Moral Relativity: Is There an Absolute Moral Fact?

[Tide]

I was referring to your personal struggle.

I have no idea what you mean by "washed in the blood."

 

[Dmstifik8ion]

Are you saying that this is absolute?
Might is right when it is judged as such, and when it is judged to be wrong as it is regarded as such. Could I have ever meant my statement to be taken as an absolute?

(... What contributes to the freedom of an individual to achieve one's own existence by the products of ones own efforts is the fundamental guiding basic moral principal.)

Are you saying that this is absolute?

One’s own life (for as long as one lives it) and what is necessary to sustain it are absolutes. If you recognize that personal freedom, (to pursue one’s own life), and the responsibility one bares for the consequences that one’s actions have on others are moral precepts born of a real necessity, (the survival of the species that relies upon the proper determination of morals to guide their own lives and how they relate to each other), than you have the answer to your first question.

(Might is right if and only when it is applied to defend the rights of all individuals.)

Might is right when it is judged as such, and when it is judged to be wrong as it is regarded as such. Could I have ever meant my statement to be taken as an absolute?

Judgment, to be fair and reasonable, requires an understanding of humanities unique nature and the requirements of human life. Whether our judgments succeed in this endeavor will demonstrate if we recognize the true nature of the absolute of reality and our relationship to it, by how well we succeed as a civilization.

Life is not an absolute, (it ends), but its requirements are as are the moral precepts, (including the methods of enforcement), that honor and serve those requirements as determined by our nature.

 

[Dmstifik8ion]

I was referring to your personal struggle.
I have no idea what you mean by "washed in the blood."

Nor do I.

I was referring to your previous statement which may not have been meant as your personal view but was not explicitly pointing to someone else. By this statement you led me to believe that you might consider religion and theology as possible inroads to discovering or determining the nature of morality when in fact they dictate ‘morality’ without any appeal to reality or reason.

As I understand it "washed in the blood" refers to a religious viewpoint that proposes that one can be relieved of their 'sin debt' by believing that someone else (who supposedly lived a 'sinless' life) has paid it for us, by bleeding to death only to come back to life a few days later, never having made any reparations to those to whom any debt was owed?

As for relative morality; if morality is not relative to what than it must be relative to whom? I say we blame it on the reality of human nature and go with objective morality. How well we choose our moral code is ultimately revealed in reality by how well it conforms to reality.

Please disregard any assumptions I have made about what you may or may not believe so that we can focus our attention on the issue of what morality is and how we can arrive at an understanding of its purpose and function and how to implement it for the good of one and all.

 

[Tide]

Dmstifik8ion,

I apologize. I wasn't paying close enough attention to the thread but my earlier comment about the "personal struggle" was intended for Dawguard. I am getting the impression that he wants the answer to be "there is only absolute morality" and it seems based on his religious conviction. That may or may not be an accurate interpretation of his position but I'm sure he will correct me if I have mischaracterized his stance.

 

[Smurf]

Morality is a social contract of sorts and is not anything that exists in the absence of mind and social order. As such, absolute morality is an attempt by some to have the rules they make up take precedence over all others. Absolute morality imposes rigidity on society; it sees no shades of grey and is incapable of dealing with nuance and changing conditions or circumstances.
Moral relativism is far from anarchistic with everyone doing anything they want. There is survival benefit for the species and social order in agreeing to cooperate with some agreed upon notions of right and wrong while maintaining some degree of flexibility allowing for adaptation.

I have a question for you tide. If Morals are determined by society, is it then wrong for the individual to do something that their society disagrees with? I want you to explore the relationship between the individual and society in ethical relativism.

 

[Dawguard]

Dmstifik8ion,
I apologize. I wasn't paying close enough attention to the thread but my earlier comment about the "personal struggle" was intended for Dawguard. I am getting the impression that he wants the answer to be "there is only absolute morality" and it seems based on his religious conviction. That may or may not be an accurate interpretation of his position but I'm sure he will correct me if I have mischaracterized his stance.

This might be a personal struggle, but it has nothing to do with religion. I understand that morals must be believed, otherwise cultures will disappear, but the logical conclusion I came to was that they either exist as absolutes or not at all. My reasons are, as stated in my previous post,

Scenario 1. Morals do not exist. If they do not we will be forced to make them up on our own, which in turn makes them relative and nothing more then practical ways to live our lives. They are not right and wrong.
Scenario 2. Moral do exist. If this is the case then one of the following must be true: they always existed as a part of science, some being made them, i.e. a god, or we made them up. The first cannot be true for they are not part of science. The second can only be true if there is a god, which so far cannot be proven positive or negative. If the third is true then the conclusion of scenario one is true. This can only be proven by disproving any of the other statements, which is impossible.

This is entriely based on logical, and is the main premise of my position.

 

[Tide]

I have a question for you tide. If Morals are determined by society, is it then wrong for the individual to do something that their society disagrees with? I want you to explore the relationship between the individual and society in ethical relativism.

Ethical relativism? Are we changing the subject?

If society has deemed certain behavior as wrong then society has deemed it to be wrong. One difference between absolutism and relativism is that the absolutists will always regard some behavior as bad and other behavior as good whereas the relativists can evolve. An individual violating the "moral code" may in some cases cause the social order to rethink its position and adopt a new position on that behavior.

For example, in many societies of the past, slavery was acceptable. Some individuals rebelled against that by, for example, freeing slaves and creating an abolition movement. Absolutists of the day were appalled by that outrageous "wrongful" behavior. Were morals absolute we would not and could not have moved beyond that sad state of affairs. I think that relativism has selfcorrecting features not available to absolutism.

 

[Tide]

If the third is true then the conclusion of scenario one is true.

That is a false conclusion. You are saying that if we invent a concept then the concept cannot exist.

