refuting relativism

[Clodfobble]

So FGM isn't okay, but we should pretend we think it is for the greater good of peace between our cultures?

[limey]

Originally Posted by Be Less Bored

Ahh the toasty warm glow of irony. No class project here unless I can consider you all lab animals.

I expect you do.

And what are we to make of "throwing turnips off the truck" and "location: not on a farm"??

[jaguar]

no....Merely that making people aware of their tendency to assume cultural superiority due to a lack of understanding is a good idea. This does not mean you need to swallow morally abhorrent practices. Ever noticed how a lot of people tend to subconsciously assume foreigners are stupid or naive simply because they don't speak the same language and don't have much realy ability to communicate? Same thing.

[mrnoodle]

stealing from the dictionary here:

"Moral" implies conformity to established sanctioned codes or accepted notions of right and wrong.

"Ethical" may suggest the involvement of more difficult or subtle questions of rightness, fairness, or equity.

"Virtuous" implies the possession or manifestation of moral excellence in character.

"Righteous" stresses guiltlessness or blamelessness and often suggests the sanctimonious.

"Noble" implies moral eminence and freedom from anything petty, mean, or dubious in conduct and character.

By those definitions, morality can change as "established sanctioned codes" change. I don't think "ethical" is any different, no matter what Merriam-Webster's says. Ethics are measured by the same code as morality, to me.

Virtue is a little more complex, because it introduces the idea that right or wrong might exist outside of established code. And it's tied directly to righteousness. Virtue and righteousness can't be judged by anyone who isn't themself virtuous and righteous, so relativism is a nice safe way of avoiding the question. After all, who am I to judge?

So it seems to me like everyone has to ask themselves if there is such a thing as absolute right and wrong. Is slavery wrong? Why? Not because it's hurtful or demeaning...a car accident is both of those things, as well. Is it one person's disregard of another's needs that makes it wrong? We disregard the needs of others on a daily basis (although with less impact). What makes slavery "wrong"?

There must be something or someone who established that concept...because even thought we disagree on what is or isn't "wrong", we all know that it's best to treat someone as you'd like to be treated.

I say without a righteous God against whom we can measure our actions, there is no right or wrong. And sm has already disproven relativism, so there we have it.

See you in church

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

There must be something or someone who established that concept...because even thought we disagree on what is or isn't "wrong", we all know that it's best to treat someone as you'd like to be treated.

That's called empathy, or the ability to imagine yourself in another's place. The optimist in me hopes that people will be empathetic even if they aren't worried about punishment after death. The pessimist in me worries that many people are only empathetic when other people are looking, and one of the first things about God that is drilled into childrens' minds is that He's always looking.

[vsp]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

I say without a righteous God against whom we can measure our actions, there is no right or wrong. And sm has already disproven relativism, so there we have it.

Disproven? I do not think that word means what you think it means.

There is no _absolute_ right or wrong without some sort of all-defining authority figure that sets the standards for what is right and wrong. Even relativists will agree with you on that. It's the question of whether such a figure (a) exists and (b) has such authority that causes battle lines to be drawn among philosophers.

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

The pessimist in me worries that many people are only empathetic when other people are looking, and one of the first things about God that is drilled into childrens' minds is that He's always looking.

Yep. He knows when you are sleeping, He knows when you're awake, He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for -- whoops! Wrong authority figure.

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

Think of Germany in 1939, and Germany in 2005. The relativism is bound to defend the idea that the culture has not progressed morally. Moral progress has two necessary conditions that relativism doesn't allow: an objective goal, and a standard measure of deficiency. A sprinter who exhibits progress does so against an objective measure (covering the same distance in less time) and with a standard measure of deficiency ( a stopwatch and a set marked off distance). A relativist is not allowed either of those tools.

Not necessarily so. A relativist can judge modern Germany to be superior to Hitler's Germany by his own standards; he simply recognizes that that judgement and those standards are _opinion_ and not binding fact. Moral relativism does not preclude _all_ moral and value judgements; it precludes endorsement of enforcement of one set of standards for all.

Not all relativists are fundamentalist about relativism, just as not all religious people are 100% devoted to the absolute truth of their faith.

If I disapprove of my neighbor's lifestyle and he of mine, that's our prerogative. But if I say "I don't like what he does, but I will tolerate it and not interfere, because I want him to tolerate the standards by which I live and leave _me_ alone in return," is that not relativism to a significant degree?

If I disapprove of my neighbor's lifestyle and take steps to try to change it (say, trying to get laws enacted that would outlaw said lifestyle), _that_ is a different story. I lump all "We need Law X because God Says X Is Right/Wrong" movements into that category, for reference.

