moral relativism

[iambiguous]

Moral absolutism, moral nihilism, moral relativism
University of Notre Dame

The moral nihilist might respond to this challenge by pointing out that we quite often use language to do things other than describe facts. Consider the following examples:

“Get out of my classroom!”
“I declare you husband and wife.”
"Boooo!” (said while at sporting event)

These are all perfectly meaningful uses of language, but none is an attempt to describe some fact in the world.

On the contrary? It's not like out of the blue a teacher will just blurt this out. There is in fact a reason for it. And a man and woman are declared husband and wife because in fact they just completed the marriage ceremony. Same with booing at sporting events. There was a particular set of facts that caused it.

Where the moral nihilists might interject here revolves precisely around contexts in which the facts might be disputed. The teacher was thought to be wrong to order someone out of his or her classroom. Someone might raise an objection to a marriage. And while some are booing at sporting events what about those who are cheering the same play?

So perhaps the moral nihilist should say that our uses of ethical language, as in

“Stealing is wrong!”

are like these; perhaps the purpose of this sort of sentence is not to describe a fact, but to do something else. This raises the question: what are the purposes of our uses of ethical language?

The whole point of creating and then sustaining ethical language pertains to the fact that in regard to things like classroom behavior and marriage and sporting events, different people will respond differently to the same behaviors. So, here, in regard to conflicting goods, both our actions and our reactions can be challenged by others. Click, of course.

Whereby relating to school classrooms or wedding ceremonies or athletic events, both actions and reactions might be very different. Then the part where particular deontologists on particular One True Paths might be squabbling rather heatedly regarding either the optimal behavior or even the only rational behavior.

One promising answer to this question is: they are commands, like saying “Get out of my classroom!” Perhaps saying the above sentence about capital punishment is a way of saying something like this:

“Don’t steal!

Perhaps. But then the part where any particular set of circumstances comes into dispute. The part where in community after communitiy one or another rendition of might makes right, right makes might or democracy and the rules of law prevails

[iambiguous]

Moral absolutism, moral nihilism, moral relativism
University of Notre Dame

“Don’t steal!”

One apparent strength of this sort of view is that it explains an interesting fact about moral claims: that moral disagreements seem particularly resistant to resolution.

Your explanation or mine? And how exactly would we go about pinning down something like this in a world where there are literally hundreds and hundreds of moral objectivists among us all claiming they have already pinned it down. And some of them will tolerate no objections whatsoever. In fact, some will take those who do object and ship them off to reeducation camps or gulags or gas chanmbers.

Sometimes, of course, moral disagreements can be resolved; but other times, it seems possible for two people to, for example, know all of the relevant facts about abortion, and still disagree about whether it is sometimes morally permissible.

Though any number of times the "resolution" revolves almost entirely around this or that rendition of One True Path. God or No God, you either become "one of us" or else. Though for some you can never become one of them because you're the wrong color or the wrong gender or the wrong ethnicity.

By contrast, it does not seem possible for two people to know all of the relevant facts about the dining hall, and yet disagree about whether stroganoff is on offer.

Same with abortion. There are all the biological facts embedded in abortion as a medical procedure. But what are all the facts pertaining to abortion as a moral issue? In fact, even those able to perform abortions with considerable skill can't pin down when the unborn stop being just clumps of cells and become actual human beings.

On the present view, this sort of persistent disagreement would be explained by the fact that the two people are really not disagreeing about any facts about the world: they are, instead, simply expressing contrary preferences.

As though these preferences are not embraced by the moral objectivists in such a way that behaviors in any particular community are either prescribed [rewarded] or proscribed [punished].

Now, in regard to abortion, what behaviors ought to be either rewarded or punished?

However, even if this view seems plausible for sentences like “Stealing is wrong”, it does not fit other uses of ethical language as well. Consider, for example past tense sentences like

“The Athenians were wrong to put Socrates to death.”

could this really mean:

“Athenians, don’t put Socrates to death!”

or

“Don’t support the Athenians’ decision to put Socrates to death!"

