Moral Relativity?

[Logiclul]

While some of what chadachada said was irrelevant for the purpose of the debate, I don't think that it is erroneous. He brought up many interesting things which in combination would seem to deteriorate the backing of your post (independent of the burden of proof aspect).

Depseadiver, in my opinion post 198 is nothing more than ad hominem, and is in fact an escape of sorts, not an attempt to resolve a personal problem.

Please do not stoop to such levels, I would expect more from one with your background.

 

[deepseadiver]

Wall of text: BEGONE!

Alright. Logiclul, you have my full and un-tamed respect. Out of every single sceptic I have ever met, you are the only one who had EVER been willing to share common ground with me. Because of that, you have my thanks, and respect, regardless of what you believe.

1. Worship no other Gods (Exodus 20:3)
2. Make no idols (ibid, 20:4)
3. Don't use God's name in vain (20:7)
4. Keep the Lord's day as a day of rest (20:8)
5. Respect your parents (20:12)
6. Do not murder (20:13)
7. Do not have sex out of wedlock (20:14)
8. Do not steal (20:15)
9. Don't lie against one another (20:16)
10. Do not wish for the things your neighbor has (wife, property etc) (20:17)

There are the big ones, all documented and referenced. If you want more I can give you more.

Thanks chap.

 

[deepseadiver]

While some of what chadachada said was irrelevant for the purpose of the debate, I don't think that it is erroneous. He brought up many interesting things which in combination would seem to deteriorate the backing of your post (independent of the burden of proof aspect).

Depseadiver, in my opinion post 198 is nothing more than ad hominem, and is in fact an escape of sorts, not an attempt to resolve a personal problem.

Please do not stoop to such levels, I would expect more from one with your background.

I apologize. In hindsight I realize I may have let my emotions run rampant. @chadachada. I hope you will forgive my thoughtless jab at you and your views. While I maintain that we will never agree, I will try to be more cordial (and realistic) in future.

 

[Logiclul]

Wall of text: BEGONE!

Alright. Logiclul, you have my full and un-tamed respect. Out of every single sceptic I have ever met, you are the only one who had EVER been willing to share common ground with me. Because of that, you have my thanks, and respect, regardless of what you believe.

1. Worship no other Gods (Exodus 20:3)
2. Make no idols (ibid, 20:4)
3. Don't use God's name in vain (20:7)
4. Keep the Lord's day as a day of rest (20:8)
5. Respect your parents (20:12)
6. Do not murder (20:13)
7. Do not have sex out of wedlock (20:14)
8. Do not steal (20:15)
9. Don't lie against one another (20:16)
10. Do not wish for the things your neighbor has (wife, property etc) (20:17)

There are the big ones, all documented and referenced. If you want more I can give you more.

Thanks chap.

Hm.. 10 rules you say?

What moral rule helps me decide what is the right thing to do when I have to choose between letting my sister go to the prom with a guy I know is bad news (but may have changed) and could hurt her, or intervening and somehow preventing them from going?

 

[deepseadiver]

@Mortai

This is a link to a well-written (in my opinion, maybe not in yours) paper by Ken Ham on the existance of God. As for His attributes, you'll find them in there too. The rules He created, well, I made Logiclul a list, but you can find them anywhere in the Bible.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/assets/pdf/radio/reallyagod.pdf
Thanks fellow!

Cheers.

 

[deepseadiver]

Wall of text: BEGONE!

Alright. Logiclul, you have my full and un-tamed respect. Out of every single sceptic I have ever met, you are the only one who had EVER been willing to share common ground with me. Because of that, you have my thanks, and respect, regardless of what you believe.

1. Worship no other Gods (Exodus 20:3)
2. Make no idols (ibid, 20:4)
3. Don't use God's name in vain (20:7)
4. Keep the Lord's day as a day of rest (20:8)
5. Respect your parents (20:12)
6. Do not murder (20:13)
7. Do not have sex out of wedlock (20:14)
8. Do not steal (20:15)
9. Don't lie against one another (20:16)
10. Do not wish for the things your neighbor has (wife, property etc) (20:17)

There are the big ones, all documented and referenced. If you want more I can give you more.

