"the word would no longer have any meaning in a moral sense, and would be limited strictly to use in the pragmatic sense."
I'm curious what you mean by this statement. After all, ethics has traditionally been labeled as "practical reason". This means to say that anything that is concerned with action is considered under the scope of ethics. Morality and the "pragmatic sense" seem to me to be saying exactly the same thing.
The pragmatic refers to the most efficient way to achieve our goals. "To get away with rape, one ought to attempt rape at night". That statement is true in a pragmatic sense. Given a set of goals, there is a most efficient way to achieve them. This alone doesn't tell us which goals ought to be achieved (aka the pragmatic doesn't tell us what is moral).
In the reverse, the moral statement "I should not rape people for fun" doesn't tell me if rape is pragmatic for me or not.
"The pragmatic refers to the most efficient way to achieve our goals."
But that is EXACTLY how morality has been defined by many thinkers such as Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, and virtually ever ethicist in the philosophic arena.
As far as prudence not telling us what the good isn't entirely true either. Once we obtain our desired end, we can then determine whether or not that end was prudent by virtue of the happiness gained (or not) from that action.
"But that is EXACTLY how morality has been defined by many thinkers such as Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, and virtually ever ethicist in the philosophic arena."
That is simply a factually wrong statement. Kant would make it very clear that "if Rape was maximally pragmatic for me I still shouldn't do it" and so would Aristotle along w/ almost everyone else. (there is a moral theory called "pragmatism", and it is distinct from any of the people's theories you mentioned.)
4 words. Critique of Practical Reason. Kant certainly did think of morality as having an end. The end was the dignity of any noumenal being. The noumenal was the very foundation of his categorical imperative. Aristotle thinks this way too: "for the good life is an end, and desire is directed towards this."
Bringing up Pragmatism actually gives more evidence for my point, since it is by and large a rejection of speculative wisdom and metaphysics.
I don't understand why a relativist can't use the word "should." If I understand relativism correctly, it says that moral values are relative, but not meaningless. So a relativist could say "People shouldn't torture others for entertainment" and mean "My culture frowns upon torturing others for entertainment." In other words, moral laws are real but they are relative to cultures or individuals.
the statement "my culture frowns upon torturing others for entertainment" doesn't tell me anything about what I "should do". The best you can say is that the word "should" is masquerading as the phrase "this is what my culture frowns upon". You would have to argue that when people use that word, they don't mean what that word is defined as but instead mean something else.
@Epydemic2020 I'm no cultural relativist, I'm just trying to get us clear on what relativism claims and what the implications of those claims are. According to one philosophy professor at my college, cultural relativism says that moral "oughts" are real but that they are relative to culture--this is a far cry from your claim that they have no meaning if relativism is true. I agree, however, that defining "should" in this way is bizarre and not probably not correct.
@Epydemic2020 I may have misunderstood your video, nor do I perfectly remember my train of thought with the comment, but I'll do my best. If you're a christian, you're taught that there are universal truths and a moral law that everyone must abide. In addition, you're also expected to indoctrinate your children and others into the belief system. How can you also be a moral relativist saying that you respect other people's culture and belief differences?
"you're taught that there are universal truths and a moral law that everyone must abide."
Unless you are talking about the "law of love", then I don't know what moral law you are talking of. Christian "deontology" didn't pop up until around the enlightenment, and before then (and I would argue that even now) Christian morality is based much more on individual persons, rather than an absolute law. This means that moral maxims are not available to Christians.
Which Plato are you speaking of? The one who wrote the laws? Or the one who wrote the republic?
I find it hard for any Christian to really accept plato's stance in the republic, because I see that as inevitably leading to an arian heresy. Further, Christianity sheds the Judaic "law" in favor of Christ's "love God, love neighbor" response to the greatest of the commandments.
I'm not talking about his moral conclusions, I am talking about his account of morality. Recognizing the forms and such. Christian morality looks a lot like moral platonism with God being the standard rather than some notion of abstract values.
This is true. The only problem I have is that on the "ladder of love" the state is higher than the person. I do not think this is true with Christianity; however, the Good is certainly synonymous with God in that respect.
@insidetrip101 What are you talking about? There are obvious do's and don'ts in christianity. And Jesus explicitly said that he came not to get rid of the old laws but to fulfill them. I would argue that Christianity is not based on individuals when it comes to a moral code. God has laws that you must abide by regardless of when or where you are born and what your beliefs are.
I think what cultural relativists mean is mainly that it is irational to interfere with other peoples' interests unless their interests conflict yours because doing so harms the diplomatic relationship.
Or that if someone believes he or she is intrinsically justified in taking action against another person based on a belief in intrinsic value he or she is mistaken.
I am not aware of any reputable philosopher or professional writer that holds the opinion you described.
I just don't think there are any relativists (let alone professional ones) that would argue that since there is no objective morality it is therefore objectively immoral to impose moral ideas on others. In my opinion this view of relativism is mainly a strawman made up by apologists like Greg Koukl and others. Ok you may have people in your class that argue this way...but they hardly qualify as actual relativists, do they? At best they are kids interested in this idea.
That is merely a critique of the way many laymen view moral relativism. I believe I gave an example of a claim made by my anthropology teacher and then critiqued it.
I think it is necessary to critique the laymen as well as the philosophers, after all it is the laymen which you run into more often.
"If morality is culturally relative. Therefore we should not interfere with other cultures" Uhh... If your culture's morals include not interfering with other cultures then this position is still consistent. Then not interfering in another culture would be relative to your culture's morality.
@Epydemic2020 Uh... I kind of get where your coming from. I'm not a moral relativist myself. I does seem like an incoherent position, concerning the universal claim. It seems to be more useful in describing what is than what ought to be.
Moral Relativism is just the "is" of morality not the "ought", nothing about that demands we don't impose our values else where, it just demands we don't use a moral "ought" to justify it.
Consistent moral relativism has no "ought". However, that is not the type of moral relativism you are most likely to run into here on youtube or on the street.
Epy, It seems obvious to me that ought is always preceded by if, then. Even if that is most often merely implied. Ought only makes sense in some specific context. How do your ideas differ from that. Even if you are correct in that God exists and that God prescribes. Why ought we do what God prescribes?
@Epydemic I would like to hear your opinion on two thought experiments: (1) If it could be demonstrably proven that an action effectively increased the well-being of all sentient beings including God, but was against God's nature (assuming that this was possible) would it be immoral? (2) Same as (1) but the well-being of all sentient beings except God's was improved, would the action be immoral?
Actions against God's nature cannot be moral. Wellbeing is simply not makes an action correct. In the instance of #2, I came come up with an analogy that I think you will find to be immoral. Wellbeing is maximized if someone secretly kills a homeless person and uses his organ to save 5 CEOs who need an organ donor. Is it moral to kill the homeless person (1 innocent man) to save 5 other people (5 > 1, therefore wellbeing is maximized) or is murder in this instance wrong?
@Epydemic2020 Do I understand you correctly that your basis of morality is hence unrelated to the actual effects of actions on sentient beings? With regard to your example: Do you think that well-being was maximized just because 5 > 1? I would suggest that such simple death arithmetics are insufficient. Living in a society where people can just be randomly killed for their organs is rather likely to lead to instability and terror. Why did you add the details "homeless" and "CEOs" by the way?
@Epydemic2020 The question on my mind is "Why can't an action against God's nature be moral?" However, the "nature" of God's nature may actually answer that question so "What is your notion of God's nature?" I am of course doubtful that it would make a difference, since, I consider morals to be relative. However, on the possibility that it might I ask... I do know of at least one notion of the concept god that would make it impossible to deny god's nature as the concept defines/describes...
I don't see how relativism is self refuting in either case. There seems to be a wide spread belief among the objectivists I've met that holds that a relativist can not enforce or suggest enforcement of their morality, but that it must be held as somehow equal to any other morality.
Should can still be used, but you offer reasons with it to show why your perception of the situation is better. Ie They should not mutilate their women, it's divisive and weakens them.
I have a video coming up on the is-ought gap that will explain in much more detail why the word "should" is really not on the table for a relativist.
you are right insofar as you can show "doing X is inconsistent with your own values". Correcting misinformation is a useful tool in persuading people to change their behavior. At the end of the day, U still can't say they "should" act a specific way unless you use "should" in a merely pragmatic sense or as sensationalist rhetoric.
@Epydemic2020 I'm looking forward to your video then, to me if my way is functionally better or demonstratively less damaging then I can say should, that's part of the argument for whatever I'm endorsing. Or is that what you mean by merely pragmatic?
Nothing is "necessarily" wrong with being pragmatic. But pragmatism is not a basis for morality.
For example, there is a most pragmatic way to fight cavities. Nothing is wrong with that.
There is also a most pragmatic way to get away with rape, or to get away with killing people, or to most pragmatic way to hurt people's feelings. Pragmatic things can be moral or immoral.. it all depends if the goals you wish to achieve are moral or immoral.
@Epydemic2020 I think if you extend the time line then you find pragmaticism is highly moral. That was largely the point of Plato's Republic when Socrates answers the question, is it better to be good or bad. It's a wonderful pragmatic answer and can be seen as the basis for much of western civilization.
There is an argument called the "open question argument". If "pragmatism" is the basis for morality, then "pragmatic" is equivalent to "moral". If there is ever one example in which pragmatic does not equal moral, then pragmatism is not the basis for morality (ie the open question argument).
The most pragmatic way of Ted Bundy achieving his goal of getting away with rape, is to rape someone in an isolated area. Pragmatic.. yet not moral. continued
If you argument is merely that pragmatic things often happen to be moral (not that pragmatism is the basis for morality) then you have not contradicted or opposed anything I have argued.
