Moral Relativism: The position that as there is no universal moral standard by which to judge others, we ought to tolerate the behavior of others even when it runs counter to our personal or cultural moral standards.
Due to the inability of many left-wing professors to defend their indefensible political positions (to their blank page charges), they ventured forth into philosophy to justify themselves, and in the process demolished both politics and philosophy as viable academic pursuits with this moral relativism. The free and open exchange of ideas can not be tolerated and the idea that anything is objective must be stopped.
I extracted it from Wikipedia, and it makes sense to me given what I’ve head people say. It’s saying there is no wrong and there is no right, so we either ought to accept it (the MR point of view) or we impose our views (judgements) on others if we don’t.
“A relativist can choose not to tolerate something” That is the key to relativism, is it not? The idea that there can be no “ought” to a relativist is true, thats the basis to the idea, not having an absolute to base it on. But how can you decide not to do something or not to believe is an idea if you don’t first ask yourself if you “ought” to or “ought not to”?
The word ought is arbitrary, it can be, “should”, or “shall”, it doesn’t matter. I beleive its the idea that absolutists only live by ought and ought not, but that also is not true. How can someone decide they want to do somethin, believe in something, whitout a ABSOLUTE standard to base there judgment on? Thats where absolutists and relativists split. It has nothing to do with ought to or ought not to. Refer to the master, Immanuel Kant.
Wait a second.
I’m a moral relativist and I choose not to tolerate things based on moral grounds; and I do so with the full knowledge that my choice not to tolerate something based on moral reasoning is relative to myself and not to everyone else inherently. It is only the same to any person that shares the same moral agreement as I do.
I don’t even mind being contradictory in my living takes on conduct and choice.
I assert that “man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does”, and take that to mean that man is free even morally to be responsible for every agreement he holds with himself about life, even morally; but that means it is ultimately his choice regarding what is and is not morally.
I will kill the man slowly that kills my family.
This is absolutely right.
But neither would I disagree with prison (or death penalty if that’s what fate brought me; though I’m not for the current death penalty) for the sake of the continuity of society.
This is absolutely right.
But again, neither would I hold it as inherently wrong or right as an action removed from it’s societal holding.
No need to ponder. The Truth is out there in all its absolute glory–and all its personal beauty. All you need to do is go find it. (And I guess to do that, ponderment might be a good starting point. =D> )
So when I say moral relativism is BS and that morality is universal, you have to acknowledge that I’m right–or you’re not a moral relativist. It’s a paradox with only one way out. (…well 2, but the other requires that I am the only person who exists and am imagining all of you–which I deign to dismiss on the grounds that I’d do a better job of imagining a lot of you than you’ve been doing handling reality on your own. )
What is moral reasoning ? is it a specific kind of reasoning ? how different is it ? what makes reasoning moral? Actually come to think of it what makes an action moral? Or what makes a judgment moral?
You’re using “ought” equivacally here. One can ask what “ought” I to do without that “ought” carrying moral connotations. It could simply mean, what would make me happy, or what would be most conducive to meeting some objective.
Wrong - “you are right” is as meaningless to a relativist as “my car goes 300 miles” is as an expression of its top speed. In both cases, the statement is meaningless because an essential bit of qualifying information is left out. In the former case, that information is italicized thus: “you are right relative to your own point of view” and in the latter case: “my car goes 300 miles per hour”. To a relativist, there is no “you are right”.
I do not agree with you, and I am a moral relativist.
You cannot hand me a false dichotomy and expect a result you want there.
I am freely able to disagree and still continue being a moral relativist no matter how much you detest my affiliation as such.
Morality is universal in one form; that it exists as a value set with weight of considerable interest to those that place concepts along the metric of values of moral weight.
Where everyone places one concept or another on the measurement of the morality metric is a free variable.
That is what moral relativism is an assertion of.
It’s not a universal truth that states there isn’t a universal truth; there is no paradox.
It’s a description of a thing that is a metric system, called morality, in which the malleable distance between any two points of the same concepts between two people are different on the metric dependent on the value placed by each person.
This is not hard to understand really; it isn’t much different than gravity and measuring physical dimension.