Thanks chap.

Hm.. 10 rules you say?

What moral rule helps me decide what is the right thing to do when I have to choose between letting my sister go to the prom with a guy I know is bad news (but may have changed) and could hurt her, or intervening and somehow preventing them from going?

Hey, good question! How does this do?: Proverbs 31:9 "...defend the rights of the poor and needy." By your own definition your sister would be in "need" of your better judgement in dates, and that would put her into the "needy" slot. If that's not as good as you were hoping for, let me know. I know that nowadays that list of 10 is not very comprehensive... but if you have more "special cases" for me, I am more than willing to give it my best pop.

Cheers!

 

[Logiclul]

Well the guy really makes my sister happy. And I don't really know if her judgment is wrong or not, I just know that in my opinion it likely is. Also if I'm defending her rights, shouldn't I be allowing her the right to make her own decisions (she is 18 and an adult, after all). He has made others girls happy before and still turned rotten though.

It seems like subjectively I should intervene, but objectively I should not.

 

[Smiley Face]

What I Said

I'll take your challenge!

It is immoral to intentionally and/or knowingly harm another innocent and nonthreatening person for your own amusement or benefit. It is moral to help another person especially when not expecting nor are otherwise aware of a direct and immediate return benefit for yourself.

Here's the proof that I can think of:

1. Having someone harm you certainly is detrimental to your own life and goals.
2. A population of individuals that ONLY harm each other for personal gain WILL NOT be able to achieve things that a group of cooperative individuals CAN achieve.
3. I cannot think of a single aspect of human progress that DIDNT result through cooperation and wasnt built upon achievements derived from previous acts of cooperation.
4. Social animals benefit from cooperation, even if not every individual cooperates fully, or even if the "rules" of that cooperation are not as complete as they could be.
5. Even solitary animals abide by "rules" that have evolved to reduce or mitigate one individual's ability to harm another. Things like "territory" and mating. How would there be any tigers if every tiger killed every other tiger in their vicinity?
6. Helping another person increases the odds that they will be able to help you in the future.
7. A population of individuals made fit and stable by mutual cooperation will be in a better possition to cooperate and achieve goals in the future.

Here's a RL example of the last point that addresses a debate raging in my country currently. A rich man paying taxes that are used to help feed a family through food stamps. Individuals in that family are able to survive and grow. Those taxes support an education system used by those individuals who in turn are able to build the roads the rich man drives on, build the house he lives in, and buy the products that his company sells from the money they are able to earn. Further tax revnue provides subsidies for higher education, producing skilled laborers for the rich man's company to hire.

How "rich" would this man be- if he had no road to drive on or had to build it himself, if he had no car to drive or had to build it himself, if he had no house to live in or had to build it himself, if everyone around him had to steal things from him in order to survive, if no one bought the products his company sold, or if there were no skilled labor for his company to hire?

Here's the thing - everything you've said is true, except that what you're describing isn't objective morality. It's the way a good (not 'morally good', but 'this pie is good') society functions. People construct a society that promotes 'the common good', but this ISN'T because they have the Big Book of GOOD and EVIL, which tells them what to do, and they do it 'Because that's the way things are' - which, by the way, is what moral objectivists do, to some extent or another - rather, society is constructed to work towards the common good because it's in everyone's best interest.

Knowingly harming an innocent isn't bad because there is a law of the universe, in the same way that there is a law of gravity, that IT IS BAD - it's just STUPID. Most people don't want a society where that can happen, and as such things are in a state that you're going to get the law to come down on you, and there's no real damn point to what you're doing in the first place. Note that the key factor here is that all of these judgements are being made BY PEOPLE - and before anyone goes there, no, the law cannot be defined as objective morality, I've already explained why.