@Epydemic2020 My argument was that you are allowing short instances of "pragmatic" negative behavior to blind you to the greater situation. While it may be pragmatic for Ted Bundy to commit his crime in the dark, the crime itself is not pragmatic. Especially when viewed against society as a whole and on a longer time line. I do not agree with your second premise in other words. Pragmatic is the source, not the equivalent. It would be like calling snow melt and the river identical.
Everything is pragmatic in some sense. Actions which you recognize as evil can be pragmatic, actions which you recognize as good can be pragmatic. Clearly, pragmatism is no basis for morality.
@Epydemic2020 I disagree. I will certainly admit it's not perfect and I don't think there are pragmatic examples of everything, many things sure but some acts are just too stupid or destructive to be called pragmatic. On a longer view, though, and with an eye to the benefit of a society and not just the individual, I think that pragmatism is the best basis we have. We'll make mistakes along the way, hopefully learn from them and muddle through as best we can. Call it pragmatism with a goal.
Pragmatism just refers to the best way to achieve a specific goal. The goal is not specified, so literally every action is pragmatic in respect to some goal. You seem to be saying that something is moral if it is pragmatic in relation to achieving the goal of societal benefit. So really, societal benefit is what you think the basis of morality is.
I'd agree that societal benefit is very often moral, but it just doesn't have the capacity to be a foundation for morality.
@Epydemic2020 I wonder what your requirement for a foundation for morality is then. Ultimately pragmatic means practical or useful. It's been my experience, as well as the argument from Plato, that goodness and being good are their own rewards. To brutally butcher Plato's dialectic, the argument was put to Socrates is it better to be good or bad. His response shows that it is most pragmatic, to be good. That it is most useful to the individual and society to be good.
Actually plato argues that "the Good" exists, and that it just so happens to be correlated with rewards. It is not rewards which makes something good (and in fact evil things could be rewarding), but it just happens to be that good things are often rewarding.
"That it is most useful to the individual and society to be good."
We can use game theory to show that individual and societal benefit are not always the same. See "the prisoner's dilemma".
@Epydemic2020 When Plato spoke of the forms he was looking into what goodness could be and arguing that there was such a thing as good in the same way that there was a form for small, large, near, far and white. Assigning a "thingness" to concepts which can not be grasped in the sense that one can hold a chair. In the world of forms there would be a chair which embodied "chairness". This was separate from the argument I am referring to.
"game theory" precisely why I argue morality is relative.
Anthropology should insist on cultural relativism, not moral relativism, because cultural relativism is an factual empirical phenomena but moral relativism is a bit problematic. When you say that morality is relative all you're doing is assuming that morality is merely relative to what people merely prescribe through commanding and prohibiting. The problem is you HAVE to show that this is what morality really is, but by doing this you make morality meaningless term to use.
I find it very...annoying when people teaching anthropology insist on moral relativism. The reason why I feel this way is because moral relativism and cultural relativism are two different things (though not exclusive), and sometimes ethnocentrism can be a red-herring when making an argument against moral objectivism since moral objectivism argues for moral standard independent of group values, not promoting a group value as superior to the rest. (continue)
FYI - I'm not a cultural moral relativist, and would neither affirm nor deny classifying myself as a moral relativist in general. I think it's a conceptual confusion.
I think that most versions cultural moral relativism can be rejected with a one word argument: "Holocaust". I just don't think the type of self-refuting criticism you're using works out when examined in detail - or, at least, if it does work out, it takes a lot more work than the obvious type of contradictions you've noted.
I think moral cultural relativism, despite its clear absurdity, is entertained only because of the numerous issues swirling under the rubric of morality. If you examine one aspect and make a cogent claim about it, then later the aspect is lost, and the claim is just "moral".
For cultural relativism, I think one confusion is between evaluation & condemnation aspects. Ex: Clitoridectomies are wrong, but my moral judgement of the doer is tempered according to their cultural understanding.
I agree that even if it is not self-refuting, it is still not a theory which explains a lot of data (such as the holocaust as you mentioned). That being said, I am not arguing that all moral relativists are self-refuting. I am just arguing that the average person who claims to be a moral relativist can often, even in the very next breath, be caught holding beliefs and making claims which are inconsistent with moral relativism.
Re: "I am just arguing that the average person who claims to be a moral relativist can often, even in the very next breath, be caught holding beliefs and making claims which are inconsistent with moral relativism."
That's certainly true. But that's true for almost any position about anything, though I agree that relativists get themselves in trouble very easily. I think the only way to tell if they're *actually* being inconsistent is to dig into the details of their position.
People feel their opinions are right, and they are correct in that, in the sense that they are right to them. If I am of the opinion that certain human rights should not be infringed, I am right, they shouldn't. This is not because there is some objective truth, but because my opinion is right to me, and those opinions require me to act because of my nature to impress others with my opinion.
My opinion about something like "broccoli is yummy" is an opinion which is only right for me. That doesn't tell me what I should do.
If instead of saying "broccoli is yummy" (or human rights are good) i instead say "you should eat broccoli)" (or human rights should not be infringed). Under relativism you cannot account for "shoulds" all you can do is try and impress your opinions.
@Epydemic2020 I can account for shoulds, because opinions with a personal consequence, real or perceived, require me to act. If "broccoli is yummy" had a possible perceived personal consequence, your nature would be to protect your personal interest. It's that simple.
We subjectively put value on many things. That value is what causes us to act to protect things. The should comes from within. It's not objective. It's pure selfishness.
@Epydemic2020 If you feel pain from touching a hot coal, you learn quickly to not touch hot coals. Pain is subjective though. Each person experiences it in different levels, and some not at all. Even the desire to not harm oneself is subjective, yet most of us agree that it's bad to touch hot coals.
That is a perfectly analogous example of where subjective opinions create requirements on our actions. It's not immoral to touch a hot coal, but it is subjectively wrong.
@Godlessons If you don't mind my interjection, there's a problem with the coal analogy. Even though pain is subjective, the effect of touching coal - that being the physical harm done to the hand - is objective and the reason why touching coal is wrong whether the person feels pain from doing it or not.
@gambleor Harm is not necessarily objective either. I can put a skewer through my skin, and some people would think that is harm, where I would not. Some people would say that a tattoo is harming the body. I don't believe that to be true. Who defines what is harmful and what is not? When there is no source that can be pointed to, the best someone could say is that it is possibly objectively harmful, not that it is actually objectively harmful.
@Godlessons Tattooing and piercing are objectively harmful, but the desired effect - the subjective principle of beauty - outweighs the decision to consider it wrong. This is the same as saying that fasting is objectively harmful, but when lent comes around, the desire to experience the struggle for the sake of spiritual benefit outweighs the decision to not do it.
@gambleor Who says that tattooing and piercing are objectively harmful? Who sets the standards that require something to be called harm? Why isn't writing on your skin harmful but writing under the skin is?
You realize that we live in a world of definitions, and someone has defined something as harmful. Each person realizes harmful things in a different manner, so ultimately everything we use words to define is subjective.
@Godlessons Writing on your skin is causing harm too. It is damaging skin cells. That's objectively harmful to your skin. Definitions are subjective only insomuch as we subjectively use them to describe objective phenomena that we experience - after all, they're descriptive, not prescriptive. You may not want to describe tattooing and piercing as harmful, but they are because in order to have a tattoo or piercing, you must damage tissue.
"All judgements between right and wrong actions are subjective" is not a judgment between right and wrong action itself. It is a statement about those judgments that is not a moral judgment in and of itself.
1. "All morals are purely subjective." 2. The claim "All morals are purely subjective" is an objective statement. 3. Therefore, the claim "All morals are purely subjective" is self-defeating.
But the claim "All morals are purely subjective" itself is not a moral statement or standard. Thus your claim of its being self-defeating fails.
I'm sure to some cultures male circumcision is a barbaric practice. I don't see a stance that "morality" is relative to cultural norms as self-refuting. Nor do ought and should statements make it so. It's only if you claim the "oughts and shoulds" have a basis from an objective source that it would be self-refuting.
I gave two premises and showed a self-refutation. I did that on two different occasions. I really don't see how you object to that. Which premise do you think is a misrepresentation, or do you think the premises are accurate but no contradiction exists?
I think there are two unrelated questions here. One: is morality culturally relative. I'd say yes. The second question you ask deals w/how a different culture views it. I don't see how the second question is necessitated by the first. If I do make an "ought" statement about another culture, I'm not imposing an "objective" ethic. I'm making an "ought statement that is relative to my opinion of what is moral/ethical.
Did you notice that I already have a video response to that video? I also have a video planned on non-cognitivism that I plan on posting as a response to that video too.
the First Question that pops into my mind is Normative Moral Relativism or Meta Ethical Moral Relativism? Thats a mistake that many make when talking on the topic and a littel background reserch shows there are major diffrences. I am a Meta Ethical Moral Relativist. To me your points don`t make sense you talk about Nomative Moral Relativism there littel things here and there one could debate about but alas 500 characters best wishes
Point two you brought up isn't a statement of fact, it's a statement of necessity. You essentially missed out the part where the reason why you "ought" to act to group principles is to maintain group cohesion. No one is making a claim about morality in that regard, what they're expressing is the optimum methodology to maintain personal and societal cohesion, which in turn is beneficial.
Also a quick question; I don't know where you stand on it, but is there free speech in Heaven?
"you "ought" to act to group principles is to maintain group cohesion"
That can be an amoral claim, but people usually talk about "moral relativism". For example, it there is a way that you must behave to maintain group cohesion withing the KKK organization. However, that doesn't mean keeping group cohesion is a moral thing to do.
I have never thought of that question before. I don't see why there wouldn't be free speech in heaven.
