moral relativism

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Ethical Truth in Light of Quantum Mechanics
Myles King contends that physics helps us understand ethics.

Criticising one of history’s most important-ever scientists can sound like a sketch from Monty Python: “OK, but apart from breakthroughs in optics, mathematics, mechanics, explaining gravity, inventing calculus, something about trigonometry, predicting how planets move, and other stuff that we don’t understand, what has Isaac Newton ever done for us?”

Newton’s work transformed science, and eventually, society. But Newton’s legacy comes with an ugly side: he inspired ‘physics envy’, which, in turn, led humanity to some truly dark places. ‘Physics envy’ is the desire to find Newtonian-type mathematical formulas or algebraic laws in other disciplines.

Uh, in ethics?

Of course, in regard to the moral objectivists among us, who needs mathematical formulas and algebraic laws? With them the "discipline" can simply revolve around God or around ideology or around one or another deontological philosophical assessment. They define and deduce value judgments into existence.

Sometimes the endeavour is absurd, as when economists try to explain their economic opinions in algebraic equations. But when applied to psychology, history, class warfare, or evolution, thinkers with physics envy usually end up describing humans in dangerously oversimplified terms.

Not to worry. As long as the terms they use are understood by them to be the moral equivalent of mathematical formulas and algebraic laws, then, ethically, if they believe something, well, that makes it true!

And what is truly absurd to some is that even though their own One True Path is roundly rejected by those on all of the other One True Paths...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

...that never stops them from embracing all the more their own dogmas.

And when I then suggest the reason for this is that being on a One True Path is far, far, far more important than whatever the path happens to be? Well, then they come after me. Especially when I suggest further that they are on a particular path largely because the life that they lived predisposed them historically, culturally and experientially to be on one rather than another.

Their theories would only work for model people – humans who have been stripped of their nuance and complexity. Moreover, as too many twentieth century tragedies have shown, when people become just elements in an equation, they can be treated as if they have no value at all.

Or, again, for the moral objectivists among us, their theories work because that is basically what they are...theories about ethics. And others out in the real world can be treated by them as though they have no value at all because they are "one of them".

The fools or the infidels.

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Right & Wrong About Right & Wrong
Paul Stearns argues against moral relativism and moral presentism.

3) Relativists and presentists mistakenly think different times have radically different moral standards because they mistakenly believe the present is more morally advanced than the past.

Well, this relativist merely notes that in regard to many moral conflicts, communities down through the ages historically and across the globe culturally have prescribed and proscribed different behaviors pertaining to different sets of circumstances in different -- sometimes very different -- ways.

And that philosophers and ethicists using the technical tools at their disposal have not exactly come up with deontological arguments that takes this into account such that anything approaching the author's rendition of "primary moral values" is established. On the contrary, he notes some rather extreme behaviors that have been rationalized in particular communities as "proof" that "fundamental moral values" do in fact exist. That's why some folks engaged in human sacrifices.

Most modern people believe the modern world is morally better than the past because many countries have legally abolished slavery, child labor, and other evils. Modern people may also feel superior because those who would disagree with them are, for the most part, dead.

Other modern folks, however, construe wage slavery as just another form of human bondage. As for child labor, run that by the great Christian from Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/10/11625318 ... ee-sanders

As for "other evils", well, there are liberal Christians and conservative Christians one can take that up with.

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Who’s To Say?
Michael-John Turp asks if anyone has the authority to establish moral truth

Socrates famously got himself into trouble by persistently questioning authority. He irritated his fellow citizens so much that he ended up on trial. Eventually he accepted his sentence of execution by drinking hemlock rather than evading the law by fleeing to an easy exile.

Something along the lines of, "ask not what your country can do for you...ask what you can do for your country"? Fascism?

While few philosophers are as courageous (or as rash?) as Socrates, we generally remain similarly suspicious of appeals to authority.

