Moral relativism

[Nevermore]

Originally Posted by krexia

But if we can't define an absolute morality then we don't have one. The way I see it, regardless of whether universal moral laws exist, the fact that we're ignorant of them means we do not have an absolute morality to live by.

Which is what makes the fallacy apply. There are no moral absolutes because we can't know that there are moral absolutes.

Having just looked it up, it sounds to me like moral absolutism with the assumption that not everyone knows the correct moral laws - but while again I can totally understand that viewpoint given the existence of a higher power, I can't see how you'd get there without having a higher power to lay out the correct moral laws.

Sort of. That's a conclusion that one would make under that moral standpoint, but the basic belief is this: "There are moral absolutes that are always true regardless of situation, and there is always at least one possible way for a person to act morally in any situation". It differs from others like Generalism (there are general absolutes that can change given the situation), Ideal Absolutism (choosing the lesser of two evils), and Hierarchialism (choosing the greater of two goods). The latter two are subcategories of Conflicting Moral Absolutism.

Since I don't believe in any higher power, I have no way of knowing what the 'correct' moral laws are - given the non-existence of a higher power, if I value human life over vengeance, and some other guy values vengeance over human life, how do we know whether it's moral to put a murderer to death? How do we even know which is truly more valuable, other than by consensus?

How do you know? For certain? You don't. It's merely a possibility. In much the same way that Moral Relativism is a possibility.

Originally Posted by krexia

On the other hand, without an explicit set of moral laws, morality is derived from values, and every moral question becomes a value judgement. I value human life more than I value telling the truth, so I would consider lying to save a life moral. But since values differ from person to person, different people make different judgements and morality can only be defined relative to an individual's personal values.

Now this brings us to a very interesting idea. While one could say that moral absolutes exist simply due to the possibility, the exact views themselves are related to something else. I know that some people have a hard time seeing why a person wouldn't lie to protect someone that might die otherwise (like, someone in hiding).

1) Just because a Moral Absolutist wouldn't lie to protect someone, doesn't mean that they would do nothing. I think sometimes people get wrapped up in the apparent cruelty of not lying to save someone and forget that other possibilities exist.

2) For an Absolutist like me (a Christian), there is another factor that is taken into place. This may seem harsh, but under Christian (and most theological) ideologies, God is more important ("valuable", if you prefer) than humans.

[Nevermore]

EDIT: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to double post. Please delete/ignore this.

[krexia]

The double post was probably my fault, I really need to stop editing extra stuff into my replies after posting them :p

Originally Posted by Nevermore

Which is what makes the fallacy apply. There are no moral absolutes because we can't know that there are moral absolutes.

The fallacy would be to say that, "We don't know if absolute moral laws exist, therefore they don't exist." What I'm saying is that, "We don't know if absolute moral laws exist, therefore we don't know what absolute morality to live our lives by."

Originally Posted by Nevermore

How do you know? For certain? You don't. It's merely a possibility. In much the same way that Moral Relativism is a possibility.

Oh, I don't know, and I don't claim to. I'm an agnostic atheist. But my point is that given my lack of belief in an higher power, I cannot judge another's moral beliefs as more or less correct than my own. Until and unless I can be convinced that there is a higher power and/or an explicit set of universal moral laws, that won't change.

Originally Posted by Nevermore

I know that some people have a hard time seeing why a person wouldn't lie to protect someone that might die otherwise (like, someone in hiding).

1) Just because a Moral Absolutist wouldn't lie to protect someone, doesn't mean that they would do nothing. I think sometimes people get wrapped up in the apparent cruelty of not lying to save someone and forget that other possibilities exist.

2) For an Absolutist like me (a Christian), there is another factor that is taken into place. This may seem harsh, but under Christian (and most theological) ideologies, God is more important ("valuable", if you prefer) than humans.

I don't find it that hard to understand - we just have different value systems. Like I've said, I have no right to judge your values as more 'harsh' than my own, and I can respect the fact that you stick by them even if I fundamentally disagree with them.