@Epydemic2020 Well, I think the question of whether morality is objective/subjective is perhaps nonsensical. I've never been given an account from any perspective of how morality could be truly objective. That being said, I think the most descriptive way to identify my position is to say that I'm a moral realist. I do think there are facts about morality, provided you define morality in a coherent fashion.
If we were able to travel back in time we'd be able to see the times when morality was regarded as science rather than philosophy. To be sure it would be a more dogmatic and dangerous time. At any rate these physical sciences that would one day become philosophies would represent the physical objects that are being carried across the fire, which are casting shadows on the cave wall.
Speaking of Plato's Allegory of the Cave it has also recently occurred to me that my comparison of philosophic concepts like ethics, metaphysics, eptistemology, etc. to idea of ghosts is not unlike the shadows Plato described moving across the cave wall. The only major difference is I have taken the transcendent realm out of the picture. The shackles to the prisoner's wrists & ankles do not represent the physical world. In my case they represent TIME, or our being stuck in the present.
It always baffles me when people talk about pragmatic morality as though it's inferior to the alternative. I really don't see any point in following a moral system that has no pragmatic value. To say we should do something just because we should & no other reason isn't very compelling, and if the pragmatic results of a "moral" action were horrific, being moral would be pretty undesirable.
Morality is often pragmatic, but not all things which are pragmatic are also moral. Pragmatism is no basis for morality. There is always a most pragmatic way to achieve your goals. For example, there is a most pragmatic way for Ted Bundy to get away with rape. That just doesn't tell us which goals should be deemed as moral.
I would agree that morality & pragmatism aren't synonymous, but I don't see how any moral system could be sensible without being firmly based on pragmatism. Can you name any moral values that don't have pragmatic value? I can't think of any.
Saying that we should do something only because it is called "moral" literally offers no reason WHY we should do it. If being moral was pragmatically equivalent to being immoral, what would compel anyone to choose one over the other?
Everything is pragmatic towards some goal (true by definition). Not every moral thing is pragmatic for my goals, and not every moral thing is pragmatic towards my groups goals.
" If being moral was pragmatically equivalent to being immoral, what would compel anyone to choose one over the other?"
A person might not be compelled, but they may still recognize the duty to behave morally.
I'd love to hear examples of morals you adhere to that conflict with your goals.
"A person might not be compelled, but they may still recognize the duty to behave morally."
To accept a duty simply because it is called "moral" (ie. without concern for the actual results that come from doing or not doing the alleged duty) is utterly thoughtless. Besides, that just shifts the question to "if there's no pragmatic difference between doing & not doing one's duty, why do it?"
Being a Christian this happens to me all the time. Refraining from cursing, getting drunk, having sex, insulting people, etc is often not in line with my maximizing my personal preferences. You can apply this to almost limitless examples. Just think of anything a person may find it in their best interest to do, yet recognizes they "ought" not do that behavior.
But is avoiding those things REALLY conflicting with your ultimate goals? Obviously people can have conflicting goals (eg. eating candy vs dieting, staying in bed vs going to work, etc.); it seems to me that in your mind, the goal of being a good Christian is simply superseding other, more impulsive goals. Can you honestly say that in the grand scheme of things, you don't find doing what you consider "moral" to be more in your best interests than getting boozed up & swearing?
The notions "objectively moral" and "universal moral principles" are problematic. So one has to be careful to use them in a clause.
I agree that moral relativism as you define it is not consistent for the reason you point out. It says "you ought to not ought".
Subjective ethics does not suffer these paradoxes, it does not prescribe that ought to not ought. It just says that the grounding for all oughts is ultimately human/sentient and not transcendent.
Subjective ethics run into different problems, at the end of the day I don't think that system can account for "oughts" either. Fill in the blank for me. Human's ought to have rights because _____.
@Epydemic2020 Well of course no system can account for oughts. To claim that you can is an assertion not a truism. Subjective ethics means we are responsible for the world we live in. We get what we advocate for. What entity has any right to take something away? The notion of human rights is problematic only in that it is framed as "rights" as if one is required to have a right to live free. If however one frames it as "the world we want to live in" it's perfectly compatible with subjectivity.
If morality is subjective, can you tell people who disagree that they should comply to your desires?
Can you even say that you ought to comply with your own wants and desires? If someone tells you their greatest desires is to get away with rape, do you tell them they should act in accordance w/ their desires?
The claim to objective morality add anything. Rape has been "objectively" wrong for centuries, yet rape still exists. "Rape is objectively wrong" is a worse statement than "stop raping people, and if you don't I will act to oppose you". The latter acts to avert the problem.
If a law exists because we don't want to be raped or because rape is "objectively" wrong, is inconsequential. Not wanting to be raped is quite enough.
@Epydemic2020 I think you avoid the point I made. But the point was that to claim that morality is "objective" it is unnecessary and inconsequential. It does nothing and there is no evidence that it is in any way real. In fact I would contend that in the moral context it's nonsensical.
Incidentally effectiveness at preventing undesirable consequences is the only thing that is morally relevant.
Rights can only be guaranteed by an authority, such as a state, a god, (even though I don't think one exists) or the prevailing social consciousness. Civil liberties are the "rights" people strive for. They tend to strive for all liberties that wouldn't threaten themselves. For example, you don't see people going around pushing to toss out laws against killing or harming humans, or pet owners lobbying to make animal abuse legal. It is their compassion that leads them to interfere globally.
It can come very close though, through theories like Sam Harris presents. And what matters is that the word is useful for communication of useful ideas involving well being and interaction with others. That said, I completely agree that we need better terminology. We just don't need useless words that simply refer to things that must be rejected due to logical inconsistency.
I'll see if I can write up a more detailed response, but the short version is that I understand what you're trying to say. I just think that, much like it's pointless to abandon the expression "free will" just because a lot of people want the expression to mean impossible things, it's pointless to abandon "ought" simply because it can't possibly be the kind of universal imperative you want it to be.
I don't have a problem with the word ought, but it causes a lot of trouble. 9 times out of ten using that word when talking about morality leads people to commit an equivocation. I talk about the is-ought gap quite often and that mistake happens a lot.
The disagreement here is more semantic than anything. You insist on a type on universality that many people believe is contradictory. You then demand that these people not use the word "ought" because you have a monopoly on its definition - even though your definition is completely meaningless and useless as far as they're concerned and despite that it can have a very reasonable meaning for the people you criticize.
I'm not actually a relativist, but statement 2 in the second set of premises strikes my interest. It doesn't seem necessary. Morality itself is consistent in offering obligations; a trait. Each culture thus ends up with its respective oughts anyway, without the need for a claim. There's no need to say "you should follow your shoulds"; the obligations are already there.
1) When an athropologist says that morality is relative to culture, they're likely making a very different statement than when others say the same thing (descriptive vs normative).
2) Arguments that relativism (in its various forms) is self-refuting seem to me to often implicitly rely on an assumption of moral objectivity. When true, that means that the claim of self-refutation fails. Relativists can use "should" and "wrong" with complete consistency.
"Relativists can use "should" and "wrong" with complete consistency."
So you disagree with the professor who wrote "Moral Relativism Defended". How can you see a person using the word "should" as a relativist in a consistent way that is not either pragmatic, or sensationalist rhetoric?
A relativist holds that moral evaluations of "wrong" and "should" are relative to something (ex: culture). Suppose Culture1 says "X is wrong, no one should do X", but in Culture2, they say the opposite. Where's the problem? Those conflicting statements are only a problem when there's an implicit assumption that "wrong" and "should" have objective meaning. But that's absurdly *assuming* moral objectivity in order to make the argument that relativism in *internally* inconsistent.
You can say "X is consistent with my cultures agreement". You cannot say that other cultures should accept your agreement, and you cannot even make the universal claim that people in your culture should abide by the agreement. I backed that up by showing that both "should" statements lead to self-refutation.
As I said, you cannot use "should" in a moral sense, but is limited solely to use in a pragmatic sense or as sensationalist rhetoric.
Re: "You can say "X is consistent with my cultures agreement". You cannot say that other cultures should accept your agreement, ..."
If I'm a cultural relativist (I'm not), why can't I say that?
There's an needed distinction for relativism regarding the origin of the moral claim vs the scope of applicability of the moral claim (it gets too complicated to go over properly here), but a relativism could handle both. The inconsistencies are only defeaters by assuming objectivity.
To drive this point, let's take a simple relativism that's based on the individual: moral truths are relative to the individual. Suppose I hold that type relativism. Suppose I also hold that "X is wrong, no one should do it." When others disagree, I, as a relativist, acknowledge that their moral views are based in themselves. But I also hold that my moral claim is not thereby invalidated, and so applies to them. There's no contradiction there - unless you assume objectivity.
From a logical point of view (heh), deductions that relativism is self-defeating rely on producing contradictions. When such deductions simultaneously produce "X should do Y" and "X should not do Y", it's claimed that relativism is self-refuting. But assuming relativism means that either the moral terms in those statements, or the entire statements, are being incorrectly presented as stripped of their relativizing contexts. The claimed contradiction is thus an error of equivocation.
"X is wrong" is a nonsensical statement if relativism is true. Instead of wrong meaning "something people should not do" it means "something I don't like" or "something I don't agree with" and nothing more.
Re: "X is wrong" is a nonsensical statement if relativism is true.
What I hear you saying is:
"X is wrong" is a nonsensical statement if relativism is true, because it no longer carries a non-relative notion of wrongness.
To which I say: yeah, a moral relativist's moral claims won't include a non-relative notion of wrongness - of course. To establish that their position is self defeating, you have to show it fails on its own assumptions, not by implicitly assuming it's false.