On the other hand, for the moral objectivists among us, suspicions revolve more around those who, after morality is carefully [sometimes even patiently] explained to them objectively, still refuse to accept it. They insist instead that their own moral convictions are the One True Path. And then those like me who suggest that, in the absence of God, there is no such authoritative path.

We worry that too many self-proclaimed authorities are purveyors of self-serving puffery and nonsense. We like to prod, probe and question received wisdom. We ask for reasons, evidence, and argument. Arguments should be weighed on their merits not their origins.

Still, among most philosophers, there is a general belief that if we think "situations" through long enough we can at least come reasonably close to the most objective value judgments there might be. After all, not all moral objectivists are of the "fulminating fanatic", "my way or the highway" sort. Just as all moral relativists are not of the "fractured and fragmented" sort.

Bad people can have good ideas, and good people can have bad ideas. In my experience, the authority-doubting question ‘Who’s to say?’ is especially popular among moral relativists.

Well, it depends on why they say it. If, for example, they point out that those deemed to be bad people are deemed to be good people by others...or that those who deem some ideas to be bad are confronted by others who deem them to be good...what then?

Who is to say?

And is there the moral equivalent of God here among philosophers and ethicists?

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Ethical Truth in Light of Quantum Mechanics
Myles King contends that physics helps us understand ethics.

Physics envy infected philosophy, too; in particular, ethics. Mirroring Newton’s Second Law that force equals acceleration multiplied by mass (F=ma), the Scottish philosopher Francis Hutcheson proposed that good equals the greatest happiness of the greatest number (G=gHgN).

No, seriously, in regard to a moral conflagration of note has anyone actually attempted to calculate what would constitute the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people? And how close might that come to the assessments of the moral deontologists?

Or is it still in the general vicinity of a "consensus" or "majority rules"?

Jeremy Bentham adapted Hutcheson’s idea into what he called his ‘hedonic calculus’ – a phrase which draws deliberately on Newtonian mathematics.

Same thing. With respect to a moral conflict most here will be familiar with what might that look like "for all practical purposes"?

The Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant plumped for a different type of formula to define what we should do: we should “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.”

On the other hand, Kant predicated this universal law on the assumption that there was a "transcending font" out there able to impose an ultimate judgment on whatever we mere mortals came up with down here.

So Kant was using the Newtonian idea of a universal law to tell people what to do. Both Kant and Bentham believed they had unlocked the secrets of moral philosophy as surely as the Cambridge professor had demystified the cosmos.

But are moral laws really like this – something as real as planetary motion, waiting to be discovered and defined?

I'm certainly willing to explore that with anyone here who does believe that a law pertaining to the morality of, say, abortion can be articulated as objectively as astrophysicists can encompass the motion of planets around the Sun.

It would certainly be helpful if they were, and if those discoveries were subsequently made, and the foundations of ethics at last established. All those testing moral dilemmas would melt away. Difficult decisions could be solved as easily as pressing the ‘equals’ sign on a calculator. People would only need to apply the right formula for the answer to be clear.

Instead, in the West, we are still in the same boat now going all the way back to the Pre-Socratic philosophers: mired in "conflicting goods". What "foundations of ethics"? Especially when compared to the extraordinary achievements in science.

And have the Eastern philosophers fared any better?

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Right & Wrong About Right & Wrong
Paul Stearns argues against moral relativism and moral presentism.

First, in Orthodoxy (1908), G.K. Chesterton argued that those who believe the present is more advanced often say that people should ‘get with the times’, but this is no more useful than saying ‘Get with Thursday at 3 pm instead of Friday at 1 pm’. Time is just a number, and it is no help to tell people to ‘get with the times’. Should you get with the abolitionists or with the slaveholders in their time? Or in modern times, do you get with the moral vegetarians or the moral carnivores? How can one ‘get with the times’, when the times always contain contradictory views?

How about those who argued "get with the times" in communities where witch hunts and human sacrifice was justified as a "foundation of morality"?

