Moral relativism

[All Along The Watchtower]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/

[DC Al Fine]

Absolutely not.

[Tokugawa Sexgod Ieyasu]

If morals are truly relative, they're not really 'morals' as conventionally defined and should instead be discussed as 'standards and practices' or something of the like. That doesn't really satisfy anyone.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

No.  If there are no moral absolutes, then morality is baseless, and as such, there would be no such thing as morality.

[DemPGH]

To a degree, yes. Basic morality varies even locally based on culture; in PA and OH, for example, there are Amish communities that I would say differ culturally a great deal. Then you have country to country, so that what is moral in America is not moral in Saudi Arabia. And certainly vice versa.

But it's hard to be morally relative on things like slavery, which 99% of society has at last evolved to abhor. As well as rape, arranged marriages, incest, etc.

[DC Al Fine]

But it's hard to be morally relative on things like slavery, which 99% of society has at last evolved to abhor. As well as rape, arranged marriages, incest, etc.

99% of our society. I can still arrange a marriage or marry my cousin if I'm in the right part of the world.

[pbrower2a]

Circumstances may change the question.

"Is it morally acceptable to kill the Head of State?" is a very different question on April 14, 1865 and July 20, 1944.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

You do realize there are those who agree with you 100% on those being entirely different questions, but completely opposite on which one it was moral to kill?

[John Dibble]

I'm not quite sure, depending on how you define moral relativism. Here's what I believe:

There is no morality in the laws of nature. The universe is neither good nor evil, it simply does not care nor does it have the capacity to do so. The universe simply is. Morality is something that beings with minds conceive in order to help us interact with one another peacefully.

In regards to there being an objective morality, this is a bit mixed. Different people hold different values. It is our values on which we base our morality. For instance, we might have the values that life is generally preferable to death and that pleasure is generally preferable to pain, and we can build our moral rules based on such values. That said there isn't necessarily a single set of values that would be objectively best for all sapient beings. Depending on one's circumstances, what one values changes. People can hold values like "all people matter" or "all people matter, but my tribe is most important" or even "only my tribe matters", all of which would result in different moral rules being constructed. Values are relative.

Though values are relative, moral in regards to values are not. With sufficient knowledge, it should be possible to create a set of moral rules that produce optimal results in regards to a set of values. In other words, for a given set of values there should be an objectively best morality.

[Redalgo]

Sure. I'm a moral relativist.

Though to some extent I suspect perceptions of right and wrong develop within the parameters of genetic influences common to nearly every human being (i.e. some of our values are universal but are not always translated into the same kinds of moral prescriptions), individuals are largely products of their respective environs - in terms of what they learn to value, in what hierarchy of priorities said values are placed, and with how those values are framed in the context of flawed perceptions of what is "true" in our world. For the most part, however, my outlook on the matter is very similar to that presented by Dibble in the preceding post.

[dead0man]

But it's hard to be morally relative on things like slavery, which 99% of society has at last evolved to abhor. As well as rape, arranged marriages, incest, etc.

99% of our society. I can still arrange a marriage or marry my cousin if I'm in the right part of the world.

...and it's quite likely there are more slaves today than at any point in history.

[freefair]

What about time-continuum based moral relativism? Most relativist seem to be liberals, yet many of them don't concede that it wasn't objectively evil for Jefferson to own slaves.

[John Dibble]

What about time-continuum based moral relativism? Most relativist seem to be liberals, yet many of them don't concede that it wasn't objectively evil for Jefferson to own slaves.

The idea there is that while we, with our modern moral perspective, would still consider Jefferson to have been wrong to own slaves. However, he gets a bit of a pass due to the common morality of the time and culture he was raised in. The circumstances he was born into shaped the person he became just as it does for all of us, and that was out of his control. It's harder to place blame on him due to that factor.

[Redalgo]

. . . Most relativist seem to be liberals, yet many of them don't concede that it wasn't objectively evil for Jefferson to own slaves.

For whatever it is worth, all moral statements on my part (even those pertaining to slavery) are expressions of subjective, personal feelings - not claims as to what is objectively right or wrong.

[ingemann]

Of course I'm not a moral relativist, in fact it's a oxymoron, as any one defining themselves as one adopt a specific moral code, which mean that they are not moral relativist. Of course they also tend to ignore the fact that for the true moral activist the Holocaust would be a moral act.


Stop what?

Yes it's insane, but if we now look at the Nazi ideology, in that there was a belief that Jews was evil, not because they choose to be evil, but because evil was written into their very DNA.
So what would be the moral solution be if we had a group of people, who was born evil and could never be redeemed and whose very existence hurt the world, and their children would inherite this?

The answer It would be to remove them and their DNA from existence.

So from a true moral relativistic POV, the murder of a Jew by a Nazi is a moral act.

...and that's the reason I would never define myself as moral relativist.