Cheeky arguments that relativism is self-defeating not only don't work in my opinion, they miss the point entirely. I think that tying your ship to either moral relativism, or moral objectivity, only leads to confusion - the conceptual scheme in both cases is oversimplified and misleading. Rather than pretending we know what we're talking about, and then arguing yea vs nay for propositions about it, I think it's more constructive to dig into the semantics and do some conceptual analysis.
You've repeatly claimed that moral relativists' claims can only be understood in a pragmatic sense or as sensationalist rhetoric, and so implying that they've thereby missed the correct meaning of moral terms. It's interesting that your approach is indirect - going this route you aren't required to spell out the "correct" meaning of moral terms. You avoid saying "relativists fail, as their meaning of wrong&should no longer means *this*" (where *this* is given an explicit description).
I think your indirect approach is needed because the moral objectivist runs into trouble when forced to affirmatively describe what morality is. If relativists are mistaken about the meaning of "wrong", then what, explicitly, is its meaning? You seem to think there's something "more" there than pragmatic use, but good luck divorcing its meaning from its pragmatic use by fluent speakers. What more is there?
But at least this line of semantic questioning is digging into the real issues.
Wrong just means what you shouldn't do. In relativistic terms, it doesn't mean that at all. It just means "not the best way to achieve your goals". It is a very strange way to use language.
Re:"Wrong just means what you shouldn't do. In relativistic terms, it doesn't mean that at all. It just means "not the best way to achieve your goals".
First, I still don't see how you've established that a relativist can't use "wrong" that way. Second, "should" & "ought" are always used within some goal's context, whether or not it's a moral usage. A non-relativist's moral claims also include goals, such as moral behavior (abstractly), or a desirable outcome (more concretely).
1) My comments about you using an "indirect approach" were foolish. You'd already given a direct meaning for "wrong": "something people should not do". I read that, thought about other stuff, and so forgot it. Ooops.
2) In spirit, my error in #1 was ok. When you define "wrong" as "something people should not do", you've simply shifted the burden of untangling what morality is away from the word "wrong", and onto the word "should". That's not progress.
3) Your "wrong" = "something people should not do" is not only not productive (as in my #2), but I think it's also choosing to break the wrong half of the otherwise circular definitions. Morally, it's "should not" that follows from "wrong", not visa versa. The moral evaluation is the point, and the meta-ethical difficulty. "Wrong" is about moral evaluation itself, while "should not" is about acting in accordance with that evaluation. The evaluation itself is the central problem.
4) You suggested that if a relativist uses "wrong" to mean "something people should not do", it would be nonsensical. I still don't see Why.
5) As a minor point: we've both used self refute/defeat incorrectly. It should be reserved for claims that directly imply their negation ("I am the most magnificently humble being in the history of the universe!"), not positions that are merely logically inconsistent (contradictions derive from them). But we both know what's meant, so no biggie.
6) A major problem in discussing this is that there isn't "a" position called moral relativism, or even cultural moral relativism. There are numerous such positions that all carry the same name.
7) Re: "I backed that up by showing that both "should" statements lead to self-refutation."
I wasn't convinced by your vid's two self-refuting examples. Those *could* be contradictions - but I think that depends on the details of the specific relativism.
Look no further than the example of my anthropology teacher. He was telling us that we ought to behave a certain way in spite of our ethnocentric values and simultaneously supporting cultural relativism. She was telling us how we morally ought to behave regardless of our personal values. That version of moral relativism is self-refuting.
Re; "She was telling us how we morally ought to behave regardless of our personal values. That version of moral relativism is self-refuting."
I think you're right that the version is important. A relativist position will always produce *apparent* contradictions. The question is if they're actual problems, or if they're just due to the brevity with which the individual, seemingly contradictory, assertions are made. That requires digging into the specifics of the relativism.
I can immediately think of at two ways in which her position, as you've presented it, isn't self-contradictory. First, she could say give a (*nerd alert*) "Prime Directive" type of response: "Interpreting things according to cultural relativism is part of our culture, and so, since our behaviors should accord with our culture's view, and that view includes respecting the cultural norms of other cultures, we shouldn't interfere."
However, you are taking the exact same path I did to fix her example. My next step was to say instead of "we ought not interfere with other cultures" you change it to "we should only interfere according to our cultures values" (which is our culture values the prime directive, we ought not interfere).
As I showed in the vid, this only leads to another self-refutation (and she said we were ethnocentric rather than prime directive followers).
Re: "As I showed in the vid, this only leads to another self-refutation (and she said we were ethnocentric rather than prime directive followers)."
I'm not defending her claims, since I don't know them in any detail. (Perhaps she intends that the prime directive is included within our ethnocentrism. I don't know.) I'm concerned with relativism's coherence in general.
Your vid's 2nd claimed contradiction can fail for same the reason as I gave for her 2nd possible reply:
"No universal moral principles exist. And you ought to act in accordance with group moral principles (a universal claim, so a contradiction)." The 1st sentence well could only refer to directly normative moral claims. The 2nd sentence is more like a meta-moral claim; it's an ought about other oughts, not an ought about deeds. Cultural relativism could seemingly consistently hold both.
Re: "it's an ought about other oughts, not an ought about deeds" I am not sure what you are getting at here
Claiming how one ought to make moral evaluations ("one ought to consider all the consequences when judging a deed"), or which perspective on morality one ought to take ("one ought to follow the Prime Directive", "one ought to follow Jewish Law"), isn't a directly normative ought ("one ought to aid the needy"). It's an ought about other *oughts*, not an ought about *deeds*
Second, she could say "When I say what ought be done, sometimes it's a normative moral claim, and sometimes it's not. That we ought to respect other cultures internal moral norms isn't itself a moral claim, and so doesn't fall under my position of moral relativism. It's more like a meta-moral claim, and on that I never argued for relativism. Not all oughts are *moral* oughts."
If you knew the professor and the way she spoke it would be clear she was making a normative claim. She was saying the equivalent of "in spite of your personal or current cultural desires, american's have a duty not to interfere with other cultures values due to morality being relative.
If you'd asked her about 90's Serbian or Rwandian culture, or Nazi Germany's culture, I bet you would've heard some fast-talking back-tracking, and the qualifiers would come pouring out. I'd likely agree with her position in many cases, but it's obviously false in its complete generality.
It seems to me that sweeping claims about morality usually fall apart under specific examples; our moral instincts are much sharper than our moral theories.
Look no further than the example of my anthropology teacher. He was telling us that we ought to behave a certain way in spite of our ethnocentric values and simultaneously supporting cultural relativism. She was telling us how we morally ought to behave regardless of our personal values. That version of moral relativism is self-refuting.
Re: '... Epy seems to be proving you right with every response"
i obviously think you're right about that, but I also suspect that he and I are unproductively talking past one another. Everything he says I'm interpreting in terms of my point, and I suspect he's doing the same. Speaking is so much more fruitful than writing...
My argument is not that moral relativism is a completely incomprehensible system. I explained how it could be comprehensible in the video (which looks an aweful lot like nihilism). What I am saying, is that a moral relativist cannot talk about human rights, or talk about how people "should" not do things in the same way that moral relativists are often caught doing.
I don't understand how there could be objective morality. Morality is made by individuals and everyone of us has a different set of values. Some people have very close values some not so close but relative are they nonetheless. Just because it is subjective you don't have to respect crackpot practices. I don't see the dilemma.
We are making it true. We lock up people who do that, self-selecting out people who kill others for fun. We do that because most of us want to live, not to die.
In this case even a hard-core atheist like Sam Harris agrees with you. ;-) I agree that moral relativism is extremely iffy in praxis and that it is rather an observation (many moral systems out there). However, the plethora of moral systems does not mean that they do not mean that there is not one underlying system (like your example of killing in self-defence). I tend to see moral relativism as a stance as an argument from ignorance.
@timeofwonder2009 - """ I tend to see moral relativism as a stance as an argument from ignorance.""" - Please, explain ... I don't see how any stance can be considered an argument, let alone a fallacious one .
A stance is a position one takes on an issue using the facts that are availible to them.
@MaitreyaRocket Hm, yes. Should not make YT comments before breakfast. The grammar is garbled. So here we go: moral relativism is a stance on ethics. However, to me it is based on an inference from ignorance. Just because there is variety in moral expression does not mean that there are underlying mechanisms at work. It's almost like inferring from the huge variety of dishes that are and have been prepared by humans that there is no underlying explanation for what ends we prepare dishes.
"the word would no longer have any meaning in a moral sense, and would be limited strictly to use in the pragmatic sense."
I'm curious what you mean by this statement. After all, ethics has traditionally been labeled as "practical reason". This means to say that anything that is concerned with action is considered under the scope of ethics. Morality and the "pragmatic sense" seem to me to be saying exactly the same thing.
insidetrip101 2 months ago
@insidetrip101
The pragmatic refers to the most efficient way to achieve our goals. "To get away with rape, one ought to attempt rape at night". That statement is true in a pragmatic sense. Given a set of goals, there is a most efficient way to achieve them. This alone doesn't tell us which goals ought to be achieved (aka the pragmatic doesn't tell us what is moral).
In the reverse, the moral statement "I should not rape people for fun" doesn't tell me if rape is pragmatic for me or not.
Epydemic2020 2 months ago
@Epydemic2020
"The pragmatic refers to the most efficient way to achieve our goals."
But that is EXACTLY how morality has been defined by many thinkers such as Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, and virtually ever ethicist in the philosophic arena.
As far as prudence not telling us what the good isn't entirely true either. Once we obtain our desired end, we can then determine whether or not that end was prudent by virtue of the happiness gained (or not) from that action.
insidetrip101 2 months ago
@insidetrip101
"But that is EXACTLY how morality has been defined by many thinkers such as Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, and virtually ever ethicist in the philosophic arena."