Back to this part:

The relativist or presentist may ask, “Are you saying I share the same morality as those who engaged in witch-hunting and human sacrifice?”

My answer is “Yes, basically.” Like you, their morality was based on reducing unnecessary suffering, creating order, being fair, and the other primary values. They just differed in how those values were to be applied. As C.S. Lewis argued in Mere Christianity, you too might adopt witch-hunting if you really believed in witches who sold their souls to the devil to do his evil work of spoiling crops and killing children. The difference between you and the witch hunters is not that they had different fundamental values, it’s that they believed in malevolent, powerful witches while you don’t. Your disagreement with witch hunters is about facts, not about primary moral values.

Or am I misunderstanding his point?

Didn't many who enslaved black men, women and children, like many who eschewed eating animal flesh base their own convictions on what they deemed to be a fundamental "foundation of morality"?

How does this ever and always not evolve over time historically and around the planet culturally?

So instead of advising one to ‘get with the times’ (which often translates to ‘get with the majority’), one should advise people to get with their conscience, which tries to reduce unnecessary suffering, treat people with respect, and the rest. Generally, one should get with good reasoning and the deeper aspects of morality that do not depend on one’s culture, the majority opinion, or the time in which one lives. Get with morality instead of the times!

Okay, embrace abortion on demand or make them all illegal. Which is most likely to "reduce unnecessary suffering, treat people with respect, and the rest"?

Prohibit private citizens from owning guns or allow them to purchase whatever they can afford. Which is most likely to "reduce unnecessary suffering, treat people with respect, and the rest"?

Reduce government down to the manner in which Libertarians prefer it or expand it to accommodate the polices of those like Bernie Sanders. Which is most likely to "reduce unnecessary suffering, treat people with respect, and the rest"?

"Good reasoning and the deeper aspects of morality" then.

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Who’s To Say?
Michael-John Turp asks if anyone has the authority to establish moral truth

In some contexts, it makes sense to answer this question positively and suppose that there is someone with the authority to ‘say’, that is, to dictate the truth. For example, a Supreme Court might have the authority to say whether some law is constitutional.

On the other hand [as we all know] political prejudices underpin -- or undermine -- that authority time and again. Or Christians form the majority. And then the part where crony capitalism seeps in and, well, "money talks".

More prosaically, parents get to say that bedtime is at 8 o’clock. In these cases, a decision is made by an appropriate authority.

Prosaically indeed. More to the point [mine] parents have the authority to indoctrinate -- lovingly indoctrinate -- their children to believe in all manner of ofttimes conflicting value judgments in any particular community.

But philosophical questions are unlike this. We do not get to decide, for example, whether we have free will or whether God exists. In any case, there are no relevant authorities to whom we could delegate such decisions. I have wonderful philosophical colleagues, many of whom I suspect to be better-informed, smarter, and more virtuous than me. Sadly, I have no colleagues with the authority to decide whether for example the mind is identical to the brain.

Of course, over and again that's my point too. We can speculate philosophically about free will and God and morality, but it seems that it can never go beyond that. The particular "personal opinions" that we have "here and now". Religion and morality rooted existentially in dasein from my frame of mind and free will embedded in "the gap" between all that we think we know about it and all that would need to be known about it going back to a definitive understanding of existence itself. And in Rummy's Rule:

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."

And that is clearly the case in regard to an ontological -- teleological? deontological? -- grasp of the human brain.

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Ethical Truth in Light of Quantum Mechanics
Myles King contends that physics helps us understand ethics.

Certainly some moral positions do seem like absolutes. Genocide is truly appalling, and anyone who tries to say that it isn’t evil is beyond the pale. ‘Genocide is wrong’ is to us as certain as gravity.

Still, on the other hand, how can any moral positions taken in regard to any human behavior be demonstrated to in fact be inherently and necessarily evil in a No God world?

If men and women are physically able to do something there will always be those able to rationalize it. If only to insist that doing it brings them personal satisfaction. And down through the ages [for any number of complex personal reasons] what behaviors have not given at least someone personal satisfaction. However ghastly they might be deemed by most of us.

