moral relativism

[Skepdick]

A premise about morality is not a premise about physics.

Nobody said it is a premise about physics.

I am pointing out THAT physics doesn't constrain me from killing your cat.
I am pointing out THAT physics doesn't constrain me from burning down your house.
I am pointing out THAT physics doesn't constrain me from stealing your car.

Those are just facts. False facts - according to you. A claim so bizzare it warrants doubting your intellect.

There are social constraints on doing just what we want, and rewards for socially approved behaviour. It's not hard.

Wait! What?!?! You are now telling us that there are constraints imposed on an individual's choices that are NOT a consequence of the laws of physics ?!?

Tell us more about it!

How does something which is NOT objective constrain individual choice? How would that even work?

How does something which is NOT objective constrain me from killing your cat?
How does something which is NOT objective constrain me from burning down your house?
How does something which is NOT objective constrain me from stealing your car?

The premise that something non-objective can objectively constrain individual choice is simply idiotic.

Unless, of course, morality is objective.

[Peter Holmes]

I/we can have moral opinions. That's a fact. Those moral opinions can affect my/our behaviour. And that's another fact. Ooo. Two facts. We're in the objectivity business.

But I/we don't have to have moral opinions, and I/we don't have to act in line with those moral opinions. We just tend to do so, for various reasons, some of them pragmatic and even self-regarding. Ooo. More facts. More objectivity.

But notice, none of these facts is anything like physical facts, such as thermodynamic regularity. We don't and can't choose those - for example, choose not to act in line with them. They're just facts of nature.

As I've said many times, the fact that we have (still developing) moral opinions doesn't mean those opinions are facts. That idea is an obvious and elementary mistake. If it were true, it would be a fact that, for example, abortion both is and isn't morally wrong - because people hold those opinions with equal conviction.

Moral objectivism collapses right there.

[iambiguous]

In regard to particular behaviors embedded in particular sets of circumstances, when someone suggests this of me, what I hear is "you don't share my own point of view, therefore you are misguided".

No. You are misguided because you are pretending not to share ANY point if view. Not even mine. In your own words - you are "drawn and quartered".

Yes, that's my point view. In a No God world, there are conflicting assessments regarding the morality of capital punishment because those on both sides can make reasonable points...points the other side can't just argue away. Points I am unable to narrow down to the optimal or the only rational and virtuous resolution.

Over time, in a particular community, there may be this or that consensus based on this or that "persuasive" argument...but that [to me] is not the same thing as establishing an objective moral argument in or around the vicinity of deontology.

As a self-proclaimed relativist you should be climbing upon every fence I point out to you.

Whatever that means. In any event, I don't proclaim myself to be a relativist in the sense that if others don't call themselves relativists in turn then they are wrong. I only note that "here and now" given the points I raise on this thread -- https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382 -- from ILP, moral relativism seems reasonable to me. But that, given a new experience or relationship or access to knowledge and information, I might change my mind.

The same for you. Only the moral objectivists among us almost never change their minds because, in my view, in regard to their dogmatic moral and political agendas they don't "know what they see" so much as "see what they already know."

The rest, of course, being history.

Joe's sense of well-being revolves around being able to purchase the guns he wants. His "end": to protect himself. Jim's sense of well-being revolves around living in a community where there are no guns. His "end": to stop gun violence.

But we are not talking about the sense of well-being? We are talking about actual state of being well! Free from harm. Free from violence. Free from all the things that make you unwell.

Right, like Joe's and Jim's state of actually feeling well can't revolve around two completely opposite moral convictions regarding gun ownership. Then those pro and con gun ownership will march out their own set of assumptions, their own set of statistics, their own personal anecdotes to "prove" that their side is the most rational. Or, for the most rabid among them, the only rational argument there is in regard to this age-old conflagration.

So, what is the optimal or the only rational sense of well-being here? Well, let's check in with you so you can consult the "historical trends". And then right on down the line: "capital punishment, abortion, animal rights, the role of government, human sexuality, social justice..."

Just establish the historical trends to know for sure what you are morally obligated to think and to feel. Categorically and imperatively as it were.

The historical trends show that the world has become a significantly more pleasant place to live in SINCE guns were invented.

Let's run that by the Ukrainians. Or do you have the most logical and epistemologically sound argument [rooted in historical trends] that all rational men and women are obligated to embrace with regard to the war being fought there here and now?

Just out of curiosity, in regard to the countless moral conflagrations that have fractured the human species for centuries now, are there any that you are not able to neatly divide up into the right thing and the wrong thing to do? Stem cell research? homosexuality? drug use? the consumption of animal flesh? conscription?

There you go again. Asserting something as true about objective morality as though others don't have the option of disagreeing with you.

You are 100% welcome to disagree. But if morality is not objective then morality doesn't exist.

So if morality doesn't exist - what the hell are you even talking about when you use that word?

There you go again...