[mrnoodle]

Making things too complicated for my little brain. You're saying that relativists apply relativism to the concept of relativism itself? That personal opinion is the trump card, and it can be played at any time, under any circumstances, to excuse anything?

Because if it can't, then there has to be an absolute right and wrong out there somewhere.

[jinx]

Excuse from what? Other personal opinions? A jail sentence? The wrath of god?

[mrnoodle]

excuse from the right/wrong standard. in other words, there's either such a thing as right/wrong, or there is no such thing, and personal opinion is the only measurement.

[russotto]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

stealing from the dictionary here:

"Moral" implies conformity to established sanctioned codes or accepted notions of right and wrong.

"Ethical" may suggest the involvement of more difficult or subtle questions of rightness, fairness, or equity.

I believe your dictionary has these exactly backwards; formal codes of behavior for various professionas are often called Professional Codes of Ethics.

"Noble" implies moral eminence and freedom from anything petty, mean, or dubious in conduct and character.

And here I thought it meant your ancestors had a "von" in their name :-)

I say without a righteous God against whom we can measure our actions, there is no right or wrong.

Lots of religious people make this argument, but it's still without foundation.

[mrnoodle]

so there can be right/wrong, but it's entirely arbitrary?

[vsp]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

Making things too complicated for my little brain. You're saying that relativists apply relativism to the concept of relativism itself? That personal opinion is the trump card, and it can be played at any time, under any circumstances, to excuse anything?

To a degree. That's why they call it OPINION. Whether that opinion is binding on anyone other than the opinion's holder is a different question.

I have my own set of standards, honed by 30+ years of life experiences, my upbringing, my studies and interaction with other people. I have strong opinions as to what I consider to be "right and wrong," and to what degrees things are so. I see a huge grey area in between "right" and "wrong" and try to view things from multiple perspectives when forming opinions about them. (Except for the Oakland Raiders, who are just scum and should be destroyed by celestial fire, but I digress.) My standards are MY standards, not yours, and if I want my right to my own opinion to be respected, I have to grant you the right to yours.

Does that mean that I can murder someone in cold blood and go scot free by saying "Oh, it's okay, it doesn't conflict with my moral system?" ANARCHY FOR THE U.S.! Of course not, because the person I killed is rather likely to have disagreed with my motivation and the desirability of the outcome, and society at large will judge that I have violated the victim's rights and act accordingly.

A civilized society generally forms a base-level premise for regulating behavior, being a code of law. Every code of law has a basic concept at its core. You can call it the Golden Rule, you can call it the Wiccan Rede, you can pluck it out of the New Testament, but it boils down fairly simply regardless of its source: don't harm others and others shouldn't harm you. Don't murder, don't cheat, don't steal, don't cause damage, and if everyone lives up to that, everyone's pretty happy. Everyone has a right to act as they wish, as long as they don't violate or impede others' rights to act as THEY wish.

Even then, there are exceptions. "Thou shalt not kill," for example. If someone's trying to kill me, have I the right to shoot him? If someone is dying a hideous and painful slow death and wants to die, have I the right to assist him in dying more rapidly and painlessly? If I'm fighting as a soldier against a nation that wants to subjugate and/or kill me and my fellow citizens, is _that_ wrong? If I catch someone raping my daughter and shoot him in the head in a flash of raw anger, is that just as "wrong" as if the rapist had shot the victim instead?

There are eighty million ways of interpreting what constitutes actual "harm," and that's why laws differ greatly from place to place. My interpretation of law is that it should maximize individual choice of action as much as possible while preventing harm and protecting the rights of others to _their_ choices of action. There will always be areas of disagreement and grey areas where individuals' value systems clash, and the law should be as neutral as possible in those areas.

Thus, if someone proposes a law, it had better well have a secular justification behind it that's clear and that those of many (or no) faiths can agree upon. Religion sits on top of the law, providing additional behavior restrictions based upon the dictates of a deity; those restrictions are OPTIONAL, as being a member of any particular religion is optional. When people enact laws based on religious belief, I get angry, because _that_ is an unwarranted restriction and an infringement upon the rights of those not of that faith.

This is why the fight against those who aggressively seek to fight the "culture war" and impose Christian morality on America is so important. "God says it's wrong" is _absolutely_ not a valid basis for a law in this country. That doesn't mean that everything should be legal regardless of what Christians think, or that people should be prohibited from living their lives according to Christian standards; far from it. The vast majority of Christians are quite capable of tolerance; they may not approve of other faiths or atheists, but they're not offended to the point of action by their very _existence_.

It's just a shame that those who are not capable of tolerance have organized and lobbied so well.