And then the fact that in a No God world, behaviors can be pursued such that, in the absence of an omniscient frame of mind, they are never found out about. How many unsolved murders and rapes and cases involving human trafficking and appalling child abuse are never, ever solved? With God there is no question of getting away with it. With God there is no question of punishment and justice.

The fact is that if next month the Big One hurtles down and smashes into planet Earth rendering the human species itself extinct...what then of objective or universal morality in a No God cosmos?

Though, sure, if you are able to think yourself into believing that you "just know" that some behaviors are inherently and necessarily immoral, fine, that need be as far as it goes. You believe it. That works to comfort and console you. It need go no further even if you are yourself obliterated from existence when the Big One hits.

But many moral quandaries seem much more like a matter of opinion. Is it okay to wear a yellow shirt to a funeral? Or to crush a beetle underfoot when running for a bus? These sort of questions depend on taste and context. They’re still moral questions, but for each one the balance between convenience and causing offense is open to debate. We can agree to differ on these issues and remain friends.

Let's face it, one way or another, virtually any behaviors that we choose can be deemed irrational or immoral by others when we choose them in a social context. Some clearly more trivial than others.

My point however is that in the absence of God, there does not appear to be a way for philosophers or ethicists to resolve any conflicts large or small. That and an assumption that all matters of "taste" are rooted subjectively in dasein.

And that this "personal opinion" of mine is most disturbing to many because I am suggesting in turn that this...

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted existentially and subjectively in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

...may one day become applicable to them too.

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Right & Wrong About Right & Wrong
Paul Stearns argues against moral relativism and moral presentism.

Second, I am tempted to reverse the narrative and argue that we are generally less moral than our ancestors (even the ones who owned slaves). Technologies such as social media and Weapons of Mass Destruction have made it much easier to demonize, dehumanize, and kill others.

And then the part that some suggest is often overlooked: pop culture and mindless consumerism. Along with the worship of celebrity in a context where each of us as individuals can seem to be utterly insignificant in a world brought to us increasingly on television, in the movies and in the news.

In other words, a world not of philosophies, but of "lifestyles".

Meanwhile, global economics helps us benefit from de facto slave labor, without our having to see the faces of the slaves. Indeed, there are many modern forces that make it easier for us to cause unnecessary suffering, demonize others, and, in general, be immoral, than it was for many bad people of past eras.

And isn't that peculiar? Morality that revolves as much around technology as social, political and economic interactions. It's not just what you do but how you go about doing it with technical capacities that our ancestors could scarcely imagine. Thus, new scientific/engineering/computer breakthroughs precipitating new economic parameters creating a new "global economy" that has, among other things, reconfigured the "class struggle". And now, politically, the reaction to all that such that, increasingly, democracy and the rule of law is giving way to more autocratic forms of governance. If not fascism itself.

What are "the foundations of morality that do not change" in our present "brave new world"?

In short, it is a narrow modern prejudice to say modern people are more moral than their ancestors. If you follow your conscience in any time, you will conflict with your times on some issues, and you will then have more in common with moral reformers in the past (or future) than you do with any other people in your own time. Moral people in all times experience the moral law, and the failure to live up to it.

Me? I'm still sticking with this: "Given what context?" Instead, how is the above not just another "general description intellectual contraption" that, depending on the context, can mean many different things to many different people living many different lives?

Your moral law?

Or morality as embraced by others:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

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Who’s To Say?
Michael-John Turp asks if anyone has the authority to establish moral truth

Moral relativists often start from the factual observation that different cultures endorse different customs, different laws, and different moral rules. There are evident cultural differences with respect to issues such as slavery, capital punishment, same-sex relationships, and alcohol use.

And then those like Paul Stearns come along with their antidote: "the foundations of morality...do not change". As though when traveling to these diverse cultures and finding yourself compelled to accept behavioral prescriptions and proscriptions regarding these and many other moral conflicts, at least you can be comforted in the knowledge that they too accept that "rules of behavior" are necessary.