That, should they dare, they have no one to blame but themselves for being wrong. So, if you're in one town and they execute prisoners. That's objective morality.

Nobody is blaming anybody. If I started talking to you about unicorns, but unicorns aren't real you would question my sanity too.

So I am asking you whether you think morality exists.

Suppose unicorns did exist. And sport hunters were shooting them dead for their horns.

There were arguments in the media about whether this was moral or immoral. How would you as an advocate of objective morality resolve this?

Me? Of course I think morality exists. It must exist because in any community there will be wants and needs that come into conflict. Necessitating the need for "rules of behaviors". Rewarding and punishing particular sets of behaviors.

But how is this not rooted in ever evolving and changing historical and cultural political agendas? How does this not revolve around the fact that each of us as individuals might live very, very different lives, predisposing us existentially to act out very, very different moral and political prejudices.

Whereras your own thinking about what makes morality objective is still beyond me fully grasping. It seems to be that in any given community a moral agenda does in fact exist and that's what makes it objective.

Or if you're in another and they don't. That's objective morality. Even though within each town individuals may embrace opposite points of view. You point out the "trends" in each town to finally confirm for them the one true objective morality. Ever and always wholly in sync with your own subjective political prejudices.

Absolutely. IF morality doesn't exist then every single person can hold whatever viewpoint they want. In the absence of any moral standards nothing is forbidden and nothing is expected from you. Do whatever you want!

Walk up to your neighbour and kill their cat. Steal their car. Burn down his house.

You are a relativist. That's just your point of view!

That's not the distinction I make. My point revolves around those who insist that what makes those behaviors universally and/or objectively immoral is one or another transcending font able to establish this. For most it is God. For others political ideology. For others one or another philosophical rendition of deontology. For others their take on nature --- those who champion genes over memes, those who embrace biological imperatives to explain things like crime.

For you it's "historical trends".

But then there are the sociopaths who choose behaviors that appall others simply because from their frame of mind in a No God world morality revolves entirely around "what's in it for me?"

Here you reason "backward from conclusions". In other words, you come to a conclusion about a political conflagration like capital punishment and then come up with the reasons you need to confirm your own assessment of the historical trends.

Observe you have still avoided the difficult question.

Why is there LESS capital punishment (per capita) in 2022 than there was in 1522. If capital punishment is "rooted in dasein" then what is causing this decrease?

Well, historically, the advent of mercantilism and capitalism brought into existence a political economy that favored democracy and the rule of law. No more divine right of kings or warlords or those, once in power, deciding for everyone what the rules of behavior would be in regard to matters of life and death re the state. No more theocrats rooting executions in Inquisitions and Crusades.

With democracy and the rule of law comes "moderation, negotiation and compromise". Different folks are ale to think up arguments both pro and con. For capital punishment and all the other conflicting goods.

Then the differences in regard to our own take on that.

[Belinda]

I think human beings are moral in the same sense of 'objective' as that objectively we have bifurcated shapes and internal bony skeletons, and in the same objective sense as that the Sun is the centre of this solar system. There are several skeletal variations and proportions that serve different needs. Arguably people with long legs are better hunters over flat terrain, and short legged people are better at climbing around hilly country. So moral codes change as needs must change them. Nature if it exists at all is orderly process.

Metaphysically however all we know of nature is the experience of our bodies. All babies are born good and become bad if and when bad ideas get to them, so the best way to be is to be natural and not ideological.

[iambiguous]

So what is human nature?

Freudian id is the actual power which overcomes objectification and also harmonises with Dasein. Freudian id , the innocent and uncorrupted human nature ,overcomes ideas of both ego and superego and also guides through the mazes of Dasein. One useful rule of thumb is the further he departed from the id he was born with the more he became evil.

Here though we would need to bring an intellectual assessment such as this "down to earth".

The id, the ego and the superego pertaining to what set of circumstances? In particular, a set of circumstances in which different people choose different behaviors based on conflicting moral and political narratives/agendas.

After all, we all come into the world hard-wired by nature to be homo sapiens. Why then are we not hard-wired in turn to choose the same behaviors?

What is the role that nurturing plays in shaping and molding the id into all of the vast and varied historical and cultural and experiential/individual components of human morality?

If you look at other species of animals, the role that instinct plays is overwhelming. Even among other primates you are not going to see variations in behavior even remotely the equivalent of our own.

And I don't believe that in the human brain there is this "id" that determines whether someone becomes more or less evil.

Evil from what subjective point of view? Based on what political prejudices?

[Belinda]

So what is human nature?

Freudian id is the actual power which overcomes objectification and also harmonises with Dasein. Freudian id , the innocent and uncorrupted human nature ,overcomes ideas of both ego and superego and also guides through the mazes of Dasein. One useful rule of thumb is the further he departed from the id he was born with the more he became evil.

Here though we would need to bring an intellectual assessment such as this "down to earth".