Or, for that matter, Hitler ordering the death of all Jews? Even when the lives of millions upon millions of men, women and children are at stake, both philosophers and scientists seem incapable of accumulating the facts needed to establish an objective morality pertaining to...genocide?

[iambiguous]

Moral absolutism, moral nihilism, moral relativism
University of Notre Dame

So this way of making sense of ethical language does not make moral nihilism seem very appealing. One other option for the moral nihilist is worth considering. Consider what my two year old daughter is doing when she says:

“Santa Claus will bring me an Elmo doll this year.”

It seems clear that she is trying to describe the world: she is saying something about how she takes the world to be.

On the other hand, as with any number of adults and God, the main point for children and Santa Claus seems to be this...

"He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake"

Only it's one thing not getting an Elmo doll from Santa because you've been bad, and another thing altogether being sent to Hell for all of eternity by God for sinning.

It’s just that what she is saying is false, since there is no Santa Claus.

Though, again, as with adults and God, all that kids need to do is to believe in Santa. At the same time, however, no one is actually going to expect these kids to demonstrate that he does in fact exist. There's just no real comparison between opening Christmas presents once a year and saving your soul until the end of time.

The moral nihilist might say the same thing about “Stealing is wrong”: he might say that it is an attempt to describe the world, but one which is always false, since there are no such things as right and wrong actions.

Of course, existentially, stealing can result in all manner of individual rewards and punishments. And if they lock you up for stealing you'll be able to describe a whole new world entirely...from inside a penal institution.

Existentially, right and wrong are everywhere. It's just that -- click -- I root any particular individual's assessment of stealing in dasein. And suggest further that in a No God world there may well be no essential, objective, deontological, universal morality.

Unless, of course, someone here can link us to a theoretical assessment of one from up in the technical realm. And then bring their philosophical conclusions down to Earth by demonstrating why and how their own One True Path here is obligatory for all those who wish to describe themselves as rational men and women.

Given a context of their own choosing.

[iambiguous]

Moral absolutism, moral nihilism, moral relativism
University of Notre Dame

This [moral nihilism] strikes many people as a hard view to swallow. For one thing, if moral sentences are simply all false in the way that all simple sentences about Santa are false, it seems that, once we realize this, we should simply stop using moral language. But could this be right?

Given that "moral language" is rooted historically and cuturally in the necessity to establish rewards and punishments -- rules of behaviors -- within any particular human community, it really comes down to the extent to which these prescriptions and proscriptions revolve more around might makes right [autocracy derived from plutocracy derived from political economy], right makes might [God or No God] and/or democracy and the rule of law [in which over and again human interactions revolve around moderation, negotiation and compromise.]

With this in mind, let’s move to consideration of our second version of opposition to moral absolutism: the view that there are facts about which actions are right and wrong, but that these facts are, in some way or another, relative to a person or group of people.

Here I recall any number of exchanges I have had over the years in which some seemed to make what they deemed to be a crucial distinction between "objective morality" applicable to all in any particular sets of circumstances and "universal morality" which is said to be applicable to all rational human beings. Something along the lines of deontology ascribed to this or that specific community and deontology said to be applicable to all human beings. Period.

Note that this would not be a consequence of the version of moral nihilism which analyzes moral sentences as disguised imperatives; this analysis would not give us a reason to stop using moral language.

Even my own set of assumptions here -- moral and political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein -- does not suggest we stop using language to encompass behaviors deemed worthy of either rewarding or punishing. There's just no getting around the need for morality in that sense. Instead, from my frame of mind "here and now", we need to move away from the One True Path mentality that many objectivists embrace in appending "or else" as a consequence for those refusing to toe the line.

[iambiguous]

Moral absolutism, moral nihilism, moral relativism
University of Notre Dame

With this in mind, let’s move to consideration of our second version of opposition to moral absolutism: the view that there are facts about which actions are right and wrong, but that these facts are, in some way or another, relative to a person or group of people.

Of course, for centuries now philosophers and ethicists have been assigned the task of taking this into consideration. In other words, in order to concoct a deontological morality such that people might still choose to be immoral but -- click -- all rational men and women recognize that particular behaviors are in fact either moral or immoral. So, there's no question of what is right and wrong. There is only those on the wrong side being caught or not caught.