I honestly see some views of objective morality as a sort of later-life ideological handholding - people can't realize that doing good is something they should want to do, so the 'objective morality' idea keeps them in line until they throw it away and replace it with something better, like, I don't know, REASON.

Or, to provide another form of argument, I'm invoking Occam's Razor. If 'moral behaviour' can be entirely explained by people acting with some common sense, tacking on a wishy-washy system of judgements that you say are ALWAYS ALWAYS TRUE, FOR ALL TIME, is superfluous, contrived, and laughable.

 

[deepseadiver]

Well the guy really makes my sister happy. And I don't really know if her judgment is wrong or not, I just know that in my opinion it likely is. Also if I'm defending her rights, shouldn't I be allowing her the right to make her own decisions (she is 18 and an adult, after all). He has made others girls happy before and still turned rotten though.

It seems like subjectively I should intervene, but objectively I should not.

It sounds like you are just trying to be a good bro (which is what I would do). While you may say that my point will sound like i'm advocating subjectivity, just hear me out.

What I would do is discuss it with her, tell her your thoughts, your concerns, your reasonings, and ask her to not go with him. At this point you have done all in your respective power to defend her, but the choice is ultimately with her. While you have obeyed a moral law, you need not be concered how it turns out (in respect to obedience. as a brother you should be very concerned.)

What I'm driving at is this: Whether or not she decides to go with the "jerk" or not, if you have done everything in your power (that is, not having gone to the point where you have to force her) to defend by informing her then you have lived by that objective standard. Regardless of what happens next, you still did it. And therefore it can vary on a case by case basis, but the requirement is still to obey the moral law.

 

[Glass Joe]

I apologize. In hindsight I realize I may have let my emotions run rampant. @chadachada. I hope you will forgive my thoughtless jab at you and your views. While I maintain that we will never agree, I will try to be more cordial (and realistic) in future.

Hey deepseadiver, I noticed earlier that you have a way of explaining yourself clearly and not getting off topic. Thanks for keeping this discussion readable, because ethics is a fantastic topic and fun to argue about. I've only read the first page, your posts and those responding to your posts, because I can't understand most of the other arguments being made. I'd like to throw a couple of points into this discussion and as you put it, give it a little more meat. I'm not too skilled at making clear points, so I copied some words from a philosopher that I believe makes a pretty strong argument against moral relativism. I know it's not your position, but Logiclul if you want to address it or if someone else wants to address it, please do.

[quote:]The moral relativist believes that ethical truths are relative to groups smaller than humanity as a whole. Moral relativism is the view that what determines the truth or falsity of moral beliefs is just what is endorsed by the prevailing culture. According to moral relativism, moral truths are made by the dominant view in a society, not merely propagated by the dominant culture.

To allow just one fundamental universal ethical truth that is independent of the say so of individuals or groups is to abandon relativism in favor of a realist view of ethical truth.

Sometimes our view about the moral status of some practice changes. A person might, for instance, think that eating meat is morally unproblematic at one time and then become convinced that animals deserve some kind of moral regard that speaks against eating meat. When a person?s moral views change in this fashion, they do not merely drop one moral belief in favor of another. Typically, they also hold that their previous moral view was mistaken. They take themselves to have discovered something new about what is morally right. Likewise, then the prevalent moral belief in a society undergoes a significant change, as in the civil rights movement, we are inclined to see this as a change for the better. But the relativist cannot account for changes in our moral beliefs being changes for the better. This is because the relativist recognizes no independent standard of goodness against which the new prevalent moral beliefs can be judged to be better than the old prevalent moral beliefs.