The id, the ego and the superego pertaining to what set of circumstances? In particular, a set of circumstances in which different people choose different behaviors based on conflicting moral and political narratives/agendas.

After all, we all come into the world hard-wired by nature to be homo sapiens. Why then are we not hard-wired in turn to choose the same behaviors?

What is the role that nurturing plays in shaping and molding the id into all of the vast and varied historical and cultural and experiential/individual components of human morality?

If you look at other species of animals, the role that instinct plays is overwhelming. Even among other primates you are not going to see variations in behavior even remotely the equivalent of our own.

And I don't believe that in the human brain there is this "id" that determines whether someone becomes more or less evil.

Evil from what subjective point of view? Based on what political prejudices?

The Romantics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were right to blame the capitalist culture for prevalent joylessness and lack of creativity among the labouring masses. The capitalist culture affected towns, cities, and countryside. The gross national product benefitted but at a cost of enslavement of labourers. Capitalism is still rife and is now multinational.

The biological, natural man is subjected to the clock, the machine, and ideology now more than ever. Putin was not born a mad Russian nationalist but became so due to his lived experience. For one thing he is a trained KGB officer.

The id survives but the superego that derives from a prevalent culture , e.g. nationalism, drowns the id's needs and the result is egos chained to some ideology and economy the ideology supports.

If you look at other species of animals, the role that instinct plays is overwhelming. Even among other primates you are not going to see variations in behavior even remotely the equivalent of our own.

Other species evolve , change, biologically whereas men evolve, change, culturally. So we men can do something about that as we are free to change a culture of belief and practice.

[Skepdick]

Yes, that's my point view. In a No God world, there are conflicting assessments regarding the morality of capital punishment because those on both sides can make reasonable points...points the other side can't just argue away. Points I am unable to narrow down to the optimal or the only rational and virtuous resolution.

Over time, in a particular community, there may be this or that consensus based on this or that "persuasive" argument...but that [to me] is not the same thing as establishing an objective moral argument in or around the vicinity of deontology.

You continue to ignore, miss and misunderstand the point.

The objectivity of morality is NOT established by an argument because arguments don't establish objectivity.

By the same problem you keep pointing out that proponents of one position can't argue away the points of the other position...

YOU can't argue away the point that arguments don't matter. The game of arguments is bunk.

How do you propose we should go about convincing somebody to play the game of arguments IF the game of arguments is bunk.

Whatever that means. In any event, I don't proclaim myself to be a relativist in the sense that if others don't call themselves relativists in turn then they are wrong. I only note that "here and now" given the points I raise on this thread.

But the points you are raising don't matter! By your very own admission you can't argue away MY points.

And my point is that if I am to take your position more seriously than you take your own position.... then ALL arguments are valid relative to each other.

Your argument is valid.
My argument that your argument is invalid - that's also valid.

The same for you. Only the moral objectivists among us almost never change their minds because, in my view, in regard to their dogmatic moral and political agendas they don't "know what they see" so much as "see what they already know."

The rest, of course, being history.

Well... you seem to know a lot about a position you've never held. How could I ever change your mind?

Right, like Joe's and Jim's state of actually feeling well can't revolve around two completely opposite moral convictions regarding gun ownership. Then those pro and con gun ownership will march out their own set of assumptions, their own set of statistics, their own personal anecdotes to "prove" that their side is the most rational. Or, for the most rabid among them, the only rational argument there is in regard to this age-old conflagration.

Observe how you have ignored the key point here and you have attempted to re-frame the argument.

I wasn't talking about the state of FEELING well. I am talking about the state of BEING well. I am curious as to why you refused to address my points? Especially since you are the one constantly harping about BEING there, not FEELING there.

If you are unable to FEEL well despite the fact that you are actually well then we can always treat you for anxiety, depression or any other mental disorder you have which is unable to reconcile your feelings with the state of affairs.

Let's run that by the Ukrainians. Or do you have the most logical and epistemologically sound argument [rooted in historical trends] that all rational men and women are obligated to embrace with regard to the war being fought there here and now?

Yeah. Lets run it past the Ukrainians!

What could be more necessary than fighting in a war (that you didn't choose to start) when that very war is a war for your very existence?

You don't have to fight. You only have to fight IF you want to live, maintain your freedom and maintain your democracy.
If you don't want any of those things - you don't have to fight ANY war. The invading army always gives you the option to surrender.

Just out of curiosity, in regard to the countless moral conflagrations that have fractured the human species for centuries now, are there any that you are not able to neatly divide up into the right thing and the wrong thing to do? Stem cell research? homosexuality? drug use? the consumption of animal flesh? conscription?

Sure. I can't put any of the above things in neat categories. Not without context.

Stem cell research is really really bad if the participants are unwilling and the stem cells are collected unethically.
Homosexuality is evil if practiced on children by Catholic priests.

Etc etc.

There you go again...

Yes. There I go again. Insisting that you tell us how you use the terms that you are using.

