Can anyone really BE a moral relativist?

Not doing anything wrong doesn't equate to doing something right. I can sit in my chair and not do anything wrong. But it doesn't mean I'm doing something right either. IOW, amorality does not equal morality. They are the precise opposites of each other.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

And what, exactly, are you hoping to accomplish by posting this? What point are you trying to make? Obviously you think it should be obvious, but I assure you, it isn't.

I've noticed you hide behind quotes when pressed to answer difficult questions. Let's try to break that nasty habit, shall we?

In what way is this principle objectively correct? What makes it inherently true?

Is it that you don't want to learn, or simply can't learn?

Now, allow me to restate the questions you failed to answer from my last post:


t's like if I say to you, "I hate women, and believe they should be kept as property." How would you objectively refute me, keeping in mind that you can only use principles that we both must hold?

Treating women right is morally good because I value the welfare of women; protecting children is morally good because I value the welfare of children. If I value neither of these things, what objective principle makes me objectively wrong?

The longer answer is, what the hell kind of question is that? Have you ever investigated the source of your own moral code? Can you tell me the principles that have objective, intrinsic moral value?

Binding according to whom?

How so? Is your belief that milk is good invalidated because someone else thinks it's yucky and there is no objective barometer for who is right?

Did you freely choose your moral code, or was it naturally derived from the values and principles you developed over the course of your life?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

How ironic. You claim dictionaries are inferior because they rely on popular usage, yet your own personal definition of the terms is derived from your own experiences with popular usage:

I'm not confused at all. I have a clear understanding of the terms, whereas your personal definitions leave you contradicting yourself:

Morality is an absolute. Something cannot be right in one case and wrong in another.​

And...

[The moral implications of an action d]epends on whether I volunteered to be in that situation.​

No, the definitions you provided are useless. Consider your fundamental differentiation between morality and ethics:

Morality relates to right vs wrong. Ethics relates to good vs bad.​

They're the same thing, you're just trying to draw an arbitrary line between them. You even conflated the terms in a later post, and failed to explain any of your claims. (For example, why your view of morality is binary, or why your view of ethics isn't)

This kind of unearned bluster is typical of small men. Color me unimpressed.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

That's a pretty off-the-wall statement, considering that the example you're discussing is a man killing his wife. He clearly felt he was morally justified in his actions.

That's like saying a banana is the opposite of an apple. Amorality is neither moral or immoral; it has no moral value either way.

Immoral is the opposite of moral.

 

Word of advice Mr. Balerion. If you want to continue a civil dialogue with someone do not address them like your abused stepchild. Do not talk down to them and attack them for not responding to your posts according to your personal timetable. As I've said before, all you really do in this forum is get into petty pissing matches trying to prove something over and over to yourself that you evidently must constantly be unsure about. Or is this just the fruition of your nihilistic relativistic outlook? An inability to respect people simply as human beings because afterall, there's certainly no objective logic or reason for doing so is there? Learn respect little man. It will get you much further in this world than being an asshole will.

 

One thing I learned early on is that people treat you the way you teach them to treat you. Act with integrity, people will generally react in kind. If you didn't supplement your genuinely impressive intellect by dodging questions and acting like a dishonest prig, I wouldn't be so quick to assume the absence of answers isn't just you trying to save face. Since you do, however, my assumption was reasonable.

And your little "woe is me" rant (you're quite good at giving, but not nearly as good at receiving) has done nothing to change my mind.

There's a reason ad hominem is so popular - it's easier to defeat my arguments by discrediting me than it is to refute the arguments themselves. You're not impressing me, and you're certainly not hurting my feelings, and I doubt this ploy has fooled anyone whose opinion you'd give two wet farts about. So what's the point? If you can't answer the questions, then say so. Or don't reply at all. That was a tactic wynn employed to great effect. But getting indignant about my behavior when I saw you call someone an "ignorant troll" earlier while prancing around pretending to be a moderator is about as hypocritical as one can get.

In other words, grow up or shut up.

And I do respect your intelligence, for the record. I think you're a smart cat, and unlike most people I find myself debating with on this forum, you actually make me question my beliefs. People like you - when you're acting with integrity - are the reason places like this are enjoyable. But this shit you're pulling here - or trying to pull here - is unworthy of respect, and you won't get any from me for it.

 

The only contradiction is in your mind. Morality IS absolute. The definition of that absolute is whether it is voluntary (one case) or involuntary (the other). Something that is voluntary is right and cannot be wrong.