A closely related problem for moral relativism is the moral reformer's dilemma. We recognize a few remarkable individuals as moral reformers, people who, we think, improved the moral condition of their society in some way. Common examples might include, Buddha, Jesus, Ghandi or Martin Luther King. While the relativist can allow that these individuals changed the moral views of their societies, none can be said to have changed their societies for the better according to the relativist. Again, this is because the societal moral relativist recognizes no standard of moral goodness independent of what is accepted in a society according to which a society that has changed can be judged to have changed for the better. A relativist that takes ethical truth to be relative to the dominant view in a society seems to be committed to taking institutionalized racism to be morally right relative to per-civil rights American society and wrong relative to post civil rights American society. But since standards of goodness are determined by the prevalent views in a society, there is no standard goodness to appeal to in judging that the change our society underwent in the civil rights movement is a change for the better. According to societal moral relativism, anyone who takes Martin Luther King to have improved American society by leading it to reject institutionalized racism is just mistaken about the nature of ethical truth. [/quote]

http://personal.bellevuecollege.edu/wpayne/Moral%20Relativism.htm

Do moral relativists believe that no society can change for the better? Are we just as moral now as we were in slavery days or when we were living in tribes? Are the Nazis morally justified? I believe not. Happy MLK day everybody!

Edit: A lot of people are arguing for individual moral relativism. I would then ask, is it possible to grow as an individual and become a better person? Why should one work harder or improve the lives of those around him if it is equally moral not to? If one always chooses to do the right thing from somewhere within himself, what is the source of that preference, and is it common among men?

 

[MonkeyGH]

Do moral relativists believe that no society can change for the better? Are we just as moral now as we were in slavery days or when we were living in tribes? Are the Nazis morally justified? I believe not. Happy MLK day everybody!

Hey there.

Just wanted to say I think you made an excellent point which I had never even considered before.

Basically, the concept of society bettering itself is non-existent to a moral relativist. And I'm willing to bet they don't realize that...

Cheers.

 

[deepseadiver]

@Glass Joe. Well chap, I am truly honored. Thanks for the encouragement. You make some very good points. I wish I could state them better, but, alas, I cannot.

To all you other gents out there. I need to go, but when I get back I hope to continue.

Thanks all for a jolly good talk!

Hopefully I can rejoin soon.

Cheers!

 

[chadachada123]

If you were even beyond grade school, you would know that the burden of proof is not on the non-believers. YOU are the one making the assertion that an untouchable being with no physical (or logical) evidence exists, and YOU are the one that must provide proof without looking like a fool. The same is to be said of unicorns, etc. It is all well and possible that unicorns, ghosts, and gods exist, but without evidence, it is asinine (to say the least) to try and say that it is OUR job to convince you that something which already has no evidence does not, in fact, exist. You're free to believe in fairies or whatever else you'd like, but when you are telling other people that these things exist, it is entirely your job to provide proof, and if none is provided, the logical choice of these other people is to deny your claims as unsupported.

You are not a seasoned debater. You know nothing of logical fallacies. If you do know of them, you are choosing to ignore them to make your claim seem more feasible, or at least to place doubt in the realm of science.

By me even answering you, it gives the impression that your "ideas" are on equal footing as mine. It is akin to a geologist speaking to a flat-earther at a live debate, as if the flat-earther is anything but a closed-minded person with no understanding of simple logic, let alone the arguments for morality or the existence of gods.

*Whistles* That's quite the statement. I'm a Bible-believing Christian as well, which is why I opposed the idea of subjective morality in the first place. By the way, I appreciate the implication that I'm not yet in grade school.

I've always seen the evidence of God's existence as self-evident. Look out a window and you'll see trees, grass growing, various facets of nature. His creation declares his existence, because something created implies a creator. I do not believe that the big bang theory is an adequate explanation for what we behold today in nature simply because you cannot have absolute nothingness produce something. Physical impossibility in it's most basic form.

The only logical conclusion a person can make is that you need something that never had a beginning.

Hold on now, you weren't the one that started saying "God exists, but the burden's on you atheists to disprove it," the other poster was. THAT's what I said is indicative of grade school logic, not the mere belief in god. The misplacing of burden of proof and/or trying to proselytize without proof is what's childish, neither of which you seem to be doing.

