Tide said:
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.
Basicaly what you are saying is that morality is defined by the scociety, therefore the 'social contract'. Therefore whatever society deems moral, is moral. Now what happens when two different societies exist that differ on the definition of morals. For example, in America it is considered moral reprehensible for anyone in government to interfere in your private life without your knowledge and consent. The recent news stories about domestic spying and the outrage it caused is a good example of this. However, in China this is not the case. Communism judges the individual less worthy then the society, so the state, i.e. the government, can do whatever they want to them. Anyone here remember Tenamin Square?
So, which one is correct? According to you they both are and can both exist because they are separate societies.
Now, when an American visits China, do Chinese morals suddenly become the only ones that aply to him? He is still part of the culture of America but dwelling under Chinese laws. Surly he must obey the law, but laws and morals are different. Vice versa, if a Chinese citizen comes to America do they sudenly gain the morals rights of us?
Now expand on this and ask yourself something. Let there be one hundred people, half American and half Chinese. They take a ship into international waters where there is no law and make their own government. What morals do they base their laws on? A compromise maybe, where the two moral ideas have some common ground. In this both moral ideas are changed and something new is formed, a new moral code.
Repeat this a hundred times with different groups of people. Now we have one hundred societies existing, each with their own unique, and acording to you, valid moral system. Do you see the anarchy of this? In one place murder is OK and in another it isn't! In one the government cannot have any authority because it is immoral for one man to tell another what to do, but yet another exists where there is nothing but a totalitarian government, and that is moraly correct.
I hope you see the utter folly of this. These are not morals, they are simply codes of conduct. And don't try and tell me that morals are here to help us thrive as a society. I agree that morals do help a society, for they generaly cause you to act on everyone's behalf and not just your own; but this is not moral. It is nothing more then acting intellegently if you wish to survive. One could have the most corupt soul and be willing to do every evil thing under the sun, but still be a moral man simply because he knows it is the smartest thing to do. He will appear very moral, but it is all a sham. Machiavelli said in The Prince that a ruler must do everything necesary to gain power, ignoring all moral implications. But yet he also said one of the keys to Roman success was that they did not do what was on the lips of learned men of his day, i.e whatever is expedient; instead they looked to the future and built their power based on what would be best for the society of Rome. Apparently it worked, yet they would often times wipe out entire cities and countries for their own cause. Would you say the infamous destruction of Carthage was moral? They killed every man woman and child in the place, burnt it to the ground, razed the buildings and sowed the land with salt. It certanly was good for them, because they never had a fourth Punic war and Egypt was scared enough not to go to war with them.
No, morals are not made for the good of society. Society demands to much of the world in order for it to succeed and be moral atthe same time. Any morals must be ignored if you are building a country, culture, or society.
So, this turned out longer then I expected but I hope it was not to verbose to loose its import. I can see no logical reason to suport either of relativism's main arguments, that is made by people or that is whatever is good for people. It must be absolute or not at all.