Someone familiar with these differences naturally starts to wonder who, if anyone, is right. And who’s to say? It would be unwise to assume a priori that we are right. Perhaps, then, nobody is right. Perhaps then we should be sceptical of the very idea of moral truth. Perhaps there is no sensible talk of right and wrong in matters of morality. Some prefer vanilla ice-cream. Others prefer raspberry ice-cream. The Spartans preferred selective infanticide. Us, not so much.

Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps.

Unless, of course there are moral objectivists here who can provide us with an indisputable -- demonstrable? -- argument that selective infanticide is in fact inherently and necessarily immoral.

While others here attempt to go even further and provide us with unequivocal evidence that the Spartans who did selectively kill babies are now burning for all eternity in Hell. Just as the women who have abortions or the doctors who perform them today are damned in turn?

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Ethical Truth in Light of Quantum Mechanics
Myles King contends that physics helps us understand ethics.

Clues to Moral Reality

One problem for those seeking a Newtonian formula for ethics is that it’s hard to see how ethical statements can be like other facts about the world. For instance, society has a huge influence on what is perceived as right and wrong. Even absolute taboos like genocide have been accepted in Ancient Rome, Rwanda, Nazi Germany, and elsewhere. How can we know we’re right about it now? After all, eating meat and burning fossil fuels – widely acceptable behaviours for most of human history – may well come to be seen as morally reprehensible in just a few years’ time.

Well, my point of course is that, in the absence of God, we cannot know in a Newtonian sense when something is either moral or immoral.

On the other hand, based on my own assessment of dasein here, I have to acknowledge that given a new experience or a new relationship or access to new information and knowledge I may well change my mind about that. After all, how can I possibly grasp the world around us objectively if my own life is vastly different from others?

Or Google "is morality objective?"

You get this: https://www.google.com/search?source=hp ... gle+Search

[by the way, the very first link is this: https://philosophynow.org/issues/115/Is ... e%20Theory.

Still, there they are...page after page after page after page of links and articles and arguments that ponder this. So, what are you going to do...read them all? Just to be sure you don't miss something that might finally pin it down for you?

Or should you take my own frame of mind more seriously? That being "fractured and fragmented" morally is entirely reasonable in a No God world?

Also, how do we detect right and wrong? They’re not like planets to watch in the sky, or apples which hurt when they fall on our heads. We can’t smell, taste, or hear moral values. Instead, we conjure them in our minds – just like things we imagine which don’t really exist. This means right and wrong apparently have more in common with the Tooth Fairy than with the mass, distance, and time with which Newton mapped out the world.

Yep, that's my own point of course. So much pertaining to morality here at PN gets discussed in the Ethical Theory forum. Worlds of words defining and defending other words by and large. Which is why I am always suggesting that our theories about right and wrong need to be examined in regard actual sets of circumstances. Circumstances that are often become entangled in contingency, chance and change.

And let's not forget this regarding Isaac Newton:

Newton was certainly one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. He laid out the three laws of motion in his extraordinary Principia Mathematica. He discovered the law of universal gravitation, the famous inverse-distance-squared law. He wrote much about light and optics after performing his own original experiments on light. He invented calculus. He rejected the authority of the Greek philosopher Aristotle and promoted experiment-based science.

But it is not commonly known that Newton was also a devout Christian who wrote extensively about Christianity. We learn from his writings that he deeply studied the Bible along with writings of early Christian leaders. BYU

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Right & Wrong About Right & Wrong
Paul Stearns argues against moral relativism and moral presentism.

Let me clarify two points. First, I am not claiming I would have acted differently than people in the past who owned slaves or contributed to genocides, were I in their culture. On the contrary, both psychological experiments (for example, Milgram’s) and the evidence of history indicate that over 90% of us go along with authority and peer pressure (that is, with social norms) even if it involves acting against conscience.