 

[Dawguard]

For example, in many societies of the past, slavery was acceptable. Some individuals rebelled against that by, for example, freeing slaves and creating an abolition movement. Absolutists of the day were appalled by that outrageous "wrongful" behavior. Were morals absolute we would not and could not have moved beyond that sad state of affairs. I think that relativism has selfcorrecting features not available to absolutism.

For thousands of years before slavery there were people saying that all men were equal. Certain religions did it, as did many members of the Refomation, i.e. John Ball and John Hus. The Magna Carta was a statement of freedoms and equality, so all the abolitionists did was apply these concepts to slaves. Slaves were equal, and therefore it was a violation of human rights if they were owned by anyone.
Just because the majority of the population thought slavery was moral did not make it so. You are taking relativism's approach of defining morals by the society and placing it on absolute's ideals. That doesn't work, nor has it ever worked. Absolutism is not as rigid and unforgiving as you think, for who are we to say we know exactly what these absolutes are? We must discover them like everything else, and so the beliefs of what morals are will change, and not the morals themselves.
Continuing with slaves, was it OK to have slaves thousands of years before the abolition movment? Society deemed it permisible and took it for granted, and it would be countless years before it was questioned. Was it alright in the Roman empire, the Persian empire, the Greeks?

As for your other point about things we make up existing: I can think of no example where a human has made something up, and it then becomes real. Words aren't, numbers aren't, characters in a fiction book aren't, ideas aren't, so why should morals be any different?

 

[Tide]

Dawg,

Just because the majority of the population thought slavery was moral did not make it so.

You are implicitly assuming morals are absolute. It is not valid to use your conclusion as a premise. However, you are supporting the notion that morals are indeed mutable.

I can think of no example where a human has made something up, and it then becomes real.

Numbers, words and sci-fi characters are just as real as morals. They all exist as concepts but none are physical.

 

[Smurf]

Ethical relativism? Are we changing the subject?

not that I'm aware of.

If society has deemed certain behavior as wrong then society has deemed it to be wrong. One difference between absolutism and relativism is that the absolutists will always regard some behavior as bad and other behavior as good whereas the relativists can evolve. An individual violating the "moral code" may in some cases cause the social order to rethink its position and adopt a new position on that behavior.
For example, in many societies of the past, slavery was acceptable. Some individuals rebelled against that by, for example, freeing slaves and creating an abolition movement. Absolutists of the day were appalled by that outrageous "wrongful" behavior. Were morals absolute we would not and could not have moved beyond that sad state of affairs. I think that relativism has selfcorrecting features not available to absolutism.

Well, I don't really understand how you think that should affect the individual's decision-making. I can see two possible conclusions from your argument, one, that if an individual acts in violation with their society, it is wrong. Or two, to deny the existence of right and wrong altogether.

 

[Smurf]

Dawg,
You are implicitly assuming morals are absolute. It is not valid to use your conclusion as a premise. However, you are supporting the notion that morals are indeed mutable.

I think what Dawg was getting at is that collectivism (which is, I think, what you're arguing for) is an appeal to popularity.

Numbers, words and sci-fi characters are just as real as morals. They all exist as concepts but none are physical.

That's true that morals are not physical, but that does not mean that they are in the same grouping as science fiction characters (same for numbers, and possibly words). With that logic then TVs exist, because they're physical. However, the physical laws that govern them and ultimately make TV possible don't exist, because they're not physical either. They're just human 'concepts'. But physical laws do exist. How we understand them is what's inside our mind. Something doesn't have to be physical to exist and be real.

Same with numbers, a number is a human concept, yes, but that concept is a representation of something very real. If I say "there are two rocks there, and two rocks there, so there's really four rocks in all" the amount of rocks won't change just because I decide to call "two" and "four" something else, or get brainwashed into thinking that 2+2 actually equals 5. There's still four rocks. That's very real, even if our concept of numbers is not physical.

You seem to be grouping human "inventions" such as sci fi character and human "discoveries" such as physical laws, numbers, and arguably morals together. Neither of them are necessarily physical, but our "discoveries" do exist outside of the human mind. Unless you're a solipsist, but let's not even go there.

So really, to say that morals are relative "because they're not physical" is like saying science laws are relative because they're not physical. Clearly that's not true, e=mc squared everywhere, not just in our culture. (I don't know how to do superscript)

I can't really think of any arguments for or against morals being "discoveries" or "inventions", but I think I'll bring it up with my philosophy club next semester.

 

[Tide]

Smurf,

So really, to say that morals are relative "because they're not physical" is like saying science laws are relative because they're not physical.

The only problem with that is that I never said any such thing. Dawg is the one who seems to be implying some kind of physical reality to morals. He is struggling with "existence" of morals ("either they exist or they do not exist") and is attempting to craft some kind of distinction between relative and absolute morality based on a logical argument related to existence.

I am merely pointing out flaws in his reasoning. I don't think you can make a case for morality existing outside of mind. At least I have yet to see any convincing argument supporting that thesis.

 

[Rade]

I don't think you can make a case for morality existing outside of mind. At least I have yet to see any convincing argument supporting that thesis.

Could not robots be created to act in ways that were "moral" as relates to how they interact with humans ? Such would be one example of moral action outside mind--and given the vast similarities of mind (elctro-chemical wave functions) to electrons in computer chips--it just seems like a matter of time until "moral robots" are created by humans.

 

[Tide]

Rade,

The android, Data (Brent Spiner), on Star Trek: The Next Generation was programmed with an ethics subroutine. He was also declared to be a sentient life form. I'll consider the possibility of moral robots when they can be declared sentient life.

Nevertheless, you do raise an interesting prospect. If morality can be programmed then the program can be edited and the morality subroutines changed. It would not be immutable or absolute.