I've told you what I think morality is - as an observable/measurable, social phenomenon spanning human history. You know very well what I am talking about when I talk about "morality".

I have no clue what you are talking about when you talk about "morality". Which phenomenon are you even referring to?

Suppose unicorns did exist. And sport hunters were shooting them dead for their horns.

There were arguments in the media about whether this was moral or immoral. How would you as an advocate of objective morality resolve this?

What a peculiar and unexpected question from somebody who neither believes in unicorns, nor in morality.

If we are going to play the hypothetical game lets just play my hypothetical game.

IF there are valid arguments FOR capital punishment
AND there are valid arguments AGAINST capital punishment.

IF the two positions are unresolvable and in perfect opposition then surely one would expect that the rate/prevalence of capital punishment to remain CONSTANT over time. No? Why would anything change if both sides have valid arguments?

Why would a balancing scale ever tip one way; or the other if you place a 1kg weight on BOTH sides? Why do you continuously refuse to answer this?

Me? Of course I think morality exists.

Why? That directly contradicts your relativism.

Your argument is that morality exists.
The equivalent and equally powerful counter-argument (that you can't dismiss or ignore) is that immorality exists.

It must exist because in any community there will be wants and needs that come into conflict. Necessitating the need for "rules of behaviors". Rewarding and punishing particular sets of behaviors.

Yeah! Fine.

One community chooses to follow moral rules and promote good behavior.
Another community chooses to follow immoral rules and promote bad behavior.

So if one society calls behavior X moral, and another society calls behavior X immoral - you are right back to where you started.

But how is this not rooted in ever evolving and changing historical and cultural political agendas? How does this not revolve around the fact that each of us as individuals might live very, very different lives, predisposing us existentially to act out very, very different moral and political prejudices.

Because it's begging the question! What are historical, cultural and political agendas rooted in?

How is it that despite all the "very different moral and political prejudices" you can't see that there's an intersection. Common ground. Common needs. Common desires. Common goals. Common interests. Common moral and political prejudices.

Common sense.

Whereras your own thinking about what makes morality objective is still beyond me fully grasping. It seems to be that in any given community a moral agenda does in fact exist and that's what makes it objective.

That's because your question is confused. What makes morality objective?!?! Nothing MAKES it objective. It IS objective.

If objectivity was MADE.... then what MAKES reality objective?

That's not the distinction I make. My point revolves around those who insist that what makes those behaviors universally and/or objectively immoral is one or another transcending font able to establish this.

You believe in universals? What's wrong with you?

For you it's "historical trends".

No it isn't. And the fact you continue to misunderstand this is leading me to suggest that you are intentionally misrepresenting me.

I am starting to think you are arguing in bad faith.

The historical trends are not justification FOR objective morality.
The historical trends are evidence FOR the objectivity of morality.

Objective morality is what caused those trends.

But then there are the sociopaths who choose behaviors that appall others simply because from their frame of mind in a No God world morality revolves entirely around "what's in it for me?"

And there are non-sociopaths who figured these people don't belong in society.

And they acted on it. Argument or no arguments - this is what happens.

Well, historically, the advent of mercantilism and capitalism brought into existence a political economy that favored democracy and the rule of law.

Favoured why? If there are arguments FOR democracy and arguments AGAINST democracy how could any "favouritism" possibly emerge?

With democracy and the rule of law comes "moderation, negotiation and compromise".

Different folks are ale to think up arguments both pro and con. For capital punishment and all the other conflicting goods.

Then the differences in regard to our own take on that.

So are you now saying that despite the fact that opposing views exist, conflicts between opposing views can be resolved and reconciled?

Because that's what I've been telling you for weeks. The stalemates of relativism are fictional. Conflicting views are not an impasse.

In the degenerate case the pro-murder people can always murder the anti-murder people.

[iambiguous]

So what is human nature?

Freudian id is the actual power which overcomes objectification and also harmonises with Dasein. Freudian id , the innocent and uncorrupted human nature ,overcomes ideas of both ego and superego and also guides through the mazes of Dasein. One useful rule of thumb is the further he departed from the id he was born with the more he became evil.

Here though we would need to bring an intellectual assessment such as this "down to earth".

The id, the ego and the superego pertaining to what set of circumstances? In particular, a set of circumstances in which different people choose different behaviors based on conflicting moral and political narratives/agendas.

After all, we all come into the world hard-wired by nature to be homo sapiens. Why then are we not hard-wired in turn to choose the same behaviors?

What is the role that nurturing plays in shaping and molding the id into all of the vast and varied historical and cultural and experiential/individual components of human morality?

If you look at other species of animals, the role that instinct plays is overwhelming. Even among other primates you are not going to see variations in behavior even remotely the equivalent of our own.

And I don't believe that in the human brain there is this "id" that determines whether someone becomes more or less evil.

Evil from what subjective point of view? Based on what political prejudices?