What do I keep missing here? This is an argument "against moral relativism". And yet he seems to be defending both slavery and genocide because had he been around in a community that practiced them, the community itself might have construed both practices as the embodiment of their very own "foundation of morality". That's what seems important...that some cultures down through the ages embraced slavery and others did not. But: both cultures agreed that there was in fact a "foundation" for morality?

Help me out here.

But there is human conscience, and its roots are older than you and any culture. You do not have a better conscience simply because you live in modern times. Rather, at best we might say we’ve simply had longer to work out (or through) the secondary implications of the same universal, timeless, primary moral values.

Same thing. Some cultures believe that female genital mutilation reflects conscientious behavior, while other cultures do not. And we should not judge their practices by our own moral standards. So, is there a deontological moral argument that pins down definitively whether it either is or is not objectively right or wrong?

Philosophically -- scientifically? -- what encompasses universal, timeless, primary moral values here?

Second, some will argue that since there are obviously individuals and cultures who do not share any primary moral values, my thesis that some values are universal must be mistaken. For example, there are psychopaths whose primary value is to cause unnecessary suffering instead of reducing it.

Again, steer clear of the psychopaths. Why? Because it can be argued that if someone is literally suffering from one or another medical condition like a brain tumor, morality becomes increasingly more moot. They do what they do because they are compelled to by the diseased brain itself.

No, instead, focus in more on the sociopaths. In particular those who come to rationalize their behaviors philosophically by arguing that in a No God world it is not inherently and necessarily irrational to construe morality as revolving entirely around one's own self-gratification.

What is the philosophical argument that will convince the sociopaths that even if they do choose to use others solely as means to sustain their own selfish ends, they are in fact in violation of a fundamental "foundation of morality"?

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Who’s To Say?
Michael-John Turp asks if anyone has the authority to establish moral truth

Relatively Speaking

Perhaps you believe that the Earth is round. Following an unfortunate tumble down a YouTube rabbit hole, I believe that the Earth is flat. As a simple matter of logic, it seems there are three possibilities: you have a false belief, I have a false belief, or we both have false beliefs (okay, okay, so strictly speaking, the Earth is an irregular ellipsoid). Similarly, in cases of a moral disagreement, it might seem that either I’m right, you’re right, or neither of us is right.

How can the difference not be crystal clear? How can the capacity of the scientific community to establish that the Earth is in fact an irregular ellipsoid not be rationally differentiated from the philosophical community's capacity to establish what, morally, an abortion is? For one thing the Earth is always what it is. Whereas the circumstances revolving around particular abortions can vary considerably. We all live on the Earth together. But in regard to abortions each of us embodies our own uniquely personal situation. Both men and women inhabit Earth together. But only women can get pregnant.

Relativists, however, appeal to cases that don’t follow this pattern. Let’s say that you believe there is a monster on the right, whereas I believe that the same monster is on the left. In this case, it is possible that we both have true beliefs. Perhaps we are facing each other, gazing into one another’s eyes, looking for courage and reassurance. Or perhaps the monster has moved while we’ve been speaking. In these cases it turns out that the sentence “The monster is on the left” is strictly speaking neither true nor false: it is incomplete until a frame of reference is specified – for example, “The monster is on my left, right now.”

Okay, let's shift from a specific monster to "monsters" as construed politically by liberals and conservatives. Again, is it possible for philosophers and ethicists and political scientists to pin down what and who the monsters are such that whichever direction we are facing or in however manner we see them we can know if in fact they are monsters? In regard to an issue like abortion. Are those who perform or who have abortions the moral "monsters" here? Or are those who force pregnant women to give birth the moral "monsters"? Is the rapist the moral "monster" or are the authorities who force a woman made pregnant by the rapist to give birth the moral "monsters" as well?

Or is my own perspective more realistic? That, politically, moral monsters are perceived by us as individuals depending on all of the individual variables in our life that predispose us out in a particular world understood in a particular manner to embrace one rather than another set of moral and political prejudices. Morality rooted in dasein more so than in science or philosophy.