 

And this is the root of your confusion. They are different words with different meanings. But people like you have so perverted the meanings that you can no longer think of the basic concepts clearly. I merely assigned meanings back to the words to reflect what they seemed to innately mean to most folks. But of course they were just good, plain old folk, not folks who ponder the whichness of what like you and me.

Why, I'd bet if you got to a bunch of different dictionaries and examine the DIFFERENCES of the definitions, you might just figure something out.

 

Thank you, Ted, that was the point.

Then morality becomes individual, or at most cultural/societal. I use my individual moral code to guide my life; others use theirs for their lives. As long as we don't come into conflict, there's not really any problem at all. And if'n we do? Then we follow our own morals and hopefully come to a resolution.

 

Look Balerion. I wasn't born yesterday. I know all the slippery tactics of "winning" arguments here. The taking out of context of each statement by a poster and responding to them like independent assertions: "What you said makes no sense." "The best defense is a good offense" strategy of keeping your opponent so backed into a corner with questions he doesn't have time to question your own position: "See how you're evading my questions!" The pushing of the interrogation sessions to such ridiculous and meticulously-detailed lengths that one of the posters just gives up out of exhaustion: "Can't you keep up with me you little wimp? You lose!" So don't pretend you don't know what you're doin here.Your quite the pro at this. I WILL respond to your last response to me in my own time. But I'm not going to play games here.

 

Morality doesn't require doing anything right. It only requires not doing anything wrong. That's why moral codes tend to be framed in terms of "thou shalt NOT" instead of "thou shalt".

The opposite of morality is IMmorality, doing wrong. Thus, morality is NOT doing wrong. Amorality is not having a sense of right and wrong.

 

Who's Ted?

An "individual morality" is no longer a morality. It is pretty much doin whatever you feel like without obligation to any principle. And besides, we know that one's own cultural/societal morality is often judged by it's own members to be wrong. Case in point: slavery. Culturally slavery was totally ok at one time. It was good for the economy. And many even thought it was good for the slaves. But people began to judge it as in principle wrong. As with all true morality, they arrived at their own sense of a more universal right and wrong that transcended any culture or society. Something about being a human being gave you the inalienable right to be free. Today just about everybody agrees that enslaving another human being is universally wrong regardless of the culture or historical period. Other examples: I was raised a christian anti-abortionist. Today I am a non-christian pro-choicer. How did THAT happen if my culture and raising entirely determine what my morality is?

 

By that standard a comatose man would be a saint! No..I just don't agree. Not killing people doesn't make me a good person. I may afterall not kill simply because I am too afraid of the consequences.That's why legislating morality never works. You're effectually only motivating people by fear of authority and punishment. And that's not morality. What makes me a good person is the good I do for others. Again, not being bad is not being good. Morality is action according to principle. A principle you generalize to all humans the moment you act upon it.

 

A saint does actively do good things. He is no more moral than somebody who does nothing bad. We have different words for "moral" and "saintly" because they're different concepts.

Sure it does. Good is the opposite of bad. Your motivation doesn't matter as long as you don't do what's bad.

Actively doing good makes you a better person. You don't have to "do good" to be good.

After all, what does "doing good" even mean? My neighbour doesn't have to paint my house to be a "good neighbour". All he has to do is not have loud parties.

Morality is a choice between actions - e.g. killing or not killing. (Yes, inaction does count as an action.) You make the choice that seems "right".

There may be conflicting "principles" involved (Is it "right" to kill one person to save ten lives?), so what seems "right" varies with circumstances.

Your definition of morality is tailored to make your conclusion right. Unfortunately, your definition of morality doesn't have much value. Humans act as individuals. Only philosophers "generalize to all humans".

 

What is "objectively refuting"? The use of logic to justify moral action? But then that would just be logic wouldn't it? Why call it morality when you aren't appealing to some commonly believed-in principle? You wanna know what the moral basis is for treating women as equals? Look into your own soul. It is the belief that all human beings should be treated equally and fairly. It is a self-evident value that if you as a human being have natural rights in a society, then every other human must have them too. By this same principle we oppose ALL discrimination in fact. Racism. Ageism. Classism. Homophobia. Ethicism. Human beings HAVE these rights. And if someone else doesn't believe that than they are simply wrong.

Principles based on inherent natural value or rights ARE universal by nature. They ARE principles we should all follow. How can they not be, unless you are positing a race of beings that don't share our humanity.