The Romantics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were right to blame the capitalist culture for prevalent joylessness and lack of creativity among the labouring masses. The capitalist culture affected towns, cities, and countryside. The gross national product benefitted but at a cost of enslavement of labourers. Capitalism is still rife and is now multinational.

The crucial distinction here is whether, in regard to capitalism and morality, you are more the idealist or the materialist.

For those like Ayn Rand and many Libertarians, capitalitism is a moral system because it is a rational system. The marketplace reflects the optimal manner in which human beings ought to interact.

For those like Marx, however, capitalism is a political economy that came into existence historically -- organically -- given the rise of mercantilism and a burgeoning world trade. It requires a "superstructure" very much at odds with governments and cultures derived from a nomadic or slash and burn or hunter and gatherer or agrarian or feudal economy. Morality flows from the manner in which those who own the means of production set up "rules of behavior" that best sustain their own interests.

The biological, natural man is subjected to the clock, the machine, and ideology now more than ever. Putin was not born a mad Russian nationalist but became so due to his lived experience. For one thing he is a trained KGB officer.

Yes, exactly my point about how our moral values "here and now" can be profoundly shaped by the lives that we actually live. True not only of Putin but of you and I as well.

The id survives but the superego that derives from a prevalent culture , e.g. nationalism, drowns the id's needs and the result is egos chained to some ideology and economy the ideology supports.

But the closer morality is linked to the id, the more it would seem to be "beyond our control". And even then, only assuming some degree of free will. Given the staggering complexity of genes and memes intertwined in the mind of any one of us [going all the way back to our birth], what are the odds that we will be able to grasp the full dimension of the behaviors we choose?

If you look at other species of animals, the role that instinct plays is overwhelming. Even among other primates you are not going to see variations in behavior even remotely the equivalent of our own.

Other species evolve , change, biologically whereas men evolve, change, culturally. So we men can do something about that as we are free to change a culture of belief and practice.

Here of course I go back to the manner in which the change we seek is but in turn rooted in the problematic nature of identity... "I" in the is/ought world. Our subjective, existential "self" shaped and molded out in a particular world understood in a particular way historically, culturally and personally.

The profound limitations confronting philosophers in actually discovering or inventing The Right Thing To Do.

In other words, configuring "ethical theory" into, among other things rules of behaviors and actual political policy.

[iambiguous]

Yes, that's my point view. In a No God world, there are conflicting assessments regarding the morality of capital punishment because those on both sides can make reasonable points...points the other side can't just argue away. Points I am unable to narrow down to the optimal or the only rational and virtuous resolution.

Over time, in a particular community, there may be this or that consensus based on this or that "persuasive" argument...but that [to me] is not the same thing as establishing an objective moral argument in or around the vicinity of deontology.

You continue to ignore, miss and misunderstand the point.

In other words, from my frame of mind, I continue to refuse to accept your frame of mind -- your point -- about the relationship between human interactions and that which you claim objective morality to be.

This...

The objectivity of morality is NOT established by an argument because arguments don't establish objectivity.

By the same problem you keep pointing out that proponents of one position can't argue away the points of the other position...

YOU can't argue away the point that arguments don't matter. The game of arguments is bunk.

How do you propose we should go about convincing somebody to play the game of arguments IF the game of arguments is bunk.

On the other hand, how you make this applicable to capital punishment is still well beyond my grasping.

Not only that but the points I raise don't even matter!!

Only yours do. The classic objectivist mentality to me.

Yes, arguments [philosophical or otherwise] seem unable to establish whether capital punishment is necessarily moral or immoral. But we still have our own individual reasons for believing what we do about it.

Right?

I then suggest these reasons revolve existentially around the points I rasie in this thread: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382

The same for you. Only the moral objectivists among us almost never change their minds because, in my view, in regard to their dogmatic moral and political agendas they don't "know what they see" so much as "see what they already know."

The rest, of course, being history.

Well... you seem to know a lot about a position you've never held. How could I ever change your mind?

Over the course of my life, I was once a Christian, a Unitarian, an Objectivist, a Marxist, a Leninist, a Trotskyist, a Democratic Socialist, a social democrat, an existentialist, a deconstructionist, a nihilist. Over and again changing my mind.

And the main point of my argument "here and now" revolves around the assumption that in a world teeming with "contingency chance and change" I could well have a new experience, relationship, access to information and knowledge and change my mind again.

It's just that when I note how this is also applicable to the moral and political and spiritual objectivists among us -- you, for instance -- that the complaints against me begin to mount.

Clearly, we think about all of this in very different ways:

Right, like Joe's and Jim's state of actually feeling well can't revolve around two completely opposite moral convictions regarding gun ownership. Then those pro and con gun ownership will march out their own set of assumptions, their own set of statistics, their own personal anecdotes to "prove" that their side is the most rational. Or, for the most rabid among them, the only rational argument there is in regard to this age-old conflagration.