[darkisaac]

Well, I see I'm a bit late to the coversation.

Anyways, as I discussed in the Machiavelli thread, I believe morals are not at all relative. The notion that morality must be relative just because two people disagree in what is and isn't moral is, in my opinion, erroneous.

You don't need a higher power to derive the existence of absolute morals, all you need is logic.

My argument for the objectiveness of morals?

Well let me first describe what emcompasses morality and as I describe the inherent qualities of morality and its existence, I will continue on to give my argument:

First of all, I want to make sure we're all in the same page, so I'm making it clear that when I refer to morality I refer to the belief system which governs what is right and wrong (which I'm sure is what everyone agrees morality is).

I think that fundamentally, the criteria that determines what is right and wrong is whether or not the act respects the natural rights of other living things. We say killing is wrong because it violates the right to live, stealing is wrong because it violates right to property, and so on.

Oh and we can all agree that morality only applies to living things. One cannot be moral or immoral to a rock.
Furthermore, the only beings with the ability to act morally or immorally are those who can recognize the existence of right and wrong. Note that this does not mean that morality does not apply to animals, it just means that animals cannot act morally or immorally, however they can still be acted upon morally or immorally.

So basically, there are three categories of things in the realm of morality, I will dub these the fully moral, the partially moral, and the amoral:

Fully moral: This category encompasses the beings can both act morally and be acted upon morally, meaning humans.

Partially moral: This includes beings that cannot act morally, but that can still be acted upon morally, basically animals and plants and also babies or small children who do not yet grasp the concepts of right and wrong.

Amoral: Rocks, dirt, blah blah blah.

This makes the concept of morality extremely complex, but I'll address that later...

Now, we can also say, without a doubt, that morality can only exist when interaction takes place.

After all, the very notion of morality, right and wrong, implies actions taken; it implies that one fully moral being interacts with another living being (either a fully or partially moral being).

Basically what I mean is, I cannot be moral or immoral towards my fellow man if there is no fellow man with whom to interact. My fellow man must first exist in order for me to act either morally or immorally towards him.

If no humans exist, there is no morality, because partially moral things cannot initiate a moral/immoral act.

Therefore, without the existence of at least one fully moral being and another living being, morality does not exist.

This then implies that the first right all things have is right to exist.

Killing is immoral, not because I say so, but rather because the act of killing literally destroys morality, it leads to the negation of morality itself. It is not subject to question, and it most certainly is not relative.

So then, by the very conditions for the existence of morality, one can see that killing is, subjectively, an immoral act.

And with the right to live, natually, other rights follow, such as property, and the like.

And I do believe that each right has an order of importance, so that the right to live supercedes the right to property, allowing for the violation of certain rights in order to preserve the more fundamental ones, while still acting morally.

This is my argument, do with it what you wish. If anyone has counterarguments then go ahead and bring 'em because I agree that I could always be wrong, and because I like to hear people's arguments in order to keep my debating skills sharp.

[krexia]

Originally Posted by darkisaac

I think that fundamentally, the criteria that determines what is right and wrong is whether or not the act respects the natural rights of other living things. We say killing is wrong because it violates the right to live, stealing is wrong because it violates right to property, and so on.

But to do that, you have to have a universal definition of the "natural rights of other living things". While westerners believe all humans have the right to freedom, there are many countries where no such right exists. Who are we to say that we have a monopoly on defining "natural" rights? How do you know that your idea of a "natural" right is correct?

Originally Posted by darkisaac

Oh and we can all agree that morality only applies to living things. One cannot be moral or immoral to a rock.

Would it be immoral for me to destroy the Sphinx? To burn the Mona Lisa? Morality, as I've said, is about value judgements. Most people will assign a value to the Sphinx or the Mona Lisa, and therefore will agree that destroying either is immoral, unless they somehow need to be destroyed to preserve something of higher value. i.e. given the choice between letting a nuke hit the Sphinx and letting it hit Cairo, I'll go for the former, because I value vast numbers of human lives more than I value the Sphinx.