If you do not believe human beings have inherent rights and responsibilities just by being human, then no you don't think your's or anyone else's morals apply universally. You'd say, "What I think should be done doesn't apply to anyone else but myself." But then how is that a moral? You're essentially decodifying a certain behavior and tying to your own unique circumstances and perspective. That's not a morality. That's just reasonable action. Like taking an umbrella with you in a rainstorm. You do it because it makes sense, not because you think it is the right thing to do.

Over and above being different races and creeds and cultures everyone on this planet shares a common humanity. It is a state of being that automatically comes with certain inherent rights and responsibilities. Even in the case of women being equal vs. women being property, we have the possibility of agreement by appealing to our common humanity. This is actually a quite modern and enlightened ethic that comes straight out of science. Science has more than any other value system allowed us to increasingly define ourselves in universal speciel terms that transcends culture and historical period. The absolutisms of each our own creeds and value systems have been superceded by the absolutism of a natural humanism. Surely you know this in yourself. Don't you agree there is inherent universal value in being a free and equal human being?

The dehumanization of human beings. As Kant put it, Treating people as means instead of an end. The belief in the principle of equality assumes inherent value as a human being. That's how you justify your belief in it for ALL cultures. You judge that believing women and children are just objects to be used is inherently wrong. How do you rationalize it? You don't. You accept the self-evidence of your valuation as absolute and universally binding. Just like you accept the principles of logic the same way. That is what it means to make a moral judgement.

But asked to give an account why you think that is a great movie (and notice "a great movie" is ALREADY an objective evaluation) you would list some aspects of it that exist objectively. The cinematography was well done. The acting was excellent. The dialogue was witty and engaging. The plot was intriguing and thought-provoking. You just can't say you really like a movie and then dismiss your own reasons for liking it as subjective tastes that have no root in the objective nature of the movie. Value, iow, objectifies itself as inherent to the object in the very act of judging. Ofcourse we are talking aesthetics here instead of morality. So there is certainly more subjective factors at play here there are in ethical decisions.

Yes..a prime one being the inherent dignity and value of a human being. Based on this principle, which I accept unconditionally, I am against discrimination, torture, abuse, bullying, murder, slander, intolerance, bigotry, slavery, rape, brainwashing and many more things I can't think of right off. Do I have a rationale or logic for believing this principle? No. But then why should I? I take the principle as axiomatically as I take it that a=a or that it is good to be alive.

Your confusing objectivity of principle with objectivity of reasoning. You overlook that an objective principle does not require objective reasoning to support it. It is of necessity true. It is as objectively true as the principles of logic are objectively true.

If your morality were simply a matter of individual tastes and preferences, then there's no reason to generalize your actions to a moral principle. There's no reason for saying good or bad or right or wrong since these adjective describe the objective value of acts themselves. You wouldn't iow be living by any moral principle at all anymore but more by a personal aesthetics of style. I don't doubt that some people can live like this, but I wouldn't call it morality anymore. More like the art of living a good..oops can't use THAT word..a beautiful or harmonious life!

But morality IS the objectification of principle beyond just your own choice. It IS the acknowledgement of the inherence of the good or bad in your particular choice, it's objective value, and hence it's universal application to all humans. Nine times outta ten when we choose to act, we are simply being pragmatic and reasonable. We are choosing based on the reasonableness and logic of the action. But when we choose to act on principle, we are saying this action has inherent value beyond just being practical or logical. This is seen in the many times moral action is NOT the most logical or practical thing to do. Take homeless people for example. The practical and logical thing, without any respect to a moral principle, would be to simply round them up and kill them. It would better our society. And it would put alot of people out their misery. But is that the moral thing to do? Absolutely not. We respect their dignity as fellow human beings and try to help them. Once again, doing so because it is inherently good to do so without the need for logic or practical justification.

I learned my moral code thru experimentation and direct experience and reflection.

That it applies to everyone regardless of culture or creed or historical epoch. When I do something good for example the act itself has the objective property of being good. I assume this objectivity in the act itself. And this objectivity is universally true.

 

A saint is a morally righteous being. Hence my choice to use it here.

Motivation is everything when it comes to morality. If I do good just to profit myself, then it is no longer good.

Sure you do. And you have to do the good for the right motivation too. Doing nothing isn't doing something. It's just doin nothing.

