Isn't that the same as saying there are no morals? If there's no outside standard, it's just people doing what they want to do with no meaningful standard and no repercussions for violating it. Moral relativism has always seemed like a cowardly way of saying that morals do not exist. It basically makes up a name for a bunch of essentially meaningless subjective behavioral decisions. It's like calling atheism a religion. It technically is, but not in sense that we usually think of.


On a side note, relative morality under your definition would apply to all actions and behavior, not just the ones usually thought of when discussing morals. For example, a decision to diet would have the same "moral" weight as deciding not to kill people.


Moral absolutism only makes sense if the standard is transcendental, eg. God.

There is an outside standard most of us seem to agree upon, and that is law. Obviously there are consequences for breaking it. However, it is important to understand law is not a universal standard. It's a man-made standard. No universal standard exists.

I repeat, ad infinitum et nauseum, that moral relativity is not an ethics position. It is meta-ethics, it deals with how ethics ought to be considered.

The moral absolutist will claim that a statement like 'murder is wrong' can be considered just like the statement 'the sky is blue'. The moral relativist will ask 'How can you justify such a claim in the absence of any objective measure of ethics?'.

The moral absolutist will inevitably fail to produce any non-arbitrary objective measure of ethics, so it must be that an ethical proposition cannot be the same as a mathematical proposition.

This isn't really a matter to 'agree' or 'disagree' about, it is fairly plain logic. Several of you keep insisting that you 'disagree with moral relativism'. What the **** is there to disagree with? Can you produce an objective measure of ethics?

What you probably mean to say is you dislike the idea that there cannot be moral absolutes. That isn't the same thing. You say 'murder ought to be wrong' or 'it would be nice if murder were wrong' or 'i would prefer to live in a society that considered murder wrong' and you can clearly justify any of those three statements. The one thing you cannot do, though, is go from any of those statements to 'muder is wrong'. It is not the same thing.


So, in the absence of moral absolutes, are we then in the absence of morality? Some of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century deal with precisely this question, and I encourage you all to do a little reading on existentialism in particular. And yes, dear Americans, much of it will be French.



Well, for some people a decision to diet is a moral decision - one may decide to become a vegitarian so not to kill animals. One may become a vegan so not to bring any harm to animals. Which is the more 'moral'? You, Obi, make the decision to not kill people. Is this decision 'more important' than the decision not to kill animals?
All of these questions beg some sort of standard against which to compare and in the absense of any such objective standard they remain personal judgements.

Inevitably, somebody will throw in that the answers to those questions are 'obvious' or 'common sense' but again I remind you that 'common sense' is nothing more than the prejudice of your upbringing. Being brought up in Japanese society would produce very different 'common sense' to that in American society. How, then, do you decide which is 'right' and which is 'wrong' when it is clearly a matter of culture?

I implore you all, you in particular Obi, to try and look at the logic of your arguments rather than looking at what you intrinsically 'dislike' about moral relativism.

As far as I can tell Moral Relativity does not (and can not) disprove the existence of Moral Absolutes. All it says is that if one exists, it can't be proven to exist using logic.

And of course, you really shouldn't only be using logic to discuss morals because it is not a logic field, but rather an emotional one.

Mort-Hog is right.

...right, and if every philosopher and thinker and scientist and mathematician had to append '...using logic' onto every single statement ever made, textbooks would be a whole lot longer. Of course we're ****ing using logic. Morality is a concept of ethics which is one of the branches of philosophy.

'Emotion' isn't above logic. 'Emotion' isn't even anti-logic. 'Emotion' is just an evolutionary technique to get a quick response, rather than think the situation through slowly and logically. If you were faced with a ferocious lion, fear will force you to decide either to fight or run away - rather than evaluate logically exactly how ferocious the lion is, size of teeth, claws, eating habits, etc.. In that situtation, emotion would save your life because logic would take too long.
But there's certainly no virtue to emotion alone - it's just a shortcut to sloppy, cluttered thinking. Great for lions, awful for philosophy.

Quit being so hostile, maaaaaan.

Swearing looks so much more ****ing hostile when it's censored. **** you, Asterix.

The heart of the matter is, people a) think ethies are somehow something that is just woven into the fabric of reality and b) don't want to live with out them.

That's not what ethics are. Ethics is the study of right and wrong. Wrong is falling short of or transgressing the law of God. God is the final standered he does not adhere to one. (Yes I realize you dissagree, don't bother pointing it out. I'm just showing a reasonable ground for assesing ethics.)

Honestly you can call ethics anything you want, but if it's just "my fealings" or "some arbitrary standerd I think is flaoting out there" it's just stupid. Like you say:



Precisely. Morals are not common sense. They are not a matter of culture. They are not any person or person's notions. That would be stupid. But they are not subjective either. You can't really make a personal judgment more than a personal judgment. Everyone makes thousands personal judgements on everything everyday, but with out some transcendent standard, they are simply actions with no positive or negative values.