That is simply a factually wrong statement. Kant would make it very clear that "if Rape was maximally pragmatic for me I still shouldn't do it" and so would Aristotle along w/ almost everyone else. (there is a moral theory called "pragmatism", and it is distinct from any of the people's theories you mentioned.)
Epydemic2020 2 months ago
@Epydemic2020
4 words. Critique of Practical Reason. Kant certainly did think of morality as having an end. The end was the dignity of any noumenal being. The noumenal was the very foundation of his categorical imperative. Aristotle thinks this way too: "for the good life is an end, and desire is directed towards this."
Bringing up Pragmatism actually gives more evidence for my point, since it is by and large a rejection of speculative wisdom and metaphysics.
insidetrip101 2 months ago
I don't understand why a relativist can't use the word "should." If I understand relativism correctly, it says that moral values are relative, but not meaningless. So a relativist could say "People shouldn't torture others for entertainment" and mean "My culture frowns upon torturing others for entertainment." In other words, moral laws are real but they are relative to cultures or individuals.
biznor3 2 months ago
@biznor3
the statement "my culture frowns upon torturing others for entertainment" doesn't tell me anything about what I "should do". The best you can say is that the word "should" is masquerading as the phrase "this is what my culture frowns upon". You would have to argue that when people use that word, they don't mean what that word is defined as but instead mean something else.
Epydemic2020 2 months ago
@Epydemic2020 I'm no cultural relativist, I'm just trying to get us clear on what relativism claims and what the implications of those claims are. According to one philosophy professor at my college, cultural relativism says that moral "oughts" are real but that they are relative to culture--this is a far cry from your claim that they have no meaning if relativism is true. I agree, however, that defining "should" in this way is bizarre and not probably not correct.
biznor3 2 months ago
I would consider myself a moral relativist, but it seems natural to say to others:
You "should" do this!, but I guess I really mean:
I would "like" it if you did this.
That seems to be how I see global morality: people individually want the world to be a certain way or other people to act a certain way.
Stephen5000 5 months ago
@Stephen5000
So is there anything you like which you think you shouldn't do?
Epydemic2020 5 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Only if it's superceded by some other prorogative.
(But hobestly. how I treat myslef and how I treat others is very different. I'm much harder on myself, often for little reason)
Stephen5000 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Epydemic2020 Only if it's superceded by some other prorogative.
(But hobestly. how I treat myslef and how I treat others is very different. I'm much harder on myself, often for little reason)
Stephen5000 5 months ago
When I look at morality I see two different parts:
1) My personal morals and how they work, and
2) My view of morality as a global concept.
At times they can be very different.
(cont'd)
Stephen5000 5 months ago
I don't see how you can be a christian, but not a moral relativist.
d34d23 8 months ago
@d34d23
I am pretty sure I can explain how if you first explain why you don't see how a Christian couldn't be a moral relativist.
Epydemic2020 8 months ago
@Epydemic2020 I may have misunderstood your video, nor do I perfectly remember my train of thought with the comment, but I'll do my best. If you're a christian, you're taught that there are universal truths and a moral law that everyone must abide. In addition, you're also expected to indoctrinate your children and others into the belief system. How can you also be a moral relativist saying that you respect other people's culture and belief differences?
d34d23 7 months ago
@d34d23
" How can you also be a moral relativist saying that you respect other people's culture and belief differences?"
I am not a moral relativist. This video critiques moral relativism.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@d34d23
"you're taught that there are universal truths and a moral law that everyone must abide."
Unless you are talking about the "law of love", then I don't know what moral law you are talking of. Christian "deontology" didn't pop up until around the enlightenment, and before then (and I would argue that even now) Christian morality is based much more on individual persons, rather than an absolute law. This means that moral maxims are not available to Christians.
insidetrip101 2 months ago
@insidetrip101
Christian morality is a heck of a lot like moral platonism.
Epydemic2020 2 months ago
@Epydemic2020
Which Plato are you speaking of? The one who wrote the laws? Or the one who wrote the republic?
I find it hard for any Christian to really accept plato's stance in the republic, because I see that as inevitably leading to an arian heresy. Further, Christianity sheds the Judaic "law" in favor of Christ's "love God, love neighbor" response to the greatest of the commandments.
insidetrip101 2 months ago
@insidetrip101
I'm not talking about his moral conclusions, I am talking about his account of morality. Recognizing the forms and such. Christian morality looks a lot like moral platonism with God being the standard rather than some notion of abstract values.
Epydemic2020 2 months ago
@Epydemic2020
This is true. The only problem I have is that on the "ladder of love" the state is higher than the person. I do not think this is true with Christianity; however, the Good is certainly synonymous with God in that respect.
insidetrip101 2 months ago
@insidetrip101 What are you talking about? There are obvious do's and don'ts in christianity. And Jesus explicitly said that he came not to get rid of the old laws but to fulfill them. I would argue that Christianity is not based on individuals when it comes to a moral code. God has laws that you must abide by regardless of when or where you are born and what your beliefs are.
d34d23 2 months ago
@d34d23
"There are obvious do's and don'ts in christianity."
Yes, things like murder, which has BUILT INTO IT the definition that is wrong. It isn't that killing is always wrong, but murder is always wrong.
"he came not to get rid of the old laws but to fulfill them."
Meaning those previous laws were MEANS and not the end in themselves. This is not a refutation.
"God has laws that you must abide by"
He has one law: "Love and do what you will." or "Do good and avoid evil."
insidetrip101 2 months ago
@Epydemic2020:
I think what cultural relativists mean is mainly that it is irational to interfere with other peoples' interests unless their interests conflict yours because doing so harms the diplomatic relationship.
Or that if someone believes he or she is intrinsically justified in taking action against another person based on a belief in intrinsic value he or she is mistaken.
I am not aware of any reputable philosopher or professional writer that holds the opinion you described.
MoralityIsAReligion 9 months ago
@MoralityIsAReligion
I mentioned Gilbert Harman within the video.. now you know of at least one reputable philosopher.
Which part do you think I am mistaken about?
Epydemic2020 9 months ago
@Epydemic2020
I just don't think there are any relativists (let alone professional ones) that would argue that since there is no objective morality it is therefore objectively immoral to impose moral ideas on others. In my opinion this view of relativism is mainly a strawman made up by apologists like Greg Koukl and others. Ok you may have people in your class that argue this way...but they hardly qualify as actual relativists, do they? At best they are kids interested in this idea.
MoralityIsAReligion 9 months ago
@MoralityIsAReligion
That is merely a critique of the way many laymen view moral relativism. I believe I gave an example of a claim made by my anthropology teacher and then critiqued it.
I think it is necessary to critique the laymen as well as the philosophers, after all it is the laymen which you run into more often.
Epydemic2020 9 months ago
"If morality is culturally relative. Therefore we should not interfere with other cultures" Uhh... If your culture's morals include not interfering with other cultures then this position is still consistent. Then not interfering in another culture would be relative to your culture's morality.
SleepingxWithxGhosts 9 months ago
@SleepingxWithxGhosts
Yup, I clarified that within the next couple seconds of the video.
Epydemic2020 9 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Uh... I kind of get where your coming from. I'm not a moral relativist myself. I does seem like an incoherent position, concerning the universal claim. It seems to be more useful in describing what is than what ought to be.
SleepingxWithxGhosts 9 months ago
Moral Relativism is just the "is" of morality not the "ought", nothing about that demands we don't impose our values else where, it just demands we don't use a moral "ought" to justify it.
Hexdoll 9 months ago
@Hexdoll
Consistent moral relativism has no "ought". However, that is not the type of moral relativism you are most likely to run into here on youtube or on the street.
Epydemic2020 9 months ago
i hope ur doing something useful with this good knowledge!
xxsupergman25xx 10 months ago
@xxsupergman25xx
Writing a book :P
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
Epy, It seems obvious to me that ought is always preceded by if, then. Even if that is most often merely implied. Ought only makes sense in some specific context. How do your ideas differ from that. Even if you are correct in that God exists and that God prescribes. Why ought we do what God prescribes?
hilbert54 10 months ago
@Epydemic I would like to hear your opinion on two thought experiments: (1) If it could be demonstrably proven that an action effectively increased the well-being of all sentient beings including God, but was against God's nature (assuming that this was possible) would it be immoral? (2) Same as (1) but the well-being of all sentient beings except God's was improved, would the action be immoral?
TheNameIsUnimportant 10 months ago
@TheNameIsUnimportant
Actions against God's nature cannot be moral. Wellbeing is simply not makes an action correct. In the instance of #2, I came come up with an analogy that I think you will find to be immoral. Wellbeing is maximized if someone secretly kills a homeless person and uses his organ to save 5 CEOs who need an organ donor. Is it moral to kill the homeless person (1 innocent man) to save 5 other people (5 > 1, therefore wellbeing is maximized) or is murder in this instance wrong?
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Do I understand you correctly that your basis of morality is hence unrelated to the actual effects of actions on sentient beings? With regard to your example: Do you think that well-being was maximized just because 5 > 1? I would suggest that such simple death arithmetics are insufficient. Living in a society where people can just be randomly killed for their organs is rather likely to lead to instability and terror. Why did you add the details "homeless" and "CEOs" by the way?
TheNameIsUnimportant 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 The question on my mind is "Why can't an action against God's nature be moral?" However, the "nature" of God's nature may actually answer that question so "What is your notion of God's nature?" I am of course doubtful that it would make a difference, since, I consider morals to be relative. However, on the possibility that it might I ask... I do know of at least one notion of the concept god that would make it impossible to deny god's nature as the concept defines/describes...
