Moral Relativity?
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You're serious?JoJoDeathunter said:
OK, here's an explanation:
The moral code of a particular society is the result of a compromise between individuals.
Still don't get it? OK, here are some examples:
I don't want to be murdered, neither does the majority of people, therefore murder is wrong. I don't wan't my stuff stolen, neither does the majority of people, therefore theft is wrong. I don't want to be raped, neither does the majority of people, therefore rape is wrong.
That's how we create a moral code within a society. Our individual moral codes may differ but we come to an agreement so that there would be order within the society. The established moral code is then (most likely) written down as law. That's it. Society changes, so do the morals within it.
We don't let murderers and rapists out of jails because the majority of people doesn't want that. It's as simple as that.
Well you can justify anything with anecdotal evidence. I roll with moral absolutism. However, whether you feel like being moral or not is a totally different story (I'm probably not moral). I'll leave it at that because past that point it becomes too boring to explain.
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No offence but what you've described to me sounds exactly like universal morality. People don't want to be harmed against their will, so unless it's for a greater good it's wrong. That's what you've described and I agree with it entirely. I don't see what's subjective about that.HardkorSB said:
"The most dubious thing about moral relativism is that it's never promoted by anyone you'd actually want to be around- it's always the guy eating a baby who claims that good and evil depend on your cultural baggage."
Somebody going by the alias of "pooka" once said that.
As for my opinion?
Well, yeah, there is an absolute.
I mean, to avoid flaming between any other moral objectionists as to where exactly the line is crossed I'll invoke godwin.
Now, we all hate the third reich,right?
They're a relatively small group who did what just about everyone would agree is wrong to what is a much larger group, that being everyone else.
Hence, they are objectively bad, pretty simple logic to that.
Moral relativism then, is really just trying to put a number on which gains outweigh which sufferings.
Now, because we all have the same set of emotions, there is always an objective amount of gain, and an objective amount of suffering, but the whole point of moral relativism is either to
A) try to get closer to the objective truth of good and bad without having all the information
or more cynically
B) being used as an excuse to do something one believes is wrong.
So yeah, I run a pretty absolutionist ship, with some pretty barebones morality. It pretty much boils down to " do unto others as you would have them do to you"
Somebody going by the alias of "pooka" once said that.
As for my opinion?
Well, yeah, there is an absolute.
I mean, to avoid flaming between any other moral objectionists as to where exactly the line is crossed I'll invoke godwin.
Now, we all hate the third reich,right?
They're a relatively small group who did what just about everyone would agree is wrong to what is a much larger group, that being everyone else.
Hence, they are objectively bad, pretty simple logic to that.
Moral relativism then, is really just trying to put a number on which gains outweigh which sufferings.
Now, because we all have the same set of emotions, there is always an objective amount of gain, and an objective amount of suffering, but the whole point of moral relativism is either to
A) try to get closer to the objective truth of good and bad without having all the information
or more cynically
B) being used as an excuse to do something one believes is wrong.
So yeah, I run a pretty absolutionist ship, with some pretty barebones morality. It pretty much boils down to " do unto others as you would have them do to you"
Where does a definition of morality come from, except from us? Since morality is an abstract concept that comes from us, it will naturally be subject to the beliefs and emotions of society. To use a super-easy example, slavery was considered, at the very least not immoral for thousands of years. In most of what we call the civilized world, attitudes gradually changed and eventually most societies considered it immoral to own another human being as property. If a modern man went back in time to 18th century Georgia, he could call slavery immoral all he wants, but the society of the time thought otherwise and would simply view him as a loon and may even respond with violence to the perceived "****** lover." Was their definition of morality invalid? By our relative standards, yes. By theirs? No way. If there's an objective morality, what is it? Where did it come from? Whose is it?Axolotl said:
Actually I think that last demonstrates the subjectivity rather elegantly. The values for pain/pleasure for the same act would be different across individuals.
It's not subjective JUST because they all have different ideas of what a good movie is. It's subjective because no one opinion is correct. Even if they all had the same idea of what a good movie is it wouldn't become objective. It would be a universal belief, but it would still be subjective. So whether a lot of differing opinions exist doesn't change whether it is objective or subjective. Even if we all had differing opinions of whether the light was on or not, that wouldn't change whether it was on or not. So pointing at the fact that many differing opinions on morality exists isn't itself proof that morality is subjective.[/quote]Mortai Gravesend said:
I concede, you may have your nitpick. Morality is subjective because a) everyone has differing opinions on what is moral, AND b) none of said opinions can be proven to be the "right" one.
Alright, so it's a big nit. >.>
Eh, I think the quote tags got messed up somewhere...
Morals are a man made concept, humans cannot be purely objective. Ergo, all morals are subjective.Axolotl said:
/Done.
If there is universal morality then why do we need law enforcement? If people know what's right and wrong, why are there conflicts? If murder is wrong, why are there murderers?JoJoDeathunter said:
And what is the greater good? Most people don't care about the so-called greater good, they care about themselves. They want the rules because they want to be safe. We are social animals so we feel best within a society. Lack of rules in a society means chaos. Chaos means danger. People don't want to live in danger. The more order there is, the less danger there is. That's common sense, nothing more.
Jeffrey Dahmer didn't believe that murder, rape, necrophilia or cannibalism is wrong. What happened? Did the force that granted everyone the universal morality skipped him and went on to the next one?
