowing facts about the world and the circumstance the killing took place within. For example, would strangling your parents be murder? I've heard tribes in Hudson Bay would strangle their parents once they got too old. Children had an obligation to perform this ritual act and if an elder had no children to perform this duty, the custom was to request the service from friends. Refusal was viewed as a humiliation for the person making the request for dying for the sake of the group was a point of honor in these tribes.

Does this mean morals really are relative? No. I see that apparent moral differences often only represent differences in perception of the facts of a circumstance and not a conflict in the values themselves. To quote Gregory Koukl (where I obtained the Hudson Bay tribe example from):

Facts are descriptive, answering the question, What is the case? A fetus is or isn't human. Euthanasia is or isn't an example of murder. Values, on the other hand, are prescriptive, answering the question, "What ought to be the case? One ought not murder. Life ought to be more important than choice.

Unjusified killing of human beings (murder) has been wrong in every culture at every time in history; what has changed is the concept of justification. Hitler justified killing Jews because he considered them subhuman. In the Hudson Bay tribes, children strangled their own parents as an act of kindness instead of letting them live to what they saw as an unproductive old age. "Dying for the sake of the group was a point of honor in these tribes." They underlying moral rule that it is noble to die for the welfare of many is one all cultures share. Indeed, that's what soldiers do." (Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-air).

Now I see "moral values" as being raw qualities such as "honor", "nobility", "respect", "honesty", "kindness", "bravery" and so forth, which everyone seems to recognise as good (and if they didn't, we would perhaps call them morally corrupt). What we see in the Hudson Bay example, is a different application due to beliefs held, but what seems apparent is that the values you and I would identify as good appear to remain the same.

Kurieuo

But this is semantics.
What you mentioned above is moral relativism. Because no-one would argue that the ideals are not absolutely wrong and absolutely right, they are after all abstract concepts.

The example above is how the phrase is actually applied. If an individual say euthanasia is wrong, and someone such as yourself points out not always, because of cultural factors and such, someone may call you a moral relativist. The term is usually a derogatory term.

The issue here is moral judgement not the morals themselves. But due to different factors effecting judgement the moral code will vary from culture to culture. The reason that this distinction is important is because conflict arises from disagreement. And many disagreements are found in moral codes, ethics and moral judgement among cultures. Socialogists are more interested in actual practice than abstract concepts.

Some individuals will go even farther and argue that some concepts don't even exist in some cultures. Lets take Shakesphere as an example, In the story of Hamlet, Claudius marries Hamlet's widow. In some African countries this is a custom, not taboo. In some cultures love doesn't exist as it does in the west. The concept is of needing and belonging. The unconditional love is a foreign concept. Anthropologist are taught not to be ethnocentric for this very reason.

From this some make the leap to morals in general are not absolute. That in practice there is no absolute good nor evil. In a sense they are right, the world is not black and white.