If I take a ruler to a different galaxy and use that on a planet there, the value of two inches has changed by comparison to two inches on Earth.
And equally, if I am an American (non-scientist) measuring with a ruler on Earth, then I will be measuring in inches, while the scientist on that distance galaxy’s planet will be measuring in the metric system’s centimeter.
Now the relative position of a soda can on both places is radically in different value sets of measurement.
That soda can can easily be at 5 inches on Earth, yet 18 Earth-centimeters on that distant planet, yet 13 centimeters on Earth; though if I brought it to Earth it would be only a matter of conversion between inches and centimeters.
However, if it remains on that other planet, then it is a difference of not only measurement systems being used and compared against each other, but also the bend of light.
Somewhat similarly; so too is moral relativism.
Pick anything you want morally, and I can tell you my view on it and you can tell me your view on it; both morally.
They may or may not be the same.
We will undeniably hold some things different and some things the same morally.
The more distance that is placed between two people in the comparison of their cultural similarities; the further the conversion between measurements becomes.
Start talking morality to an East Russian; see if your cultural identity that produces your understanding of moral agreements (which many I can relate to whether I agree or not) line up with much of what they hold.
Having done so in my life with numerous such cases; I can assure you that morality is not absolute.
It follows that those will be respectively wrong or right dependent on the culture.
In my culture, the wedding incident would be considered incredibly disrespectful and crude because masturbation is a taboo exposure of one’s self outside of the law for public behavior.
Profanities, on the other hand, are considered dependent on what wedding we are at.
There are some weddings I have attended where swearing out loud in such a manner was a method of cheering during the ceremony, so it is not inherently wrong in America nation-wide.
Failing to give aid to a person in distress is only that.
If you feel no moral obligation to help someone, then you have none; obviously.
Now, the law may prosecute you for negligence, and if so, then you should probably accept the ruling because you cannot deny that you neglected their aid.
There are some cases where I would probably not aid someone, but in those cases, they are retribution and therefore in my moral scope, right.
I should still be prosecuted accordingly under the law of where such were to take place, however.
Killing a non-threatening life…well; I kill fish often.
I have killed plenty of deer, rabbit, duck and fox as well.
But I think you may have meant human life.
And I would say; I side with saying that depends on “you”.
My current state of emotional connection to the human race has me connected in a way that allows for me to perceive this as a bad moral decision.
I know for a fact, however, that it is entirely within myself to hold no emotional connection to the human race and have absolutely no problems with the death of any number of non-threatening people.
All I have to do is throw a switch and all is done.
I just have no desire to throw such a switch; I like being connected.
which culture do you know of that would hold those acts to be not wrong ?
supposing the non threatening life to be taken is your wife’s and your children and that the taking of their lives would yield a higher good like save the lives of hundreds of people , would you still say its bad moral decision to take their lives ?
I am right when I say that morality is objective and universal, and the relative moralist would indeed have to agree that my point of view is correct at least for me. But in my point of view, he is included in my universal model for morality, thereby asserting his unavoidable conclusion that my view is wrong in his view–making them contradictory. If reality is indeed subjective, then there can be only one such generator. If there were even 2, they would be constantly creating a reality that didn’t fit with the other. Now imagine 6 billion–on Earth alone.
You can say, well, that’s physical objectivity, but the same problem arises without moral objectivity.
You’re conceding universal morality (I think), but change the playing field by adding a scale and declaring that one immoral act is not necessarily as immoral as another. That punishment is relative to the crime. Fine, theft is not as immoral an act as genocide, but they both are indeed immoral acts, universally.
No one, at least not me, has declared that there are no moral dilemmas. Abortion is the most difficult moral issue we face, in part because of that. When do we acquire our rights? You’ve presented a variation on the “shall I kill your wife or your mother” conundrum. There is no right answer unless you know beyond any possible doubt that murdering the innocents before you will save millions or even the whole world. Either way it’s still immoral, but something that most would forgive you for. But could you forgive yourself? Would you be immoral if you didn’t cause your own immediate death to save millions? That would be an easier one to answer, because suicide isn’t immoral. You just may regret if for the rest of your life.