But would you destroy a patch of mould that was growing over the frame of the Mona Lisa, to save the painting?

Originally Posted by darkisaac

This then implies that the first right all things have is right to exist. Killing is immoral, not because I say so, but rather because the act of killing literally destroys morality, it leads to the negation of morality itself. It is not subject to question, and it most certainly is not relative.

But to make this connection, you're assigning value to morality. It's only immoral to destroy morality if you value morality in and of itself. What if I disagree? What if I think the existence of morality is neither here nor there? By what criteria do you determine that your assigned value is correct, and mine isn't?

And what if the existence of two living things is in conflict - if one person must die for another to live? How do you define a universal standard for choosing which life is more valuable?

Originally Posted by darkisaac

And I do believe that each right has an order of importance, so that the right to live supercedes the right to property, allowing for the violation of certain rights in order to preserve the more fundamental ones, while still acting morally.

How do you define that order of importance? How do you define which rights are more valuable than others?


As far as I can see you've set out a pretty clear definition of your own morals, in accordance to your own values. But I don't see that those values are derived from fundamental first principles. They may seem like they are, since most of us consider our values so fundamental as to be unquestionable. But when you get right down to it, they usually based on the cultural ideas we've been raised with.

[darkisaac]

Hold on, just though of something but I have to wait til tomm. to post it, because I have to sleep

[krexia]

Originally Posted by darkisaac

So therefore, in order for morality to exist at all, we must first be allowed to exist, and if we must be allowed to exist that becomes a fundamental right as long as we assume that morality does exist, and if living is a fundamental right, then to take a life inherently becomes immoral, meaning morality exists in its most basic form, free of subjectivity, and therefore it is not relative.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems you're saying things should continue living because morality could not continue without them. You're essentially saying that if morality exists, it should be preserved. Which means you're still arbitrarily assigning moral value to morality itself. By what fundamental law are you assigning that value? Again, if I say that the existence of morality is not valuable in and of itself, by what external standard do you say that my value assignment is incorrect?

Since your next few answers referred back to this basic idea I'll leave it at this for now.

Originally Posted by darkisaac

Give me a more specific example and I may be able to answer definitively.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. We'll assume we're talking about the same six people in each situation.

Situation A: A mine cart is hurtling down some tracks towards an intersection. At the moment, it's set to take the right hand path, where five people are tied to the tracks. If you pull the intersection lever, you can direct the cart left, where only one person is tied on the tracks. Do you pull the lever?

Situation B: A mine cart is hurtling down some tracks, and ahead of it five people are tied to the tracks. You're standing on a bridge above the tracks, next to a single man. He's well-muscled and heavy, so by pushing him off the bridge and onto the tracks, you can knock the cart off the rails and save the five people tied to the tracks. Do you push him off the bridge?

Situation C: Five people in a hospital are dying from different kinds of organ failure. In the waiting room is a healthy individual with all organs in perfect working order, here to visit a friend. By killing the man and dividing his organs, you can save the lives of the five others. Do you take the organs?

[Nevermore]

Originally Posted by krexia

The fallacy would be to say that, "We don't know if absolute moral laws exist, therefore they don't exist." What I'm saying is that, "We don't know if absolute moral laws exist, therefore we don't know what absolute morality to live our lives by."

But you see, that latter statement still commits the fallacy. While it certainly sounds more logical to put it that way, it still ends up with concluding something from lack of knowledge.

Oh, and don't worry about the double post. That was entirely my fault :)

[KeybladeLegacy5]

Originally Posted by krexia

Well personally I think that's fair enough. As I said in the first post, moral absolutism can be justified with reference to a higher power - I just don't believe in any higher power.

Because morally, you can only judge someone for their intent, not for their actions. This is a simple logical conclusion, based on the fact that we can never know the full extent of the consequences our actions will bring. All we can ever do is act with good intent. I know I've tried to do good and ended up causing harm in the past, and I don't think that makes me a bad person. Since I feel I have no right to hold other humans to a higher standard than myself, I cannot find it within myself to denounce a person who honestly believes they're doing the right thing.