MyContext 10 months ago
I don't see how relativism is self refuting in either case. There seems to be a wide spread belief among the objectivists I've met that holds that a relativist can not enforce or suggest enforcement of their morality, but that it must be held as somehow equal to any other morality.
Should can still be used, but you offer reasons with it to show why your perception of the situation is better. Ie They should not mutilate their women, it's divisive and weakens them.
ApostateltsopA 10 months ago 3
@ApostateltsopA
I have a video coming up on the is-ought gap that will explain in much more detail why the word "should" is really not on the table for a relativist.
you are right insofar as you can show "doing X is inconsistent with your own values". Correcting misinformation is a useful tool in persuading people to change their behavior. At the end of the day, U still can't say they "should" act a specific way unless you use "should" in a merely pragmatic sense or as sensationalist rhetoric.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 I'm looking forward to your video then, to me if my way is functionally better or demonstratively less damaging then I can say should, that's part of the argument for whatever I'm endorsing. Or is that what you mean by merely pragmatic?
ApostateltsopA 10 months ago
@ApostateltsopA
If both parties have the goal of reducing damage, then you showing your way is better at reducing damage is exactly what I mean by pragmatic.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 So what's wrong with being pragmatic?
ApostateltsopA 10 months ago 2
@ApostateltsopA
Nothing is "necessarily" wrong with being pragmatic. But pragmatism is not a basis for morality.
For example, there is a most pragmatic way to fight cavities. Nothing is wrong with that.
There is also a most pragmatic way to get away with rape, or to get away with killing people, or to most pragmatic way to hurt people's feelings. Pragmatic things can be moral or immoral.. it all depends if the goals you wish to achieve are moral or immoral.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 I think if you extend the time line then you find pragmaticism is highly moral. That was largely the point of Plato's Republic when Socrates answers the question, is it better to be good or bad. It's a wonderful pragmatic answer and can be seen as the basis for much of western civilization.
ApostateltsopA 10 months ago
@ApostateltsopA
There is an argument called the "open question argument". If "pragmatism" is the basis for morality, then "pragmatic" is equivalent to "moral". If there is ever one example in which pragmatic does not equal moral, then pragmatism is not the basis for morality (ie the open question argument).
The most pragmatic way of Ted Bundy achieving his goal of getting away with rape, is to rape someone in an isolated area. Pragmatic.. yet not moral. continued
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@ApostateltsopA
continued
If you argument is merely that pragmatic things often happen to be moral (not that pragmatism is the basis for morality) then you have not contradicted or opposed anything I have argued.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 My argument was that you are allowing short instances of "pragmatic" negative behavior to blind you to the greater situation. While it may be pragmatic for Ted Bundy to commit his crime in the dark, the crime itself is not pragmatic. Especially when viewed against society as a whole and on a longer time line. I do not agree with your second premise in other words. Pragmatic is the source, not the equivalent. It would be like calling snow melt and the river identical.
ApostateltsopA 10 months ago
@ApostateltsopA
Everything is pragmatic in some sense. Actions which you recognize as evil can be pragmatic, actions which you recognize as good can be pragmatic. Clearly, pragmatism is no basis for morality.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 I disagree. I will certainly admit it's not perfect and I don't think there are pragmatic examples of everything, many things sure but some acts are just too stupid or destructive to be called pragmatic. On a longer view, though, and with an eye to the benefit of a society and not just the individual, I think that pragmatism is the best basis we have. We'll make mistakes along the way, hopefully learn from them and muddle through as best we can. Call it pragmatism with a goal.
ApostateltsopA 10 months ago
@ApostateltsopA
Pragmatism just refers to the best way to achieve a specific goal. The goal is not specified, so literally every action is pragmatic in respect to some goal. You seem to be saying that something is moral if it is pragmatic in relation to achieving the goal of societal benefit. So really, societal benefit is what you think the basis of morality is.
I'd agree that societal benefit is very often moral, but it just doesn't have the capacity to be a foundation for morality.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 I wonder what your requirement for a foundation for morality is then. Ultimately pragmatic means practical or useful. It's been my experience, as well as the argument from Plato, that goodness and being good are their own rewards. To brutally butcher Plato's dialectic, the argument was put to Socrates is it better to be good or bad. His response shows that it is most pragmatic, to be good. That it is most useful to the individual and society to be good.
ApostateltsopA 10 months ago
@ApostateltsopA
Actually plato argues that "the Good" exists, and that it just so happens to be correlated with rewards. It is not rewards which makes something good (and in fact evil things could be rewarding), but it just happens to be that good things are often rewarding.
"That it is most useful to the individual and society to be good."
We can use game theory to show that individual and societal benefit are not always the same. See "the prisoner's dilemma".
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 When Plato spoke of the forms he was looking into what goodness could be and arguing that there was such a thing as good in the same way that there was a form for small, large, near, far and white. Assigning a "thingness" to concepts which can not be grasped in the sense that one can hold a chair. In the world of forms there would be a chair which embodied "chairness". This was separate from the argument I am referring to.
"game theory" precisely why I argue morality is relative.
ApostateltsopA 10 months ago
Anthropology should insist on cultural relativism, not moral relativism, because cultural relativism is an factual empirical phenomena but moral relativism is a bit problematic. When you say that morality is relative all you're doing is assuming that morality is merely relative to what people merely prescribe through commanding and prohibiting. The problem is you HAVE to show that this is what morality really is, but by doing this you make morality meaningless term to use.
philonous09 10 months ago
I find it very...annoying when people teaching anthropology insist on moral relativism. The reason why I feel this way is because moral relativism and cultural relativism are two different things (though not exclusive), and sometimes ethnocentrism can be a red-herring when making an argument against moral objectivism since moral objectivism argues for moral standard independent of group values, not promoting a group value as superior to the rest. (continue)
philonous09 10 months ago
FYI - I'm not a cultural moral relativist, and would neither affirm nor deny classifying myself as a moral relativist in general. I think it's a conceptual confusion.
I think that most versions cultural moral relativism can be rejected with a one word argument: "Holocaust". I just don't think the type of self-refuting criticism you're using works out when examined in detail - or, at least, if it does work out, it takes a lot more work than the obvious type of contradictions you've noted.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
(cont)
I think moral cultural relativism, despite its clear absurdity, is entertained only because of the numerous issues swirling under the rubric of morality. If you examine one aspect and make a cogent claim about it, then later the aspect is lost, and the claim is just "moral".
For cultural relativism, I think one confusion is between evaluation & condemnation aspects. Ex: Clitoridectomies are wrong, but my moral judgement of the doer is tempered according to their cultural understanding.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
@VeryEvilPettingZoo
I agree that even if it is not self-refuting, it is still not a theory which explains a lot of data (such as the holocaust as you mentioned). That being said, I am not arguing that all moral relativists are self-refuting. I am just arguing that the average person who claims to be a moral relativist can often, even in the very next breath, be caught holding beliefs and making claims which are inconsistent with moral relativism.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
Re: "I am just arguing that the average person who claims to be a moral relativist can often, even in the very next breath, be caught holding beliefs and making claims which are inconsistent with moral relativism."
That's certainly true. But that's true for almost any position about anything, though I agree that relativists get themselves in trouble very easily. I think the only way to tell if they're *actually* being inconsistent is to dig into the details of their position.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
People feel their opinions are right, and they are correct in that, in the sense that they are right to them. If I am of the opinion that certain human rights should not be infringed, I am right, they shouldn't. This is not because there is some objective truth, but because my opinion is right to me, and those opinions require me to act because of my nature to impress others with my opinion.
So, how is that wrong?
Godlessons 10 months ago
@Godlessons
"people feel that their opinions are right"
My opinion about something like "broccoli is yummy" is an opinion which is only right for me. That doesn't tell me what I should do.
If instead of saying "broccoli is yummy" (or human rights are good) i instead say "you should eat broccoli)" (or human rights should not be infringed). Under relativism you cannot account for "shoulds" all you can do is try and impress your opinions.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 I can account for shoulds, because opinions with a personal consequence, real or perceived, require me to act. If "broccoli is yummy" had a possible perceived personal consequence, your nature would be to protect your personal interest. It's that simple.
We subjectively put value on many things. That value is what causes us to act to protect things. The should comes from within. It's not objective. It's pure selfishness.
Godlessons 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 If you feel pain from touching a hot coal, you learn quickly to not touch hot coals. Pain is subjective though. Each person experiences it in different levels, and some not at all. Even the desire to not harm oneself is subjective, yet most of us agree that it's bad to touch hot coals.
That is a perfectly analogous example of where subjective opinions create requirements on our actions. It's not immoral to touch a hot coal, but it is subjectively wrong.
Godlessons 10 months ago
@Godlessons If you don't mind my interjection, there's a problem with the coal analogy. Even though pain is subjective, the effect of touching coal - that being the physical harm done to the hand - is objective and the reason why touching coal is wrong whether the person feels pain from doing it or not.
gambleor 10 months ago
@gambleor Harm is not necessarily objective either. I can put a skewer through my skin, and some people would think that is harm, where I would not. Some people would say that a tattoo is harming the body. I don't believe that to be true. Who defines what is harmful and what is not? When there is no source that can be pointed to, the best someone could say is that it is possibly objectively harmful, not that it is actually objectively harmful.
Godlessons 10 months ago
@Godlessons Tattooing and piercing are objectively harmful, but the desired effect - the subjective principle of beauty - outweighs the decision to consider it wrong. This is the same as saying that fasting is objectively harmful, but when lent comes around, the desire to experience the struggle for the sake of spiritual benefit outweighs the decision to not do it.
gambleor 10 months ago
@gambleor Who says that tattooing and piercing are objectively harmful? Who sets the standards that require something to be called harm? Why isn't writing on your skin harmful but writing under the skin is?