Wrong meaning un-virtuous and/or obnoxious, yes; but not immoral (unless the life taken was human). Virtue is a subjective code of conduct beyond morality, and determined by individual and cultural considerations.
Painful…I tried, but to no avail, but could you clean up your above post there?
I can’t make heads or tails of where your thoughts are actually because the quotes are somehow out of order.
I thought it was just the ’ that you had used instead of the " in one spot, but after correcting that, it’s now even a bit more confusing.
Taking of a non threatening life - United States has a term for this: collateral damage.
Failing to give aid to a person in distress - United States chooses to not help many bodies of people in distress.
Masturbating and shouting profanities in the middle of a wedding ceremony - Ever heard of Las Vegas?
Morality isn’t a universal scale that is fixed into position for all eternity.
I claim that any killing of my family is morally wrong to me; period.
If my wife and children die and I am left alive, I will not be connected in empathy to humanity from that point forward; I will no longer hold life as valued.
As such, I would not care about millions of lives over my children and wife.
What would be the point? I’ve already stated that without them, I would have no concern for any humanity after that point.
So if I’m not going to care about those millions of people after my children and wife are dead, then why would I sacrifice them for that same millions of people?
I wouldn’t.
And I don’t care about what someone else thinks about how moral or immoral that is.
I hold that as morally right, and would kill anybody that tried to stop my decision since they pose a threat to my family’s life.
Moral relativism says there is no universal morality. So if you say your morality is universal, a moral relativist will say you’re wrong. But when you do doing something in accordance with your morality, he will say that what you’re doing is no more wrong (or right) than any other action.
What moral relativism stands for differs, and that’s somewhat awesome, but only if you’ve had some philosophical training to distinguish and understand the flavors. If you’ve spent 5 minutes on wiki, then sure moral relativism, epistemological relativism, skepticism, liberalism, and whateverthefuckism will all look alike.
Moral relativism can be a descriptive moral theory in which all that’s said is that morals are relative to place, climate, time, culture, and even individuals. As such it isn’t any foundation for an ought. You can’t and shouldn’t argue against this theory on moral grounds by saying some dumb crap like it says it’s okay to eat babies so it must be BS. And moral relativism can be prescriptive in which the right and the wrong are determined by the relative cultures in which the ethical judgments are made, though this is a very weak position to take. This is the moral relativism you can level that sort of (imo retarded) attack against.
The difference is one merely describes, and the other gives a criteria for right and wrong in addition to describing morality as a human phenomenon.
And the terms objective morality and universal morality need to be clarified a bit, too. Objective morality is necessarily universal, but a universal morality doesn’t have to be objective, in my opinion if nothing else. Hear me out. Objective morality suggests values are real properties of human action, motivation, character, soul. You can be a bad person, and your choice can be immoral, bad. That’s like saying the phrase “shooting babies in the face is bad” says something exactly the same as “the grass is green”. Green and bad are both understood as real properties that exist not only in the mind, but also out there.
It follows if values are objective that morality is universal in the sense that it applies to people everywhere, but a morality can be universal without relying on values being objective. Some moral systems depend on principles eg, and more fundamentally on the notion that what is right/wrong/good/bad/evil/permissible/obligatory can be ascertained analytically. Take Utilitarianism. It is a universal moral theory in that if in a situation it is right to kill one to save 5, then it is right in Tibet as well as in Detroit, but it doesn’t base this conclusion (that killing the one to save 5) on any matters of fact.
Oh, and to clarify my above comment a bit. When judging your comment that morality is universal, I’m not doing so on moral grounds. Saying your comment is false is not an ethical judgment. Assuming I were a moral relativist, my moral relativism wouldn’t obligate me to say you’re right. My objection can be a metaphysical or epistemological judgment, and there’s nothing that says I can’t believe in outlandish metaphysical entities or that knowledge is objective AND that morality is relative. There is no paradox.
(And I guess to do that, ponderment might be a good starting point. =D> )
(…well 2, but the other requires that I am the only person who exists and am imagining all of you–which I deign to dismiss on the grounds that I’d do a better job of imagining a lot of you than you’ve been doing handling reality on your own. 
)
[size=50]…morality. [/size]