Morals highly depend on the people that raise you and your environment. If you were raised by cannibals, you wouldn't think that cannibalism is morally wrong, even though others would.
Because people are scared of other people. This fear persists even with the arbitrary law system and manifests itself as different prejudices, from the fear of people of different ethnicity to the fear of teenagers raised by anyone you don't know.JoJoDeathunter said:
This fear is treated by the people who lead us, our governments, our parents, our occasional self-proclaimed prophet. The government treat the fear by creating laws that will get rid of anyone bad. The question you raise seems so difficult to answer because you imply that right and wrong parallel legal and illegal. While they agree on some things, many laws are simply to stop the fear.
As we've seen, laws have very often not had anything to do with right and wrong, but to do with treating the fear that the majority holds. Just look at any laws regarding ethnicity, religion, sexuality etc. Hell, even the laws on asylum seekers are mainly crafted out of fear they will, as is so very often claimed, steal our jobs. It's such a ridiculous bullshit law that has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with making the masses feel safe.
That's what law is; not right and wrong but safety and fear.
OT: His argument is complete bullshit. If we're applying moral relativity then the judge can easily say "I don't care if you think this is right, I think it's wrong so we're going to follow this through to the end and then, seeing as we're just fucking morality over, we'll cut your ball sack off regardless," and be in the same amount of right as he is.
Yeah, morals are relative to everybody but if you break the law then you can't say it was the right thing to do and expect them to send you on your way. If you live in a country then you accept their laws, if you break these laws then you face the appropriate consequences. You don't throw them out the window if you think your idea of what you can and can't do is better.
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Justice is meaningless without morality though, otherwise it's just causing more suffering because the majority thinks the law-breaker deserves it. I agree that the legal system is far from arbitrary, though I don't agree with every single law in either my country or the world. Under moral relativism laws are simply arbitrary opinions of the majority, something I cannot believe.JonnyHG said:
But surely if there's a way we can fit with most people's desires, that's better than them suffering? A universal morality need not come from God or carved on stone from the heavens, it can be as basic as "do not cause harm to others without reason that would prevent greater harm".Mortai Gravesend said:
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There being a universal morality doesn't mean that everyone has to agree on what that morality is. Take homosexuality for example, an atheist might think it's not harmful as he sees no harm in two men loving each other, a christian on the other hand might think it's harmful because the Bible says it's immoral and the Bible is written by God who dictates what is or isn't harmful for immortal souls. One is right and one is wrong according to objective morality, which doesn't matter for this argument. Some people (see holocaust or AIDs deniers) won't accept the truth if it's under their nose, so why would everyone accept the moral truth?HardkorSB said:
Because we have agreed as a collective of individuals that that would be bad. Honestly, that was a pretty silly question.JoJoDeathunter said:
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Mortai Gravesend said:
Both of you are seriously asking me to prove that happiness is better?! Well, do you prefer being happy or unhappy? That should give you the answer ;-)Kaulen Fuhs said:
And just a heads up, but I'm going to bed now so any more replies from me won't come for the best part of half a day, take that as you will.
That it exists, but that your friend is mistaken in that he thinks such things actually happen. Murder is never right, but it can be circumstantially justified. This will lessen the effect, but does not alter that the effect happened. It is precisely this reason that law exist. Law is not subject to moral observation. It is not a sin or a condemnable act, it is a crime. Law concerns the act, not the motive. No matter which way you intend to kill someone, intending to kill (and actually killing them) is a punishable act.lionrwal said:
Now, laws can be changed to reflect the changes in society, but it must be an agreed upon change throughout the entire system. Most laws also don't apply retroactively, or update retroactively, so if you kill someone, then fight for a change in the system, you are usually tried upon the system that was in place either at time of murder, or at time of capture, whichever is more prevalent.
Moral relativity deals with the human part of the system. Law doesn't care about the individuals involved, only the acts involved. Law is absolute. Applying the law is relative.
You're talking about yourself, right?JoJoDeathunter said:
I prefer to be happy but what brings me happiness, might bring you suffering, and vice versa.JoJoDeathunter said:
Again, Jeffrey Dahmer was happy when he ate people. According to your "objective morality", that makes eating people good.
I think I'm done with this thread but just for laughs, answer me these simple questions:
1. Do you know the objective moral code?
2. If you do, what are the objective rules (all of them, not just examples) and do you follow it (why?/why not?)? If you don't, how do you know it exists?
Moral relativity can be applied to certain things. It might be justified to apply it to piracy, although a reasoned discussion of relative morals would be more along the lines of an impoverished mother stealing bread.
However, when people try to apply it to most things, they are just wrong. Moral relativity is the basis of some of the most idiotic things in the world. For example, the other day, when I was talking about how awful the Afghan culture is, a friend of mine told me that I can't say our culture is better it's just different. Needless to say, I went off on his call-yourself-Socialist-while-being-Liberal ass and informed him that if one culture sells nine year old girls into marriage and stones women to death for hanging out with men and another culture doesn't do that, the second culture is the better culture.
However, when people try to apply it to most things, they are just wrong. Moral relativity is the basis of some of the most idiotic things in the world. For example, the other day, when I was talking about how awful the Afghan culture is, a friend of mine told me that I can't say our culture is better it's just different. Needless to say, I went off on his call-yourself-Socialist-while-being-Liberal ass and informed him that if one culture sells nine year old girls into marriage and stones women to death for hanging out with men and another culture doesn't do that, the second culture is the better culture.