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Ethical Truth in Light of Quantum Mechanics
Myles King contends that physics helps us understand ethics.

But if we look closer we can find five clues about how right and wrong operate, and they point in a very interesting direction.

First, when you label an action ‘right’, you are forced to label any identical actions ‘right’, too. Only if you can point out a morally significant difference is it okay to describe, say, one killing as an awful murder, and the other as an acceptable homicide. In theory, by saying a particular action is right or wrong, you’re determining how right an identical action is, even if that twin is many miles or centuries away.

Only out in the real world, it's not very often that you can point to two or more sets of circumstances which really do completely overlap. At least pertaining to the is/ought world.

Suppose Jane murders Jim with a Glock 19. Suppose Jack murders Jean with a Glock 19. Now, in the either/or world, a Glock 19 is a Glock 19. There is the right way to manufacture it and the wrong way. But is there the right reason to kill another with it and a wrong way? Or is motivation and intention going to be all over the board? In particular sets of circumstances some will argue that it is moral to shoot another while others insist it was immoral.

Or suppose it's a bazooka. In America it's not illegal to own one. Or one of these weapons: https://www.online-paralegal-programs.c ... in-the-us/

Again, there's a right way to manufacture the best of them and a wrong way. But is there a way in which to pin down instances where it is moral to use them or immoral to use them? There's the law of course. But the law is bursting at the seams with both mitigating and aggravating circumstances. And the laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, from country to country.

The weapons are the same. But not the prescriptions and proscription pertaining to either the buying and selling of them or the use of them. That encompasses considerably more problematic and ambiguous perspectives. And often flat-out conflicting "personal opinions".

Second, the labels of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ only apply to certain things. An action can be good; as can be a state of mind or an intention; and outcomes can be compared in similar terms, some being fairer than others. But an inanimate object, like a chair, isn’t good or bad in quite the same (moral) way. When we describe art, engineering, or dental work as ‘good’, we are showing a different sort of admiration or assessment of it. It’s not usually a moral judgement.

Only to certain things. Some things being fairer than others. Good and bad in the either/or world versus good and bad in the is/ought world. You use a well-constructed chair to clobber another over the head repeatedly, killing her. Was your reason a well-constructed one or a badly constructed one? One can admire the craftsmanship that went into the making of the chair. But what about the killing involving the chair?

As for this part -- "Ethical Truth in Light of Quantum Mechanics" -- that hasn't actually come up yet.

Third, it’s only possible to develop a coherent form of ethics when we apply labels of good or bad to just a single type at a time – intentions, or actions, or outcomes. Many moral dilemmas arise when we mix these ways of judging.

Exactly. Are your intentions and behaviors precipitating a particular outcome ethically coherent of not? Says who?

Here's one way to go about calculating this:

Bentham’s ethics, for example, offers a judgement for every decision, based solely on how happy people end up: for him, more happiness is always better. But his ethics seem odd when judged from the point of view of actions or intentions: would it really be right to force two innocent people to duel to the death if it made forty thousand spectators ecstatically happy? Twice as right with an audience of eighty thousand? It seems as if ethics can operate clearly in a single realm or dimension, but problems come when we shift from one dimension to another.

Okay, Mr. Deontologist, deconstruct Bentham here and propose the most rational assessment of, say, the Roman Games way back when.

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Who’s To Say?
Michael-John Turp asks if anyone has the authority to establish moral truth

This is also the model relativists propose for moral truth: they say that ‘X is morally right’ is incomplete in the same sort of way as ‘X is on the left’ is. For instance, say that the Dothraki [in Game of Thrones] hold that slavery is morally permissible, and the Westerosi hold, to the apparent contrary, that slavery is morally impermissible. It looks like only one group (at most) can be right. But the relativist’s ingenious suggestion is that both Dothraki and Westerosi can be right relative to their respective cultures: slavery is morally permissible to the Dothraki and morally impermissible to the Westerosi.

