Moral Relativity?

[SL33TBL1ND]

Since there's no such thing as objective morality, all morals are subjective. That is, relative.

Do you anything to back this up? Becuase on the face of it, it's a very wrong statement.

Morals are a man made concept, humans cannot be purely objective. Ergo, all morals are subjective.

/Done.

 

[HardkorSB]

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.

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?
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.

 

[Cpu46]

In my mind morals are mostly cultural and societal. For instance: Stoning adulterers would be seen as barbaric and sick in America but in several (not all) middle eastern countries it is seen as the just thing to do and not seen as immoral.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

I'll repeat it, for anyone on this thread to answer. If morals are truly subjective, why bother enforcing an arbitrary law system on anyone? Heck, we might as well just let all the murderers and rapists out of jail since their moral opinion is equal to the rest of ours.

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.

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.

 

[JoJo]

I'll repeat it, for anyone on this thread to answer. If morals are truly subjective, why bother enforcing an arbitrary law system on anyone? Heck, we might as well just let all the murderers and rapists out of jail since their moral opinion is equal to the rest of ours.

A distinction needs to be made between what is legal and what is moral. If we choose to live in a certain society, then we must follow the laws of that society. This doesn't not mean that we need to agree or disagree with what is legal or illegal, only that we must follow the law. The legal system is far from arbitrary, and is supposed to be based on justice.

I honestly find it hard to believe that you posed that as a serious question.

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.

I'll repeat it, for anyone on this thread to answer. If morals are truly subjective, why bother enforcing an arbitrary law system on anyone? Heck, we might as well just let all the murderers and rapists out of jail since their moral opinion is equal to the rest of ours.

Because we don't like it that way would be an obvious enough reason. I don't need an objective morality to tell me what I prefer. It's silly to ignore the fact that a lack of objective morality doesn't equate to me being happy with whatever occurs.

But why are you unhappy for murderers to go free? If you don't believe that their actions are wrong then imprisoning them for punishment or rehab so they don't reoffend is pointless. If you don't like people being murdered, why not?

I don't want people getting murdered, I don't want to get murdered myself. I simply don't like it.

Furthermore prove that it's pointless. It's petty of you to ask for proof and then make such declarations without any yourself.

Why does it matter why I don't like it? It simply makes me feel bad.

I wasn't asking for asking for proof, I'm asking for what you feel. You see, the problem I have with moral relativism is that it almost always seems to be a reskin of universal morality rather than being truly relativistic. You seem to believe in the same universal morality as I do, just rather than believing some actions are fundamentally wrong you simply don't like some actions. I don't see the difference.

Because I'm not saying that it's anything higher. I have no reason to think it's anything higher than that. It's simply desires, not something more.

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".

 

[JoJo]

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.

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?
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.

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?

 

[JoJo]

I'll repeat it, for anyone on this thread to answer. If morals are truly subjective, why bother enforcing an arbitrary law system on anyone? Heck, we might as well just let all the murderers and rapists out of jail since their moral opinion is equal to the rest of ours.

Because we don't like it that way would be an obvious enough reason. I don't need an objective morality to tell me what I prefer. It's silly to ignore the fact that a lack of objective morality doesn't equate to me being happy with whatever occurs.

But why are you unhappy for murderers to go free? If you don't believe that their actions are wrong then imprisoning them for punishment or rehab so they don't reoffend is pointless. If you don't like people being murdered, why not?

I don't want people getting murdered, I don't want to get murdered myself. I simply don't like it.

Furthermore prove that it's pointless. It's petty of you to ask for proof and then make such declarations without any yourself.

Why does it matter why I don't like it? It simply makes me feel bad.

I wasn't asking for asking for proof, I'm asking for what you feel. You see, the problem I have with moral relativism is that it almost always seems to be a reskin of universal morality rather than being truly relativistic. You seem to believe in the same universal morality as I do, just rather than believing some actions are fundamentally wrong you simply don't like some actions. I don't see the difference.

Because I'm not saying that it's anything higher. I have no reason to think it's anything higher than that. It's simply desires, not something more.

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".

Better according to what? Nothing objective that I see.

And an objective morality needs more than just a basic idea, it needs for that idea to be incontrovertibly true. Which is where the idea of trying to say morality isn't subjective falls flat.

Because it makes more people happier, therefore it's better. That is incontrovertibly true.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Since there's no such thing as objective morality, all morals are subjective. That is, relative.

Moral relativity is an interesting idea in theory that falls down when you try to apply it to reality. If all morals are relative, why do we bother to enforce the law? If moral relativity was true then we would have no reason to treat a murdering rapist any differently from your aged mother.

In truth, all "good" actions have a positive, whereas all "bad" actions have a negative effect. Where disagreements arise is where people can't agree on whether an action results in a positive or a negative, which is especially evident in moral dilemmas where you have to choose between the lesser of two bad actions.

This is simply untrue. I suggest you actually read a few things about subjective morality, or watch a video on the subject of relative vs. objective morality or the evolution of morality from AronRa, Thunderf00t, or dprjones.

Moral relativism does not mean complete, utter anarchy at all. It means that what is and isn't moral is defined by society at large. Thus while a disturbed individual may have no moral qualms with skinning cats and raping dogs, society does and will punish him for those acts.

If you're going to bother to quote me, please actually refute my arguments rather than telling me to read stuff which I've already looked at and holds no answers to my questions.

I'll repeat it, for anyone on this thread to answer. If morals are truly subjective, why bother enforcing an arbitrary law system on anyone? Heck, we might as well just let all the murderers and rapists out of jail since their moral opinion is equal to the rest of ours.

Because we have agreed as a collective of individuals that that would be bad. Honestly, that was a pretty silly question.

 

[JoJo]

Just declaring that doesn't make it true. What reason is there to believe that claim? You have no proof that it is so.

Prove it.

You can't, and that is the point.

Happier is not inherently better; your value system simply states it is.

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 ;-)

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.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

I was having a discussion with my friend about his justifications for piracy, and he told me a story about "moral relativity." Basically it went that these two people murdered someone, and they claimed that it was because of moral relativity, and the judge gave them a very short sentence instead of life. If you don't know what it is, it's the belief that you can't impose your own morals on someone because there are no set morals for anyone. This was literally his only justification.

I do believe that people have different sets of morals, but I don't buy that someone could believe murder is good.

So what's your take on moral relativity?

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.

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.

 

[HardkorSB]

Some people won't accept the truth if it's under their nose

You're talking about yourself, right?

Well, do you prefer being happy or unhappy? That should give you the answer ;-)

I prefer to be happy but what brings me happiness, might bring you suffering, and vice versa.
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?

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

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.

 

[Arakasi]

Moral nilhism is better.