You realize that we live in a world of definitions, and someone has defined something as harmful. Each person realizes harmful things in a different manner, so ultimately everything we use words to define is subjective.
Godlessons 10 months ago
@Godlessons Writing on your skin is causing harm too. It is damaging skin cells. That's objectively harmful to your skin. Definitions are subjective only insomuch as we subjectively use them to describe objective phenomena that we experience - after all, they're descriptive, not prescriptive. You may not want to describe tattooing and piercing as harmful, but they are because in order to have a tattoo or piercing, you must damage tissue.
gambleor 10 months ago
Get a load of THIS! A CHRISTIAN trying to teach US about self-refutation!
lotanddaughters 10 months ago 2
"All judgements between right and wrong actions are subjective" is not a judgment between right and wrong action itself. It is a statement about those judgments that is not a moral judgment in and of itself.
bdwilson1000 10 months ago
1. "All morals are purely subjective." 2. The claim "All morals are purely subjective" is an objective statement. 3. Therefore, the claim "All morals are purely subjective" is self-defeating.
But the claim "All morals are purely subjective" itself is not a moral statement or standard. Thus your claim of its being self-defeating fails.
bdwilson1000 10 months ago
@bdwilson1000
Here is my actual argument:
Claim 1. "No universal moral principles exist."
Claim 2. "you ought to act in accordance with your groups moral principles" (a universal moral claim)
Those two claims are self-refuting.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
Two remarks:
- Your claim 2 is not an element of moral relativism.
- The word "ought" is a homonym. If the "ought" in claim 2 is not a moral ought then it is compatible with claim 1.
MoralityIsAReligion 10 months ago
I'm sure to some cultures male circumcision is a barbaric practice. I don't see a stance that "morality" is relative to cultural norms as self-refuting. Nor do ought and should statements make it so. It's only if you claim the "oughts and shoulds" have a basis from an objective source that it would be self-refuting.
owheydusoapsk 10 months ago
@owheydusoapsk
I gave two premises and showed a self-refutation. I did that on two different occasions. I really don't see how you object to that. Which premise do you think is a misrepresentation, or do you think the premises are accurate but no contradiction exists?
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
I think there are two unrelated questions here. One: is morality culturally relative. I'd say yes. The second question you ask deals w/how a different culture views it. I don't see how the second question is necessitated by the first. If I do make an "ought" statement about another culture, I'm not imposing an "objective" ethic. I'm making an "ought statement that is relative to my opinion of what is moral/ethical.
owheydusoapsk 10 months ago
Spot on.
simplic1000 10 months ago
@simplic1000
Thanks
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
watch?v=hIQn88kdzys
ndjm00 10 months ago
@ndjm00
Did you notice that I already have a video response to that video? I also have a video planned on non-cognitivism that I plan on posting as a response to that video too.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
the First Question that pops into my mind is Normative Moral Relativism or Meta Ethical Moral Relativism? Thats a mistake that many make when talking on the topic and a littel background reserch shows there are major diffrences. I am a Meta Ethical Moral Relativist. To me your points don`t make sense you talk about Nomative Moral Relativism there littel things here and there one could debate about but alas 500 characters best wishes
FratisNox 10 months ago
Point two you brought up isn't a statement of fact, it's a statement of necessity. You essentially missed out the part where the reason why you "ought" to act to group principles is to maintain group cohesion. No one is making a claim about morality in that regard, what they're expressing is the optimum methodology to maintain personal and societal cohesion, which in turn is beneficial.
Also a quick question; I don't know where you stand on it, but is there free speech in Heaven?
MaxxPower101 10 months ago
@MaxxPower101
"you "ought" to act to group principles is to maintain group cohesion"
That can be an amoral claim, but people usually talk about "moral relativism". For example, it there is a way that you must behave to maintain group cohesion withing the KKK organization. However, that doesn't mean keeping group cohesion is a moral thing to do.
I have never thought of that question before. I don't see why there wouldn't be free speech in heaven.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
Good video, this is why I'm not a moral relativist.
Tcrowaf 10 months ago
@Tcrowaf
What do you classify yourself as anyway?
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Well, I think the question of whether morality is objective/subjective is perhaps nonsensical. I've never been given an account from any perspective of how morality could be truly objective. That being said, I think the most descriptive way to identify my position is to say that I'm a moral realist. I do think there are facts about morality, provided you define morality in a coherent fashion.
Tcrowaf 10 months ago
If we were able to travel back in time we'd be able to see the times when morality was regarded as science rather than philosophy. To be sure it would be a more dogmatic and dangerous time. At any rate these physical sciences that would one day become philosophies would represent the physical objects that are being carried across the fire, which are casting shadows on the cave wall.
NearVSMello 10 months ago
Speaking of Plato's Allegory of the Cave it has also recently occurred to me that my comparison of philosophic concepts like ethics, metaphysics, eptistemology, etc. to idea of ghosts is not unlike the shadows Plato described moving across the cave wall. The only major difference is I have taken the transcendent realm out of the picture. The shackles to the prisoner's wrists & ankles do not represent the physical world. In my case they represent TIME, or our being stuck in the present.
NearVSMello 10 months ago
It always baffles me when people talk about pragmatic morality as though it's inferior to the alternative. I really don't see any point in following a moral system that has no pragmatic value. To say we should do something just because we should & no other reason isn't very compelling, and if the pragmatic results of a "moral" action were horrific, being moral would be pretty undesirable.
army103 10 months ago
@army103
Morality is often pragmatic, but not all things which are pragmatic are also moral. Pragmatism is no basis for morality. There is always a most pragmatic way to achieve your goals. For example, there is a most pragmatic way for Ted Bundy to get away with rape. That just doesn't tell us which goals should be deemed as moral.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
I would agree that morality & pragmatism aren't synonymous, but I don't see how any moral system could be sensible without being firmly based on pragmatism. Can you name any moral values that don't have pragmatic value? I can't think of any.
Saying that we should do something only because it is called "moral" literally offers no reason WHY we should do it. If being moral was pragmatically equivalent to being immoral, what would compel anyone to choose one over the other?
army103 10 months ago
@army103
Everything is pragmatic towards some goal (true by definition). Not every moral thing is pragmatic for my goals, and not every moral thing is pragmatic towards my groups goals.
" If being moral was pragmatically equivalent to being immoral, what would compel anyone to choose one over the other?"
A person might not be compelled, but they may still recognize the duty to behave morally.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
I'd love to hear examples of morals you adhere to that conflict with your goals.
"A person might not be compelled, but they may still recognize the duty to behave morally."
To accept a duty simply because it is called "moral" (ie. without concern for the actual results that come from doing or not doing the alleged duty) is utterly thoughtless. Besides, that just shifts the question to "if there's no pragmatic difference between doing & not doing one's duty, why do it?"
army103 10 months ago
@army103
Being a Christian this happens to me all the time. Refraining from cursing, getting drunk, having sex, insulting people, etc is often not in line with my maximizing my personal preferences. You can apply this to almost limitless examples. Just think of anything a person may find it in their best interest to do, yet recognizes they "ought" not do that behavior.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
But is avoiding those things REALLY conflicting with your ultimate goals? Obviously people can have conflicting goals (eg. eating candy vs dieting, staying in bed vs going to work, etc.); it seems to me that in your mind, the goal of being a good Christian is simply superseding other, more impulsive goals. Can you honestly say that in the grand scheme of things, you don't find doing what you consider "moral" to be more in your best interests than getting boozed up & swearing?
army103 10 months ago
The notions "objectively moral" and "universal moral principles" are problematic. So one has to be careful to use them in a clause.
I agree that moral relativism as you define it is not consistent for the reason you point out. It says "you ought to not ought".
Subjective ethics does not suffer these paradoxes, it does not prescribe that ought to not ought. It just says that the grounding for all oughts is ultimately human/sentient and not transcendent.
Human rights work fine subjectively.
socrates856 10 months ago 2
@socrates856
Subjective ethics run into different problems, at the end of the day I don't think that system can account for "oughts" either. Fill in the blank for me. Human's ought to have rights because _____.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Well of course no system can account for oughts. To claim that you can is an assertion not a truism. Subjective ethics means we are responsible for the world we live in. We get what we advocate for. What entity has any right to take something away? The notion of human rights is problematic only in that it is framed as "rights" as if one is required to have a right to live free. If however one frames it as "the world we want to live in" it's perfectly compatible with subjectivity.
socrates856 10 months ago
@socrates856
"the world we want to live in"
Who is "we"?
If morality is subjective, can you tell people who disagree that they should comply to your desires?
Can you even say that you ought to comply with your own wants and desires? If someone tells you their greatest desires is to get away with rape, do you tell them they should act in accordance w/ their desires?
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 "We" is you and I.
The claim to objective morality add anything. Rape has been "objectively" wrong for centuries, yet rape still exists. "Rape is objectively wrong" is a worse statement than "stop raping people, and if you don't I will act to oppose you". The latter acts to avert the problem.
If a law exists because we don't want to be raped or because rape is "objectively" wrong, is inconsequential. Not wanting to be raped is quite enough.
socrates856 10 months ago
@socrates856
" "Rape is objectively wrong" is a worse statement than "stop raping people, and if you don't I will act to oppose you""
Those are not mutually exclusive, you don't have to pick one of the other. Rape can be wrong, and I can act to oppose people who do it.
What we should do doesn't always dictate what we will do, and thats why we have things like laws.
It doesn't matter which one is more effective at preventing bad behavior, the debate isn't about what has better consequences.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 I think you avoid the point I made. But the point was that to claim that morality is "objective" it is unnecessary and inconsequential. It does nothing and there is no evidence that it is in any way real. In fact I would contend that in the moral context it's nonsensical.