Observe how you have ignored the key point here and you have attempted to re-frame the argument.

I wasn't talking about the state of FEELING well. I am talking about the state of BEING well. I am curious as to why you refused to address my points? Especially since you are the one constantly harping about BEING there, not FEELING there.

If you are unable to FEEL well despite the fact that you are actually well then we can always treat you for anxiety, depression or any other mental disorder you have which is unable to reconcile your feelings with the state of affairs.

Let's leave it to others to decide for themselves who might be making more sense. Only here I am back once again to the points I raised on the thread above. I have no illusions about my own frame of mind being the optimal perspective. Let alone the only rational one around.

How about you?

You keep claiming I don't believe in morality. And I keep pointing out that morality and ethics are just words that particular philosophers use to describe the indisputable fact that when human beings interact socially, politically and economically, there are going to be "conflicting goods". Some revolve around wants, others around needs. Some pertain more to means, others more to ends.

Many have splintered the human race now for thousands and thousands of years. Yet still there are those who insist that there must be an objective morality around to finally bring us all together. Why? Because they themselves have already discovered it!!

Some even dare to call it common sense.

And for those who refuse to be "brought together" with all the "common sense" folks in embracing the most rational and virtuous behaviors?

Well, the rest is history there too.

[Belinda]

So what is human nature?

Freudian id is the actual power which overcomes objectification and also harmonises with Dasein. Freudian id , the innocent and uncorrupted human nature ,overcomes ideas of both ego and superego and also guides through the mazes of Dasein. One useful rule of thumb is the further he departed from the id he was born with the more he became evil.

Here though we would need to bring an intellectual assessment such as this "down to earth".

The id, the ego and the superego pertaining to what set of circumstances? In particular, a set of circumstances in which different people choose different behaviors based on conflicting moral and political narratives/agendas.

After all, we all come into the world hard-wired by nature to be homo sapiens. Why then are we not hard-wired in turn to choose the same behaviors?

What is the role that nurturing plays in shaping and molding the id into all of the vast and varied historical and cultural and experiential/individual components of human morality?

If you look at other species of animals, the role that instinct plays is overwhelming. Even among other primates you are not going to see variations in behavior even remotely the equivalent of our own.

And I don't believe that in the human brain there is this "id" that determines whether someone becomes more or less evil.

Evil from what subjective point of view? Based on what political prejudices?

The Romantics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were right to blame the capitalist culture for prevalent joylessness and lack of creativity among the labouring masses. The capitalist culture affected towns, cities, and countryside. The gross national product benefitted but at a cost of enslavement of labourers. Capitalism is still rife and is now multinational.

The crucial distinction here is whether, in regard to capitalism and morality, you are more the idealist or the materialist.

For those like Ayn Rand and many Libertarians, capitalitism is a moral system because it is a rational system. The marketplace reflects the optimal manner in which human beings ought to interact.

For those like Marx, however, capitalism is a political economy that came into existence historically -- organically -- given the rise of mercantilism and a burgeoning world trade. It requires a "superstructure" very much at odds with governments and cultures derived from a nomadic or slash and burn or hunter and gatherer or agrarian or feudal economy. Morality flows from the manner in which those who own the means of production set up "rules of behavior" that best sustain their own interests.

The biological, natural man is subjected to the clock, the machine, and ideology now more than ever. Putin was not born a mad Russian nationalist but became so due to his lived experience. For one thing he is a trained KGB officer.

Yes, exactly my point about how our moral values "here and now" can be profoundly shaped by the lives that we actually live. True not only of Putin but of you and I as well.

The id survives but the superego that derives from a prevalent culture , e.g. nationalism, drowns the id's needs and the result is egos chained to some ideology and economy the ideology supports.

But the closer morality is linked to the id, the more it would seem to be "beyond our control". And even then, only assuming some degree of free will. Given the staggering complexity of genes and memes intertwined in the mind of any one of us [going all the way back to our birth], what are the odds that we will be able to grasp the full dimension of the behaviors we choose?

If you look at other species of animals, the role that instinct plays is overwhelming. Even among other primates you are not going to see variations in behavior even remotely the equivalent of our own.

Other species evolve , change, biologically whereas men evolve, change, culturally. So we men can do something about that as we are free to change a culture of belief and practice.

Here of course I go back to the manner in which the change we seek is but in turn rooted in the problematic nature of identity... "I" in the is/ought world. Our subjective, existential "self" shaped and molded out in a particular world understood in a particular way historically, culturally and personally.

The profound limitations confronting philosophers in actually discovering or inventing The Right Thing To Do.

In other words, configuring "ethical theory" into, among other things rules of behaviors and actual political policy.

I understand criminologists sometimes can and do tease out the natural man from the tangles of learned beliefs and attitudes. On the occasions when criminologists can do so the criminal individual concerned is deemed to be educable.The natural adult man does not seek to be parented, led by an ideology, or herded by a dictator, and is fully developed morally. His freedoms are relative to the freedoms of others.