That would be a quiet neighbor. A good neighbor is someone you talk to and who is kind to you. Most my neighbors don't fit that description.

Morality is a choice between doing good or evil. Not a choice between doing nothing and doing evil. Noone in their right mind congratulates themselves on all the people they didn't kill today. There is no moral credit in not doing, because usually there is no motivation for not doing. There is only motivation in doing, which is why morality is a question of choosing good action, not not choosing bad action.

Seeming right may vary according to circumstance. But right doesn't. It pretty much applies to all people given that circumstance.

Humans act individually when they aren't acting morally. Humans act universally when they ARE acting morally. There is simply no way to act according to a principle you don't believe is objective and inherently right.

 

How ironic. You disregarded 95% of my post, opting instead to respond to only one passage as if it were the only assertion I was making or point I was raising. When called out on it, you project your own tactics onto me.

But, if you say you'll respond to the questions I raised, fine. I'll wait for your response. But I won't hold my breath, because I genuinely doubt you're going to bother. You would have already, if you had any intent on doing so.

EDIT: And just as I post this, I see you've responded. My apologies. I'll leave this here as a reminder to those who would jump to conclusions as I just did.

 

There is a misunderstanding about morality. Morality is about the best interests of the group. It is not about the needs of the individual but rather is about the best interest of the team. For example, thou shall not steal. From the POV of the group, if we all follow this rule there is less need for locks, lawyers, judges, police. There is less need to tie up resources defending and accusing one another. The group is better off with less resource pissed down the drained.

However, this rule may not optimize all individuals, since thieves will feel left out. The thief will want to alter the rule to make it easier to steal. He is not concerned for the group but for himself.

Morality is not relative, since allowing stealing, will raise the group costs. This can be measured with science. Not stealing would represent minimal emotional, psychological and material costs divided over the group. Allowing stealing causes group cost to rise. The rise in social costs is about immorality since moral is minimal costs.

Ethics is when the group is successful and prosperous, due to group morality and hard work, and they have extra resources to burn. Then we can make ethical decisions that water down morality, since the group can afford to pay some difference due to immorality. It is not morals that are relative, but rather ethics are relative. All those who wish to water down morality, can each argue that their drain on the group excess is the most important.

 

Objectivity is something that has inherent qualities irrespective of personal beliefs. So when I ask you to objectively refute my claim, I'm asking you to point out a principle that has a specific, intrinsic value. No, I'm not asking you to justify a behavior, I'm asking you to tell me what makes it so. Like, if I asked you to tell me why 1 + 1 = 2, you could give me the objective principle that makes the equation correct without having to explain why adhering to it is beneficial to society.

Morality itself is not an appeal to anything. One can have personal morals that they do not expect anyone else to follow. Indeed, many people do; how often do you hear "But that's just me," or something similar? In fact, a current example of this is the topic of openly-gay professional athletes. Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson recently had this to say regarding gay marriage:

“To each his own. I’m not with it," Peterson said of gay marriage, via NESN.com. "But you know I have relatives that are gay. I’m not biased towards them. I still treat them the same. I love'em. But again, I’m not with that. That’s not something I believe in. But, to each his own. "​

While his view on gay marriage is unfortunate, his willingness to accept that others feel differently - and unwillingness to impose his values on others - is commendable, and a perfect example of someone who doesn't assume that his way is the only way it should be done.

You toss around terms like "self-evident," yet it clearly isn't, as there are many places in the world where people aren't treated equally, and many people in the world who believe the opposite is self-evident. What do you make of that? It's your self-evident principle versus their self-evident principle; so who's right?

Non-sequitur. Even antebellum slave owners believed their slaves to be human. You happen to believe that shared humanity is the only requisite for justification of equal rights, but not everyone shares your opinion.

Morals can apply to the person or to the group. There's no rule that says morality must be applied universally. If it were, then killing would be universally wrong regardless of context. Yet I don't think you'd try to say it is. The fact that you can justify an action in one context that would be immoral in another speaks to the fact that you don't think morals should apply universally even just to you.

To put morality into context, all good deeds are done for selfish reasons, even if those selfish reasons are buried in your subconscious. When you do something to help another, even at your own expense, you're subconsciously propagating an action so that someone will do it for you if and when the time comes when you need help. So the usefulness of a deed does not invalidate it as a moral action.

According to whom? You realize not everyone shares this belief, don't you? Again, what makes your principle right while others are wrong? What's the essential rightness of your belief? You'll probably say that it's self-evident, but how do you solve the problem of someone else's self-evident belief being that not all humans deserve the same rights?