A first question is about what a view like this could mean. In fact, there are many things that it could mean, but one thing it could mean is this:

Moral relativism: actions are not right or wrong “in themselves”, but only relative to a person or group.

On the other hand, no one, to the best of my current knowledge, has ever actually demonstrated that this is in fact true objectively. We still basically live in a world such that all one need do is to believe they are on the One True Path. That's what makes it true precisely because in a No God world, morality revolves largely around dasein and the Benjamin Button Syndrome. In other words, individual frames of mind rooted historically and culturally out in a particular world understood in a particular way given the manner in which human interactions themselves are embedded in complex and convoluted combinations of contingency, chance and change.

An action is right relative to a person or group if and only if the action is right according to the standards adopted by that person or group.

Let's call it the "I'm right from my side, you're right from your side" frame of mind. And, theoretically, I'm sure there are any number of philosophers who can defend it. On the other hand, out in the real world this mentality is often viewed as repugnant to the moral objectivists. Of course there are moral absolutes. After all, they already embody them themselves socially, politically and economically. So, if you want to be thought of as enlightened, you'll join them.

Or else?

[iambiguous]

A Defense for Moral Absence
Broderick Sterrett at the University of Utah

Christians vs. Mormons vs. Hindus vs. Democrats vs. Republicans vs. Alt-Rights vs. Utilitarians vs. Existentialists vs. [insert belief here]. Isn’t it exhausting?

On the other hand, who is going to get tired of hearing that they have access to objective morality here and now and immortality/salvation there and then? Especially when all they have to do is simply believe that their own One True Path really is the one and only path able to bring it all about.

I suspect I wouldn't if I could be...born again?

And even though I note over and again just how slim it would be that it's your own frame of mind, with so much at stake on both sides of the grave, few are likely to put that in jeopardy by questioning it. This part by and large: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

The constant squabbling and never ending chain of opposing beliefs. All the debate and fracas about proving who knows best. For eons, humanity has waged wars, founded religions, established governments, etc., all in the name of moral justification.

Same thing though. You can point this out over and again to the moral objectivists, but with so much at stake, why would they put it all in jeopardy? Years ago I subsumed all doubt in a string of dogmatic assumptions bouncing from one True Path to the next. Now I'm "stuck" with the consequences of thinking what I do until a new experience [or argument] is able to persuade me to give God and religion and objective morality another shot.

What if there were no morals? I’m not talking about atheism. Some religions and ethicists have circumvented the need for a God/Goddess. I am talking about moral truths and laws of right and wrong. Do those exist? I am not going to sell my beliefs to you because I don’t have any. I’m a nihilist.

Here, I'll assume that he is a moral nihilist as opposed to an epistemic nihilist. As for whether "moral truths and laws of right and wrong" exist, we are back, in my view, to the part where some say yes [emphatically], and others say no [empathically]. But they are all basically in the same boat...the gap between what they believe "in their head" and the part where they are able to demonstrate that what they do believe is in fact what all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated themselves to believe.

[iambiguous]

A Defense for Moral Absence
Broderick Sterrett at the University of Utah

First off, let’s make a distinction clear. Nihilism and atheism are two separate conclusions. Atheism denies the existence of any god(s) or goddess(es). Atheists are considered independent thinkers, counter-hegemonic, cosmopolitan chic. Of course, while it may be considered blasphemous in Bible Belt country, atheism today is more widely accepted than before.

Trust me: some moral nihilists make no such distinction at all here. Me, for example. Instead, I start with the assumption [and that's all it is] that, in the absence of a God, the God, human meaning and human morality revolve existentially around dasein.

As for how others react to both atheism and nihilism, that too is embodied existentially in dasein.

...to be an atheist doesn’t necessarily make one a bad person. After all, they have other avenues to believe in like utilitarianism, existentialism or humanism.

Of course, there are any number of members here who will point out that being good or bad isn't the point. It's accepting that their own God or spiritual belief is the one and the only path in which to access objective morality, immortality and salvation. As for those other avenues, are they able make the same claims about morality, immortalty and salvation?