After all, we all come into the world hard-wired by nature to be homo sapiens. Why then are we not hard-wired in turn to choose the same behaviors?

(iambiguous)

Biology has given us spinal columns, two legs to move about on, and opposable thumbs but it's culture that gave us learned behaviours. Other animals can't learn and change from learning to the extent we do. We don't choose the same behaviours because social structures developed differentially probably due to habitats and technologies.
The 'Market Place' is rational until it decays into deliberate dishonesty such as insider dealing, cronyism, futures deals, mis selling, private ownership of utilities and even natural features, and blind ideas of what 'profit' is. Dishonesty destroys its own commercial roots.

[Skepdick]

In other words, from my frame of mind, I continue to refuse to accept your frame of mind -- your point -- about the relationship between human interactions and that which you claim objective morality to be.

I am not claiming it to be that. It is that.

Standards of behavior.

On the other hand, how you make this applicable to capital punishment is still well beyond my grasping.

Not only that but the points I raise don't even matter!!

Only yours do. The classic objectivist mentality to me.

No, idiot. My point doesn't matter. And neither does yours. Because arguments don't matter.

What matters is which way the scale actually tips: Towards capital punishment or away from capital punishment.

From your perspective the scale shouldn't tilt either way. And yet - it tilts.

Yes, arguments [philosophical or otherwise] seem unable to establish whether capital punishment is necessarily moral or immoral.

It's difficult to converse with somebody who struggles with basic English comprehension. Arguments don't establish anything.

Mine don't establish anything.
Yours don't establish anything.

Why are you struggling to understand this?

But we still have our own individual reasons for believing what we do about it.

Right?

I don't know about you, but I don't have any believs about any of this.

I know murder is wrong.
I know capital punishment is wrong.

How do I know? Easy! I wouldn't want it happening to me!

Over the course of my life, I was once a Christian, a Unitarian, an Objectivist, a Marxist, a Leninist, a Trotskyist, a Democratic Socialist, a social democrat, an existentialist, a deconstructionist, a nihilist. Over and again changing my mind.

And you are still a nihilist it seems. Seems are you are "drawn and quartrered" about the wrongness of murder; or capital punishment.

And the main point of my argument "here and now" revolves around the assumption that in a world teeming with "contingency chance and change" I could well have a new experience, relationship, access to information and knowledge and change my mind again.

But you keep insisting that morality is relative. If that's true no information should or could ever change your mind.

Let's leave it to others to decide for themselves who might be making more sense. Only here I am back once again to the points I raised on the thread above. I have no illusions about my own frame of mind being the optimal perspective. Let alone the only rational one around.

How about you?

What could a relativist mean about "optimal" perspective? A relativist can't even establish if health is better than sickness.

If you can't assert one thing as being better; or worse than another you can't even rank your perspective against anyone else's

You keep claiming I don't believe in morality.

You don't. You can't. To be a relativist is to assert that behavior A is different to behavior B. You are not allower to make any claims of preference.

But of course, you are just lying about being a relativist.

[iambiguous]

Is Moral Relativism Really a Problem?
Psychological research suggests it is not
By Thomas Pölzler at Scientific American

So far, scientific investigations do not support the suspicion that moral relativism is problematic.

Okay, particular scientific investigations suggest this. Me, I'm sticking with my own rendition of common sense. How can the belief that morality is rooted subjectively in all of the many, many different lives lived out in all of the many, many different historical and cultural and individual contexts that have unfolded down through the ages not make morality profoundly problematic?!!

True, there are two studies that do suggest such a conclusion. In one of them, participants were led to think about morality in either relativist or objectivist terms. It turned out that subjects in the relativist condition were more likely to cheat in a lottery and to state that they would be willing to steal than those in the objectivist condition. In the other study, participants who had been exposed to relativist ideas were less likely to donate to charity than those who had been exposed to objectivist ones.

Cheating or stealing or assaulting or killing. Take away God or ideology or deontology or any other transcending font, and what else is there but how each of us, as individuals, given a specific trajectory of uniquely personal experiences, either choose to do these things or choose not to.

How is that not going to be a virtual certainty?

That said, there is also evidence that associates moral relativism with positive behaviors. In one of her earlier studies, Wright and her colleagues informed their participants that another person disagreed with one of their moral judgments. Then the researchers measured the subjects’ degree of tolerance for this person’s divergent moral view. For example, participants were asked how willing they would be to interact with the person, how willing they would be to help him or her and how comfortable they generally were with another individual denying one of their moral judgments. It turned out that subjects with relativist leanings were more tolerant toward the disagreeing person than those who had tended toward objectivism.

Here though the tolerance might revolve around someone being convinced that they can persuade the dissenting party to [eventually] see things their own way. Until [eventually] they come to realize that they can't persuade them. That happens all the time in places like this, right? With me though moral relativism doesn't revolve around "you're right from your side and I'm right from mine...but in the end I'm righter" but given the assumption that right and wrong themselves are but historical and cultural and personal constructs rooted in dasein.