Ingenious suggestion? For some of us, there is nothing ingenious about it at all. It simply reflects the assumptions that in a No God world any and all human behaviors can be rationalized. Why? Because once theological fonts are eliminated, there is no equivalent of Divine Commandments able to be provided from either the scientific or the philosophical communities.

In fact, is there a "science of slavery"?

Start here: https://www.google.com/search?source=hp ... gle+Search

As for philosophers:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/et ... n%2Dslaves.

On the one hand, this model of morality seems less judgy and more tolerant. On the other hand, it means that the moral status of slavery doesn’t directly depend on facts concerning, say, human wellbeing, equality, dignity and autonomy. Rather, the morality or otherwise of slavery depends on the attitudes of a relevant authority, that is, the prevailing cultural attitudes among the Dothraki and Westerosi.

There you go. Slavery as as manifestation of might makes right. Slavery as a manifestation of right makes might.

And then those today who argue that employing wage slaves is equally repugnant morally.

This is, to put it mildly, a surprising conclusion. The obvious worry is that prevailing cultural attitudes sometimes fail to withstand reflective scrutiny. Simply put, it seems like every culture (and individual) gets some things wrong morally.

Or, simply put, this frame of mind in and of itself in regard to slavery presumes that there actually is a way to get it morally right. And, sure, there may well be. Let's hear the deontological argument establishing this.

But even if one is found, tell it to the sociopaths. In a God world, if slavery is a Sin, there are consequences: Judgment Day for most. But in a No God world, there are consequences only if you get caught. And only in communities where particular behaviors result in actual punishments.

[iambiguous]

Right & Wrong About Right & Wrong
Paul Stearns argues against moral relativism and moral presentism.

The problem with this objection [above] is that it is based on a misunderstanding of the thesis. This asserts there are universal moral values – moral values that are true for all times and places in human history – not that everyone recognizes or follows them. A math analogy can help one see the confusion. The person who believes that 2+2=5 does not have a different math, thus proving that mathematics is not universal; instead they are mathematically deficient. In a similar way, the person who feels no obligation to reduce unnecessary suffering does not have a different morality, but is instead outside the sphere of morality. Such a person does not refute the thesis of universal basic morality, but is instead morally deficient.

Again...

Note a moral conflagration that has rent the species down through the ages. My argument is that it is one thing to claim that reducing human suffering in regard to it is a "universal moral" pursuit, and another thing altogether to pin down the actual political policy that accomplishes this in an actual flesh and blood human community.

Let's choose capital punishment as an example. Everyone in the community can agree that reducing human suffering should be the overarching goal of the legal system in that community.

But: those on both sides have their own rooted existentially in dasein moral and political prejudices regarding which suffering counts more. Execute a prisoner and the families and friends of the person he or she killed and caused great suffering to feel some measure of justice, of closure. But what about the suffering of the family and friends of the prisoner executed? Is their suffering the moral equivalent of 2 + 2 = 5?

Start here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... n#p2359312

Now, connect the dots between human suffering, human justice and universal human morality.

To conclude, different cultures and times do not have radically different moral values, and it is a mistake to believe we are fundamentally morally advanced simply because we are modern. While we do have better factual knowledge about how to reduce suffering (for example, germ theory and polio vaccines), the moral obligation to reduce unnecessary suffering is a timeless primary value that we share with our ancestors, and to some degree even with other primates.

It is difficult to be highly moral in any time, because in all times people are tempted to demonize others and cause unnecessary suffering when it is in their self-interest. This is why the moral heroes of different times have more in common with each other than they do with the majority in their own time. When someone understands these points, they are less likely to dismiss morality itself as a product of their time or culture.

Let's call this what it is: a general description intellectual contraption that anchors morality to a world of words. Try taking his argument to, say, Texas and get reactions to it from citizens there in regard to capital punishment.

Then get back to us.