(There actually is a physical explanation that could create a big bang from "nothing," because quantum mechanics blah blah blah fluctuations blah blah vacuum energy, there's an awesome video by Lawrence Krauss that explains it pretty well, but it's an hour long) (So, yeah, it's possible for the universe to have arisen from "nothing," nothing except the laws of physics and chance).

 

[deepseadiver]

If you were even beyond grade school, you would know that the burden of proof is not on the non-believers. YOU are the one making the assertion that an untouchable being with no physical (or logical) evidence exists, and YOU are the one that must provide proof without looking like a fool. The same is to be said of unicorns, etc. It is all well and possible that unicorns, ghosts, and gods exist, but without evidence, it is asinine (to say the least) to try and say that it is OUR job to convince you that something which already has no evidence does not, in fact, exist. You're free to believe in fairies or whatever else you'd like, but when you are telling other people that these things exist, it is entirely your job to provide proof, and if none is provided, the logical choice of these other people is to deny your claims as unsupported.

You are not a seasoned debater. You know nothing of logical fallacies. If you do know of them, you are choosing to ignore them to make your claim seem more feasible, or at least to place doubt in the realm of science.

By me even answering you, it gives the impression that your "ideas" are on equal footing as mine. It is akin to a geologist speaking to a flat-earther at a live debate, as if the flat-earther is anything but a closed-minded person with no understanding of simple logic, let alone the arguments for morality or the existence of gods.

*Whistles* That's quite the statement. I'm a Bible-believing Christian as well, which is why I opposed the idea of subjective morality in the first place. By the way, I appreciate the implication that I'm not yet in grade school.

I've always seen the evidence of God's existence as self-evident. Look out a window and you'll see trees, grass growing, various facets of nature. His creation declares his existence, because something created implies a creator. I do not believe that the big bang theory is an adequate explanation for what we behold today in nature simply because you cannot have absolute nothingness produce something. Physical impossibility in it's most basic form.

The only logical conclusion a person can make is that you need something that never had a beginning.

Hold on now, you weren't the one that started saying "God exists, but the burden's on you atheists to disprove it," the other poster was. THAT's what I said is indicative of grade school logic, not the mere belief in god. The misplacing of burden of proof and/or trying to proselytize without proof is what's childish, neither of which you seem to be doing.

(There actually is a physical explanation that could create a big bang from "nothing," because quantum mechanics blah blah blah fluctuations blah blah vacuum energy, there's an awesome video by Lawrence Krauss that explains it pretty well, but it's an hour long) (So, yeah, it's possible for the universe to have arisen from "nothing," nothing except the laws of physics and chance).

What did the laws of Physics and the laws of Chance arise from?

 

[MonkeyGH]

Lot's of words

Okay, then no harm done.

However if the universe needed the existence of the Laws of Physics and the Laws of Chance to already be in existence to work, that's not really nothing, is it?

Also, like deepseadiver said, where did those come from in the first place?

 

[Glass Joe]

What did the laws of Physics and the laws of Chance arise from?

Okay, then no harm done.

However if the universe needed the existence of the Laws of Physics and the Laws of Chance to already be in existence to work, that's not really nothing, is it?

Also, like deepseadiver said, where did those come from in the first place?

I would also like to point out that the concept of proof being the burden of one party or another doesn't necessarily apply to speculative topics like metaphysics. Who has the burden of proof is another argument all together, but for the sake of finding a real solution I believe it would make sense for both parties to provide evidence for and against each other's claims respectively.

So since I do not believe our morals come from divine command, MonkeyGH and deepseadiver, my question to you both is this. Is what is moral moral because it is a reflection of God's nature, or is God's nature a reflection of what is moral?

If all of a sudden, it became clear that God was commanding us to torture innocent puppies, would it become morally permissible to do so? Or would God never command us to torture innocent puppies because it is immoral and God is morally perfect?

Also thanks for the kind words about my earlier post, this stuff is really fascinating to me.

 

[Glass Joe]

On the contrary. Nihilists like myself are very aware of this particular caveat...

Oh no, nihilists are crazy. Dark philosophy man bad juju.