Yeah, obviously with Hitler the scale of his atrocities is so obscene that they're hard to forgive. But let me pose a hypothetical question. You put a man in a room and give him two buttons. You tell him one button will launch a nuclear device and kill 6 million people, and the other will harmlessly disable the device. But you've lied to him; the buttons are actually the opposite way around. He presses what he thinks is the right button, intending to disarm the device - and instead kills six million people. Do you judge him morally by the outcome of his actions, or his intent?

Ok, i see what you are gettng at and it all seems like an endless argument. But you have a point you cant judge the man for his actions, because he thought he was doing right, but behind it all there was evil intent so you can judge the man who lied.

Originally Posted by krexia

It's not an argument from ignorance.

Moral relativism says that without knowledge of a universal moral law, we cannot say whether one person's morality is more correct than another's. Without invoking a higher power, we do not have knowledge of a universal moral law.

Moral absolutism posits that we do have universal moral laws, and again I cannot see how one comes to that conclusion without invoking a higher power.

Higher Power is the thing it all comes to here, first answer my last question on my other post and then here is another thing about a "God," we as human beings and animals are so unique and intriqite, each with special abilities. From my standpoint, we are a design, and a design cant come before the designer. Take something like a big temple of rock out in nature for example, it is no where near the uniqueness of a human being or an animal...yet it still had to have a creator, it didnt just gradually form over time, or a big bang come and boom, its there.

[Ven-Dono]

Originally Posted by Nevermore

But you see, that latter statement still commits the fallacy. While it certainly sounds more logical to put it that way, it still ends up with concluding something from lack of knowledge.

Oh, and don't worry about the double post. That was entirely my fault :)

After enduring through reading through the entire thread, I would think Krexia is trying to say that he is actually not concluding anything. If he is concluding anything, it would be that he concludes that he cannot conclude anything. I am for his argument.

Lately, I've felt I'm an Apathetic Agnostic. That I do not believe in a higher power, but am open to anything if it should happen to show itself. With this belief, it follows that if there is any higher power, it would seem that it either doesn't care if we know about it, or is trying to conceal itself from us. Which in my opinion is besides the point. This thing's opinion shouldn't be any higher than a human being just as a human being's opinion isn't any higher than that of a chimpanzee. The former may be more intelligent than the latter, but its feelings about something barely differ. Admittedly, using that analogy with an animal could have been wrong as we do not know if they have moral.

I've also lately felt that I was really Nihilistic. It may stem from my depression, but in my mind, life in itself seems to be so insignificant, it couldn't matter any less what we do on this planet. Life doesn't seem to have any goal but to keep itself going (and maybe to benefit some higher power??).

But maybe I use this idea weakly, because I think that Nihilism would hold the idea of the moral absolute that says that "In order to achieve a goal, it does not matter if human life is lost because of the 'fact' that human life is in itself insignificant". I do not agree with this. Instead, now reading this thread, I feel that I would love to do nothing other than to live by no moral absolutes.

Alas, at this time in my life I cannot make too heavy of remarks about this sort of thing. I lack the wisdom and such. Abusing my brain with substances probably doesn't help either. But another depressing thing about life that other people find exciting is that one is always learning and gaining wisdom. But what was the point of gaining that wisdom if one is to die in such a short time? I know my thoughts are somewhat pessimistic, but sometimes I feel optimism is also the direct opposite of realism.

Originally Posted by KeybladeLegacy5

Higher Power is the thing it all comes to here, first answer my last question on my other post and then here is another thing about a "God," we as human beings and animals are so unique and intriqite, each with special abilities. From my standpoint, we are a design, and a design cant come before the designer. Take something like a big temple of rock out in nature for example, it is no where near the uniqueness of a human being or an animal...yet it still had to have a creator, it didnt just gradually form over time, or a big bang come and boom, its there.