Greg Epstein, author and Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University, summarizes the beliefs of good atheists in a sentence from his book “Good Without God”: “There is no life after death, so offer kindness to all, not in the next life but now.”

"Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry." wiki

Over and again, I can only point out the enormous gap between Humanism and religion. At best humanists can convince themselves -- re ideology, deontology, biological imperatives, etc. -- that their own assessments do reflect the most rational manner [philosophically or otherwise] in which to understand human interactions. Then the part where some are so convinced it's their own self-righteous dogma, they attach one or another rendition of "or else" to their political agenda.

But where atheists depart from formal religion saying, “We don’t need a god to be good,” I [and other nihilists] reply with “Well who said good and bad are real, too?”

Then the part where those like the amoral global capitalists and the sociopaths insist good and bad do in fact exist. Things are good when they benefit them and bad when they don't.

Call it the Trump, Musk, Putin, Xi Syndrome.

[iambiguous]

Moral Objectivism
by Michael Huemer

What is the issue

The present essay is a defense of a view called moral objectivism and attack on its opposite, subjectivism or moral relativism. Moral relativism is probably the subject concerning which more nonsense has been written and said in modern times than any other in moral philosophy.

Well, this ought to be interesting. Of course, there is always the possibility that moral relativism is in fact nonsensical. I would never deny that. Indeed, as I've noted over and again, given how disturbing it can be being "fractured and fragmented" in an essentially meaningless world that reconfigures into oblivion, what I wouldn't give to be convinced that it is.

On the other hand, I suspect, what any number of the moral and political and spiritual objectivists wouldn't give to go to the grave never once really doubting they were on the One True Path to enlightenment and immortality and salvation.

I suspect this is partly because people wish to provide arguments in favor of relativism without first having a clear idea of what their thesis is...

Me? Well, I'll always own up to the fact that my own assessments here are rooted existentially in dasein. That I may well be wrong regarding any number of things pertaining to meaning and morality and metaphysics. And this revolves largely around The Gap, Rummy's Rule and the Benjamin Button Syndrome.

Or, rather, given the manner in which "I" have come to understand them "here and now".

...partly because the authors' arguments are mostly rationalizations...

Which is basically what the moral objectivists will often insist regarding those who don't rationalize value judgments in precisely the same manner as they do. Along with any number of other psychological defense mechanisms.

Click, of course.

...and partly because the authors have a poor grasp of moral concepts.

In other words, re the objectivists, others don't grasp moral concepts as those who are "one of us" are wholly obligated to. Or, instead, everything goes back and forth in exchanges that never come down out of the conceptual clouds.

There is little I can do about the second and third problems, but I will try to help the first here.

The assumption then being they themselves are not rationalizing anything and that others must have a poor grasp of moral concepts if they do no overlap entirely with the moral objectivists own.

In this section I define "objectivism" and important related terms and delineate several views that might be called subjectivism, which I contend are all demonstrably false.

Great, he is going to define the terms as he sees fit in order to rebut the definitions of all those who do not embrace the same definitions.

[popeye1945]

Would there be any such thing as moral relativism if morality was based on our common biology, its wellbeing and continued existence, instead of the abstract thoughts of differing philosophies and/or the input of ancient religious mythologies and their contradictions? A common morality based upon our common biology.

[Belinda]

Would there be any such thing as moral relativism if morality was based on our common biology, its wellbeing and continued existence, instead of the abstract thoughts of differing philosophies and/or the input of ancient religious mythologies and their contradictions? A common morality based upon our common biology.

So glad to see Popeye again!
I so much agree!
A man's a man for a' that

[popeye1945]

Would there be any such thing as moral relativism if morality was based on our common biology, its wellbeing and continued existence, instead of the abstract thoughts of differing philosophies and/or the input of ancient religious mythologies and their contradictions? A common morality based upon our common biology.