Trust me: that changes everything.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121

[Peter Holmes]

Just to say again - the alternative to moral objectivism is moral subjectivism, not moral relativism or moral nihilism. We can keep the baby when we throw out the bathwater. Since there are only moral opinions, fretting about the absence of moral facts is pointless.

[Belinda]

Is Moral Relativism Really a Problem?
Psychological research suggests it is not
By Thomas Pölzler at Scientific American

So far, scientific investigations do not support the suspicion that moral relativism is problematic.

Okay, particular scientific investigations suggest this. Me, I'm sticking with my own rendition of common sense. How can the belief that morality is rooted subjectively in all of the many, many different lives lived out in all of the many, many different historical and cultural and individual contexts that have unfolded down through the ages not make morality profoundly problematic?!!

True, there are two studies that do suggest such a conclusion. In one of them, participants were led to think about morality in either relativist or objectivist terms. It turned out that subjects in the relativist condition were more likely to cheat in a lottery and to state that they would be willing to steal than those in the objectivist condition. In the other study, participants who had been exposed to relativist ideas were less likely to donate to charity than those who had been exposed to objectivist ones.

Cheating or stealing or assaulting or killing. Take away God or ideology or deontology or any other transcending font, and what else is there but how each of us, as individuals, given a specific trajectory of uniquely personal experiences, either choose to do these things or choose not to.

How is that not going to be a virtual certainty?

That said, there is also evidence that associates moral relativism with positive behaviors. In one of her earlier studies, Wright and her colleagues informed their participants that another person disagreed with one of their moral judgments. Then the researchers measured the subjects’ degree of tolerance for this person’s divergent moral view. For example, participants were asked how willing they would be to interact with the person, how willing they would be to help him or her and how comfortable they generally were with another individual denying one of their moral judgments. It turned out that subjects with relativist leanings were more tolerant toward the disagreeing person than those who had tended toward objectivism.

Here though the tolerance might revolve around someone being convinced that they can persuade the dissenting party to [eventually] see things their own way. Until [eventually] they come to realize that they can't persuade them. That happens all the time in places like this, right? With me though moral relativism doesn't revolve around "you're right from your side and I'm right from mine...but in the end I'm righter" but given the assumption that right and wrong themselves are but historical and cultural and personal constructs rooted in dasein.

Trust me: that changes everything.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121

It so happens that Christianity and other world religions arose and powerfully maintained their similar moral codes for two and a half thousand years.This huge cultural influence adequately explains the largely unconscious attachment of individuals to the central codified morality. In a post- Christian age the Xian morality is still unconsciously binding, and it actually does make sense alongside Greek, Persian, Chinese,and Indian Axial cultures.

The moral relativist speaks as if beliefs were free of cultural stores of emotional attachments to age- old identities. Moral relativism is true and also true is we are all much the same Dasein in some important respects. It's also true that we ought to be asking these questions over and over again as not to do so would make us inauthentic.

[iambiguous]

I understand criminologists sometimes can and do tease out the natural man from the tangles of learned beliefs and attitudes. On the occasions when criminologists can do so the criminal individual concerned is deemed to be educable.The natural adult man does not seek to be parented, led by an ideology, or herded by a dictator, and is fully developed morally. His freedoms are relative to the freedoms of others.

Okay, let's zero in on a context and a set of behaviors that some embrace as moral and others as immoral. Behaviors that in some communities are criminal while in other communities are not.

How would natural behaviors be differentiated from unnatural behaviors? And if particular behaviors are in fact natural why would others condemn them as immoral?

And if sent to a reeducation camp to be rehabilitated who gets to decide what that means "for all practical purposes"? Why what you believe encompasses moral behavior and not another?

Fully developed morally? Okay, given the context we choose, what exactly does that entail?

And, given the historical record, the overwhelming preponderance of human beings seems more than willing to become members of one or another flock. Whether it's a flock of Christians or a flock of fascists or a flock of communists or a flock of capitalists.

After all, we all come into the world hard-wired by nature to be homo sapiens. Why then are we not hard-wired in turn to choose the same [natrual] behaviors?

Biology has given us spinal columns, two legs to move about on, and opposable thumbs but it's culture that gave us learned behaviours. Other animals can't learn and change from learning to the extent we do. We don't choose the same behaviours because social structures developed differentially probably due to habitats and technologies.

Yes, that's my point regarding how moral values and political agendas are rooted existentially in historical and cultural and uniquely interpersonal experiences.

But if, in the end, there are so-called "natural" behaviors, what are they? And shouldn't they be emphasized? After all, there are those who adamantly ascribe natural -- superior -- behaviors to particular races and ethnicities and genders and sexual persuasions.

And, as we all know, that frame of mind can be taken all the way to the next "final solution".