Yes, but "common humanity" in and of itself does not have any intrinsic value. You must believe that it is worth something in order to appeal to it. It's like if I said we should all share equal rights because we're white. I would need to explain to you what the intrinsic value is of whiteness, wouldn't I? There are no self-evident moral truths regarding whiteness, correct? The same applies to humanity.

Inherent value? No. I believe there is a value to it, but I understand that it is derived from my own personal value system, not some intrinsic property within humanity.

To say there is no rationalization in morality is absurd. Even objective values have a logical basis to them. "Why is this the way it is?" You can explain to me the principles behind 1 + 1 = 2, so surely you can explain to me the principle behind treating all others equally. And you have! You've told me it's because they have a shared humanity. What you haven't done is tell me what makes humanity intrinsically valuable. Saying it's "self-evidently" true is silly, as there are people who believe the opposite is self-evidently true, or at the very least don't see anything self-evident about it. In other words, it's no answer at all, and does nothing to explain why you believe what you believe.

Woah, hold up. Pump the brakes.

Seriously? Saying something is great is an objective statement? No, sorry, that's nakedly false. You seem to be very confused as to what subjective and objective actually mean. I'm not trying to be rude, but that's a pretty stunningly wrong statement you just made here. Opinions are not objective, MR.

Of course I'd list objective aspects of it. Otherwise nobody would know what I was talking about. Imagine what I'd sound like if I were only mentioning the subjective things?

Me: "Dude, you gotta enjoy this. It's crazy awesome."

You: "What's awesome?"

Me: "It! Man, it was ridiculous. In a good way! I laughed, I gasped, I even cried once! Go love it yourself!"

Now, if I were only listing objective things, I would sound like this: "There was cinematography. Also, there was acting. And dialogue. It had a plot, as well." As you can see, speaking purely subjectively, which I would need to do in order to meet your standards of my review being subjective, you wouldn't have the first clue as to what I was talking about. And if I only spoke objectively, you'd have no idea how I felt about it.

For one, you don't accept this principle unconditionally. Do you believe in the death penalty? Do you believe in the killing of others to save innocents? Then you do not believe human value is unconditional.

Secondly, to accept that humans have inherent dignity and value requires you to make that judgment for yourself; it isn't self-evidently true.

You're conflating determined value with the process of determining value. The value of a principle does not equate to the principles of logic. One is a determination, the other is a framework.

Your reasons for invalidating individual principles as morals are entirely arbitrary, and make no apparent sense. How personal morals equate to style is entirely opaque, so you're going to have to explain it to me if you want me on board.

No it isn't. That's simply how you view it. But there's nothing about morality that requires an objective measure, and indeed there seems to be no objective measure at all. Your answer to this is simply "I accept it unconditionally," but your acceptance of something without condition (even if it were true, which it isn't) doesn't equate to the principle being true. If it did, then the unconditional acceptance of God would mean that God really existed. It's circular: "This is true because I believe it; I believe it because it is true."

Would it better our society? I'm very confused by this idea that morality is inherent illogical. Being impractical is not the same as being illogical; one can act in an impractical manner while having a very logical concept in mind; ordering a huge cable television package and super-speed internet is impractical, but if it's available and you have the money, there's nothing illogical about it.

Helping disadvantaged people may put a person or group under great strain, but it can absolutely help better society.

Sure. But that says nothing of it's objectivity. You still need to value "humanity" as a worthy quality.

Exactly. It is derived from subjective values personally held.

Do you not see the fallacy here? "It is true because I assume it is." Would that work in any other context, MR?

 

So how do you tell "good" from "good"? If A does X and B does X, it looks the same to those of us on the outside. We don't know why A did X or why B did X. Maybe they're not sure of their motivations themselves. Is it possible that the X that A did is "good" and the same X that B did is not?

Exactly. He doesn't have to DO good; he only has to BE good.

What's the difference between "doing evil" and doing nothing? Sometimes it's wrong to do nothing and sometimes it's wrong to do something. You can't leave doing nothing out of the equation.

We're talking about morality, not self-congratulation. If you didn't kill anybody today, you didn't act immorally; therefore you acted morally.

Yes, given that circumstance. That's what relative morality means. Right is relative to the circumstances.

If that was true, there would be no such thing as guilt, no such thing as conscience - and morality wouldn't work at all.