So glad to see Popeye again!
I so much agree!
A man's a man for a' that

Hi Belinda,
Great to be back, and most happy to hear from you! It seems so obvious that our common biology should be the subject of morality worldwide that it seems humorous to state it. This is where I agree with Sam Harris, that science is up to the task of creating a science of morality through the subject of the wellbeing and continued existence of the organism/life form.

[iambiguous]

Would there be any such thing as moral relativism if morality was based on our common biology, its wellbeing and continued existence, instead of the abstract thoughts of differing philosophies and/or the input of ancient religious mythologies and their contradictions? A common morality based upon our common biology.

Start here: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora

Note what the clique/claque there have to say about morality and biological imperatives. Or, here, run it by Alexis Jacobi and his ilk.

Or sure, either Elon Trump or Don Musk in the White House.

Only this time focus in on how folks of their ilk defend their own moral philosophy given particular sets of circumstances.

On the other hand, yes, human biology is one of the most crucial components of the either/or world.

It's just that the KT ilk are adamant here: if you don't/won't share their own "my way or the highway" value judgments pertaining to genes and memes, at the very least you might be banned from the boards there.

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Then the part where someone there -- or here? -- starts a thread entitled "What the Nazis got right about the Holocaust".

[popeye1945]

Would there be any such thing as moral relativism if morality was based on our common biology, its wellbeing and continued existence, instead of the abstract thoughts of differing philosophies and/or the input of ancient religious mythologies and their contradictions? A common morality based upon our common biology.

Start here: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora

Note what the clique/claque there have to say about morality and biological imperatives. Or, here, run it by Alexis Jacobi and his ilk.

Or sure, either Elon Trump or Don Musk in the White House.

Only this time focus in on how folks of their ilk defend their own moral philosophy given particular sets of circumstances.

On the other hand, yes, human biology is one of the most crucial components of the either/or world.

It's just that the KT ilk are adamant here: if you don't/won't share their own "my way or the highway" value judgments pertaining to genes and memes, at the very least you might be banned from the boards there.

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum

Then the part where someone there -- or here? -- starts a thread entitled "What the Nazis got right about the Holocaust".

Sorry. But I am at a loss to know how to respond to this post. Was there anything you wished to state about establishing a morality on one's common biology of species?

[Belinda]

establishing a morality on one's commonality of species.

If Trump or Vance came to one's door cold and starving and supported by an aggressive crew of starving Magas all demanding warmth and food it would be right to warm them and feed them. Same if it were Hitler and his crew.

The reasoning is the fact of Dasein. None of us is Jesus Christ and each of us is Dasein-------a temporary and constantly changing stance upon experiences as they happen to one. Permanence happens upon death and only upon death.

True, existentialism and ordinary human kindness won't stop bad things happening. There is nothing that will permanently stop bad things happening.

[iambiguous]

Would there be any such thing as moral relativism if morality was based on our common biology, its wellbeing and continued existence, instead of the abstract thoughts of differing philosophies and/or the input of ancient religious mythologies and their contradictions? A common morality based upon our common biology.

Start here: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora

Note what the clique/claque there have to say about morality and biological imperatives. Or, here, run it by Alexis Jacobi and his ilk.

Or sure, either Elon Trump or Don Musk in the White House.

Only this time focus in on how folks of their ilk defend their own moral philosophy given particular sets of circumstances.

On the other hand, yes, human biology is one of the most crucial components of the either/or world.

It's just that the KT ilk are adamant here: if you don't/won't share their own "my way or the highway" value judgments pertaining to genes and memes, at the very least you might be banned from the boards there.

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum

Then the part where someone there -- or here? -- starts a thread entitled "What the Nazis got right about the Holocaust".

Sorry. But I am at a loss to know how to respond to this post. Was there anything you wished to state about establishing a morality on one's common biology of species?

What we need to do then is discuss moral relativism as it pertains to particular moral conflagrations...such as stem cell research, capital punishment, gender roles, human sexuality, animal right, gun control, etc.

Or, sure, I am not understanding the point you are making correctly. That's why I always strive to bring theoretical assessments of this sort [pertaining to morality] down to Earth.

For example, how would a biologically based morality be relevant regarding abortion? After all, biologically, only women can become pregnant.