But to summarize: My refusal to live by the standards and tenets of your authority figure _can_ make my lifestyle "wrong" according to your moral system. You are entitled to the opinion that your moral system is 100% correct and that everyone on Earth would benefit if they lived by that system. You are entitled to believe that there _is_ a universal "right and wrong." That doesn't make it TRUE for anyone but you, and I reserve the right to point and giggle if you or anyone else says so.

There are a lot of people in this country still coming to terms with the fact that just because God Doesn't Like Something doesn't mean that it can or should be made illegal, because to do so would be unfair to those who disbelieve in God. The existence of God is opinion, _not_ fact, and the law should never presume that it _is_ fact, though it should preserve the rights of those who believe in God to act accordingly.

[mrnoodle]

I didn't mean for you to extrapolate it to that level, but you write well.

If you were to explain it to a kindergartener, what would you say? "There's not really any right and wrong, Junior. Just a bunch of gray in which we stumble around and try not to run into each other too much."

When you read about someone who rapes and murders an 8-year-old girl, you do not default to a societal definition of rape and murder to judge whether or not the perpetrator has done something worthy of punishment. Your very soul screams out the wrongness of it, and you could have never read a book or heard a law spoken in your life. Now, later on you could argue about whether the perp was "evil" or just "sick", but the wrongness of the action itself is obvious. Set in stone, eternally wrong because it violates a law that is inbred in us.

Ok, maybe you don't agree with that. Maybe you think that the idea of child rape is just one of many ideas floating about the universal consciousness that we have identified as "wrong" because it's a threat to our social constructs and our biological survival. Fine. But in hindsight, is that REALLY your deepest reaction? Really? I don't think it is.

[vsp]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

If you were to explain it to a kindergartener, what would you say? "There's not really any right and wrong, Junior. Just a bunch of gray in which we stumble around and try not to run into each other too much."

That's why the Golden Rule is simple, because kindergarteners aren't generally capable of thinking about the world in philosophical terms. Adults are often capable of more discerning judgement.

When you read about someone who rapes and murders an 8-year-old girl, you do not default to a societal definition of rape and murder to judge whether or not the perpetrator has done something worthy of punishment. Your very soul screams out the wrongness of it, and you could have never read a book or heard a law spoken in your life. Now, later on you could argue about whether the perp was "evil" or just "sick", but the wrongness of the action itself is obvious. Set in stone, eternally wrong because it violates a law that is inbred in us.

Ok, maybe you don't agree with that. Maybe you think that the idea of child rape is just one of many ideas floating about the universal consciousness that we have identified as "wrong" because it's a threat to our social constructs and our biological survival. Fine. But in hindsight, is that REALLY your deepest reaction? Really? I don't think it is.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to come across a raped-and-murdered child and determine that the child's rights, beliefs and morals have been violated, as that's about as primal and basic of a violation as there can be. I would have to go to ludicrous levels of strawmanhood to form a counter-argument where justification for the perpetrator's actions could be found. (But you knew that.)

I don't believe that there _are_ "laws that are inbred in us." We are animals, after all, merely highly intelligent and sophisticated animals. If you raised a child in complete isolation, devoid of all interaction with humans or intellectual or social instruction, would he or she not be as much of a slavering, snarling animal at maturity as (let's say) a warthog or a ferret?

Those "obvious" moral beliefs are generally extremely strong because we're raised by and amidst hundreds, thousands and millions of others who are raised to believe the same kinds of things. If I tell my kid that Santa is real, he may believe; if I tell him that and then he finds that every other kid in his school was told that by _their_ parents, he's even more likely to believe, due to massive peer-and-authority-figure reinforcement. Likewise, if it's drilled into kids from infancy that fighting, stealing, lying, killing, etc. are "wrong" and the vast majority of parents agree on that same basic message, it tends to stick.

The difference between God and Santa Claus is that, at some point, the _parents_ no longer believe in Santa and allow that to pass on to their kids. More and more kids are allowed to peek behind the curtain and see that Santa is a myth, so to speak, and the chain of reinforcement breaks. When parents remain convinced about God and reinforce that with their kids, and when many others in the society do the same and perpetuate the God meme, that's a harder habit to break.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

Ok, maybe you don't agree with that. Maybe you think that the idea of child rape is just one of many ideas floating about the universal consciousness that we have identified as "wrong" because it's a threat to our social constructs and our biological survival. Fine. But in hindsight, is that REALLY your deepest reaction? Really? I don't think it is.

So you're saying we should abandon reason in the face of the purported words of an invisible man/woman/whatever? And which one? Take your time, pick carefully, there's plenty to chose from.