And who was the creator of that creator? "It didn't just gradually form over time, or a big bang come and boom, its there.", right?

[Nevermore]

^ I understand that, but it's still a conclusion based on a conclusion. We can't know that absolute morality exists, therefore we can't say that absolute morality exists. Therefore, morality is relative.

It's basically just extending the conclusion using an A = A premise, which is rather redundant.

Originally Posted by Ven-Dono

And who was the creator of that creator? "It didn't just gradually form over time, or a big bang come and boom, its there.", right?

This is getting into an entirely different discussion, so we can continue this through visitor messages if you really want to; but God (at least the Christian God) doesn't need a creator. It's a simple matter of cause and effect. Another way of saying is that if something happened (such as a beginning), then something caused it to happen. This is something that most people would say is true. It also has a pretty good track record. Now, a beginning is an effect. We are all intrinsically aware of this. That's why we want to determine the origin of the Universe (or what have you). We are aware that if it had an origin, then something had to originate it; so, we search for it. Now, God (again, the Christian God) is an eternal being. As such, He has no beginning. In short, since God never "began", He needs no "beginning".

As I mentioned, this is getting off track, so I won't continue this conversation any further on this thread; but I thought I'd at least respond once. If you wish, we can continue this via visitor messages or private messages.

[Ven-Dono]

Originally Posted by Nevermore

^ I understand that, but it's still a conclusion based on a conclusion. We can't know that absolute morality exists, therefore we can't say that absolute morality exists. Therefore, morality is relative.

It's basically just extending the conclusion using an A = A premise, which is rather redundant.

It may be redundant, but what can we do with our limited intelligence besides to be redundant and/or make assumptions on this subject?

EDIT: And that's where it comes down to pessimism and optimism I think. Those who know they can only be redundant probably feel as though they can never learn more about a higher power or absolute morals.

Those who make assumptions can be as right about things as the people on these forums making assumptions about future Kingdom Hearts games, or they can most likely be in self put on delusions.

Personally, I feel it would be better to be in a delusion though. If that's what makes people more stable, so be it.

[Nevermore]

Originally Posted by Ven-Dono

It may be redundant, but what can we do with our limited intelligence besides to be redundant and/or make assumptions on this subject?

I'm not saying that anything about morality doesn't make assumptions. It always does. I admit I make assumptions. At this point, I'm just saying that both sides make the same logical error. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with that, when we can do no else.

[Ven-Dono]

Originally Posted by Nevermore

I'm not saying that anything about morality doesn't make assumptions. It always does. I admit I make assumptions. At this point, I'm just saying that both sides make the same logical error. Not that there is anything particular wrong with that, when we can do no else.

Exactly how I feel. That's why I put those kind of things out of my life. Although I am interested in religious topics, trying to learn the truth of it all is a wild goose chase.

To me, it's like if some noob on the forums came up and said he talked to Nomura and said that Vanitas was actually Sora that had time traveled to the past and went to the dark side.

Of course most of us would think that was totally absurd. Maybe a few of his friends would follow him and believe what he said. But we'd never know if it was true until the game came out. Get what I am saying? :)

I actually feel somewhat proud of myself. I think that was a good analogy.

[Nevermore]

Originally Posted by Ven-Dono

Exactly how I feel. That's why I put those kind of things out of my life. Although I am interested in religious topics, trying to learn the truth of it all is a wild goose chase.

To me, it's like if some noob on the forums came up and said he talked to Nomura and said that Vanitas was actually Sora that had time traveled to the past and went to the dark side.

Of course most of us would think that was totally absurd. Maybe a few of his friends would follow him and believe what he said. But we'd never know if it was true until the game came out. Get what I am saying? :)

I actually feel somewhat proud of myself. I think that was a good analogy.

Well, I think that morality is a bit more complicated a subject than Kingdom Hearts, but sure, lol. Still, pursuit of the truth, whatever it may entail, is really all we humans can do in the long run, don't you think?