And please, perhaps you aren't saying this, but, "You're wrong because all the books in a foreign language say so." is not an argument. If you've read them, you can jolly well express your position that you've gleaned from them.

You say morals come from God, don't you? And they came to you from God through some old books in foreign languages, no?
So isn't that a little hypocritical?

I'm going out on a limb here and assuming that an omnipotent God could ensure the accuracy of his Word.

That's great, but how would you ensure what his word even is?

Obi, I think you're not getting it. Moral relativity is a fact. Other cultures have other morals.

Sure, there are certain things that are considered 'wrong' in most cultures, but there is no such thing as moral absolutes.

And bringing God into this isn't an argument whatsoever, since every religion is a different set of morals in itself.

Ofcourse, as a religious person, it is kind of 'logical' that you want to believe in moral absolutes. (The laws of your god) That is why religious people (especially the more fundamentalist types) are more intolerant towards people with different sets of morals. (homosexuality, anyone?)

One truth! One vision! One bible!

Not quite. The value of an action is reflected in the consequences. Let's try some examples:

Is killing someone right or wrong?

If I go and randomly kill people, most people would think that I am doing something wrong and punish me for it. If I kill someone in self defense, most people would think that I am doing something right and I would remain unpunished. So is killing moral or immoral? It's neither and both since morality is a fluid concept that is context dependant.

Likewise, I don't steal from people because I don't want people to steal from me, I know how annoying it is to have something stolen and because I will probably be punished for it. General consensus defines what is moral. I don't need some transcending standard because I, like most members of my species, possess empathy and appreciation for the benefits of cooperativity.

Your constant implications that without God, one will act selfishly are tired and inaccurate. A better question might be: are you so lacking in empathy that you require someone else to tell you how to behave?

I'm arguing from the assumption that one of these religions is true, and the rest are total BS. Unless you're an atheist and then it's all BS. Like I've said before, it's not people who determine morality. With a moral absolute, many people's ideas of morality would actually be wrong.



You're confusing the idea of rational behavior with morals. Morals are not the same thing as saying "Gee, I'd better better put shoes on before walking around the construction yard, I might get hurt." That's just a wise thing to do. That's not equal to saying, " Gee I'd better not kill my neighbor and take his stuff because the police will come and put me in jail." If that's your only reason for not killing your neighbor and taking his stuff, you are a psychopath.


Lets try not to change the definition of the word, ok?

Morals dictate the rightness and wrongness of actions regardless of weather they benefit you. Slave trading for instance. Most people agree it's wrong. Under you idea of moral relativity, however it wouldn't be. It a) was not a problem with the person doing it and b) Helped them.

Besides, why the heck should I go with general consensus? If I can become a dictator and rule over people with an iron fist against their will until my death, have I done wrong? If going against the general consensus is wrong, and I can get away with it why should I even care?

Also, under that definition, you have to admit that slavery was actually the right thing to do. General conses was, capturing Africans and working them for personal profit was ok. Even better, people who stood up against slavery would be evil!

I don't have to admit that slavery is moral, that's the whole point of relativity.

Moral Relativity cannot prove or disprove the existence of a moral absolute, just as science cannot disprove or prove (a majority of) religion.

Science does disprove the majority of religion, but religion goes nah-ah and theres no point arguing further.

Science doesn't disprove the majority of religion. The majority of religion is outside the realm of science.

But if it could be proven wrong, religion would certainly go "nah-ah".

They do, and often.

That's exactly what I said you're doing. On what do you base your assumption that one of these religions is true?

All you're doing is thinking that what you were taught to believe is right, and the rest of the world is wrong. And you know what, so does the rest of the world, only they think they are right, and you're not. That's called moral relativity, whether you want it or not. Even if your god exists, and even if he holds absolute standards, there are still people who have their own standards, whether he approves or not.

People think differently about ethics, no matter what anyone thinks is or should be the absolute standard, no matter what any god would want them to believe. It's simply a fact that they do.

Go ahead, prove the majority of religion wrong. And remember, Creationism is not a religion, nor is it the majority of religion.

Something has gone terribly wrong.

I imagine polygamy complicates tax returns, custody suits, etc.

No thanks, I don't want to be the reason this thread gets locked.

Man, I kept coming up with a few comments to add to that sentance about religion... but somehow I think any would result in 3 posts till lock at most.
This place sucks for discussion.

[QUOTE=Bounty Hunter 4 hire]I imagine polygamy complicates tax returns, custody suits, etc.[/QUOTE]...or do tax returns and custody suits complicate polygamy.... ?

Intriguing.

You know I'm right.