Incidentally effectiveness at preventing undesirable consequences is the only thing that is morally relevant.
Rest is idle sophistry.
socrates856 10 months ago
Well I"m not really a moral relativist . . . and I don't think it is an entirely defensible position anyway . . . so . . . meh.
HonestDiscussioner 10 months ago
@HonestDiscussioner
What position do you categorize yourself as?
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Consequentalist . . with a little virtue mixed in.
HonestDiscussioner 10 months ago
@HonestDiscussioner
That is interesting. For whatever reason, I attract all kinds of moral philosophies to may channel but hardly anyone ever mentions virtue ethics.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Simply put . . . virtue has consequence. That is inescapable. Therefore it has moral implications.
HonestDiscussioner 10 months ago
excellent video.
phlewis86 10 months ago
Rights can only be guaranteed by an authority, such as a state, a god, (even though I don't think one exists) or the prevailing social consciousness. Civil liberties are the "rights" people strive for. They tend to strive for all liberties that wouldn't threaten themselves. For example, you don't see people going around pushing to toss out laws against killing or harming humans, or pet owners lobbying to make animal abuse legal. It is their compassion that leads them to interfere globally.
Sabohaque 10 months ago
It can come very close though, through theories like Sam Harris presents. And what matters is that the word is useful for communication of useful ideas involving well being and interaction with others. That said, I completely agree that we need better terminology. We just don't need useless words that simply refer to things that must be rejected due to logical inconsistency.
Gnomefro 10 months ago
I'll see if I can write up a more detailed response, but the short version is that I understand what you're trying to say. I just think that, much like it's pointless to abandon the expression "free will" just because a lot of people want the expression to mean impossible things, it's pointless to abandon "ought" simply because it can't possibly be the kind of universal imperative you want it to be.
Gnomefro 10 months ago
@Gnomefro
I don't have a problem with the word ought, but it causes a lot of trouble. 9 times out of ten using that word when talking about morality leads people to commit an equivocation. I talk about the is-ought gap quite often and that mistake happens a lot.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
The disagreement here is more semantic than anything. You insist on a type on universality that many people believe is contradictory. You then demand that these people not use the word "ought" because you have a monopoly on its definition - even though your definition is completely meaningless and useless as far as they're concerned and despite that it can have a very reasonable meaning for the people you criticize.
Gnomefro 10 months ago
I'm not actually a relativist, but statement 2 in the second set of premises strikes my interest. It doesn't seem necessary. Morality itself is consistent in offering obligations; a trait. Each culture thus ends up with its respective oughts anyway, without the need for a claim. There's no need to say "you should follow your shoulds"; the obligations are already there.
SpriterShard 10 months ago
Another well done video. A couple things:
1) When an athropologist says that morality is relative to culture, they're likely making a very different statement than when others say the same thing (descriptive vs normative).
2) Arguments that relativism (in its various forms) is self-refuting seem to me to often implicitly rely on an assumption of moral objectivity. When true, that means that the claim of self-refutation fails. Relativists can use "should" and "wrong" with complete consistency.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago 3
@VeryEvilPettingZoo
"Relativists can use "should" and "wrong" with complete consistency."
So you disagree with the professor who wrote "Moral Relativism Defended". How can you see a person using the word "should" as a relativist in a consistent way that is not either pragmatic, or sensationalist rhetoric?
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
A relativist holds that moral evaluations of "wrong" and "should" are relative to something (ex: culture). Suppose Culture1 says "X is wrong, no one should do X", but in Culture2, they say the opposite. Where's the problem? Those conflicting statements are only a problem when there's an implicit assumption that "wrong" and "should" have objective meaning. But that's absurdly *assuming* moral objectivity in order to make the argument that relativism in *internally* inconsistent.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
@VeryEvilPettingZoo
You can say "X is consistent with my cultures agreement". You cannot say that other cultures should accept your agreement, and you cannot even make the universal claim that people in your culture should abide by the agreement. I backed that up by showing that both "should" statements lead to self-refutation.
As I said, you cannot use "should" in a moral sense, but is limited solely to use in a pragmatic sense or as sensationalist rhetoric.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
Re: "You can say "X is consistent with my cultures agreement". You cannot say that other cultures should accept your agreement, ..."
If I'm a cultural relativist (I'm not), why can't I say that?
There's an needed distinction for relativism regarding the origin of the moral claim vs the scope of applicability of the moral claim (it gets too complicated to go over properly here), but a relativism could handle both. The inconsistencies are only defeaters by assuming objectivity.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
(cont)
To drive this point, let's take a simple relativism that's based on the individual: moral truths are relative to the individual. Suppose I hold that type relativism. Suppose I also hold that "X is wrong, no one should do it." When others disagree, I, as a relativist, acknowledge that their moral views are based in themselves. But I also hold that my moral claim is not thereby invalidated, and so applies to them. There's no contradiction there - unless you assume objectivity.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
(cont)
From a logical point of view (heh), deductions that relativism is self-defeating rely on producing contradictions. When such deductions simultaneously produce "X should do Y" and "X should not do Y", it's claimed that relativism is self-refuting. But assuming relativism means that either the moral terms in those statements, or the entire statements, are being incorrectly presented as stripped of their relativizing contexts. The claimed contradiction is thus an error of equivocation.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
@VeryEvilPettingZoo
"X is wrong" is a nonsensical statement if relativism is true. Instead of wrong meaning "something people should not do" it means "something I don't like" or "something I don't agree with" and nothing more.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
Re: "X is wrong" is a nonsensical statement if relativism is true.
What I hear you saying is:
"X is wrong" is a nonsensical statement if relativism is true, because it no longer carries a non-relative notion of wrongness.
To which I say: yeah, a moral relativist's moral claims won't include a non-relative notion of wrongness - of course. To establish that their position is self defeating, you have to show it fails on its own assumptions, not by implicitly assuming it's false.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago 2
(cont)
Cheeky arguments that relativism is self-defeating not only don't work in my opinion, they miss the point entirely. I think that tying your ship to either moral relativism, or moral objectivity, only leads to confusion - the conceptual scheme in both cases is oversimplified and misleading. Rather than pretending we know what we're talking about, and then arguing yea vs nay for propositions about it, I think it's more constructive to dig into the semantics and do some conceptual analysis.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
(cont)
You've repeatly claimed that moral relativists' claims can only be understood in a pragmatic sense or as sensationalist rhetoric, and so implying that they've thereby missed the correct meaning of moral terms. It's interesting that your approach is indirect - going this route you aren't required to spell out the "correct" meaning of moral terms. You avoid saying "relativists fail, as their meaning of wrong&should no longer means *this*" (where *this* is given an explicit description).
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
(cont)
I think your indirect approach is needed because the moral objectivist runs into trouble when forced to affirmatively describe what morality is. If relativists are mistaken about the meaning of "wrong", then what, explicitly, is its meaning? You seem to think there's something "more" there than pragmatic use, but good luck divorcing its meaning from its pragmatic use by fluent speakers. What more is there?
But at least this line of semantic questioning is digging into the real issues.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
@VeryEvilPettingZoo
Wrong just means what you shouldn't do. In relativistic terms, it doesn't mean that at all. It just means "not the best way to achieve your goals". It is a very strange way to use language.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
Re:"Wrong just means what you shouldn't do. In relativistic terms, it doesn't mean that at all. It just means "not the best way to achieve your goals".
First, I still don't see how you've established that a relativist can't use "wrong" that way. Second, "should" & "ought" are always used within some goal's context, whether or not it's a moral usage. A non-relativist's moral claims also include goals, such as moral behavior (abstractly), or a desirable outcome (more concretely).
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
(cont)
Reviewing our discussion:
1) My comments about you using an "indirect approach" were foolish. You'd already given a direct meaning for "wrong": "something people should not do". I read that, thought about other stuff, and so forgot it. Ooops.
2) In spirit, my error in #1 was ok. When you define "wrong" as "something people should not do", you've simply shifted the burden of untangling what morality is away from the word "wrong", and onto the word "should". That's not progress.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
(cont)
3) Your "wrong" = "something people should not do" is not only not productive (as in my #2), but I think it's also choosing to break the wrong half of the otherwise circular definitions. Morally, it's "should not" that follows from "wrong", not visa versa. The moral evaluation is the point, and the meta-ethical difficulty. "Wrong" is about moral evaluation itself, while "should not" is about acting in accordance with that evaluation. The evaluation itself is the central problem.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
(cont)
4) You suggested that if a relativist uses "wrong" to mean "something people should not do", it would be nonsensical. I still don't see Why.
5) As a minor point: we've both used self refute/defeat incorrectly. It should be reserved for claims that directly imply their negation ("I am the most magnificently humble being in the history of the universe!"), not positions that are merely logically inconsistent (contradictions derive from them). But we both know what's meant, so no biggie.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
(cont)
6) A major problem in discussing this is that there isn't "a" position called moral relativism, or even cultural moral relativism. There are numerous such positions that all carry the same name.
7) Re: "I backed that up by showing that both "should" statements lead to self-refutation."
I wasn't convinced by your vid's two self-refuting examples. Those *could* be contradictions - but I think that depends on the details of the specific relativism.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
@VeryEvilPettingZoo
Look no further than the example of my anthropology teacher. He was telling us that we ought to behave a certain way in spite of our ethnocentric values and simultaneously supporting cultural relativism. She was telling us how we morally ought to behave regardless of our personal values. That version of moral relativism is self-refuting.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
Re; "She was telling us how we morally ought to behave regardless of our personal values. That version of moral relativism is self-refuting."
I think you're right that the version is important. A relativist position will always produce *apparent* contradictions. The question is if they're actual problems, or if they're just due to the brevity with which the individual, seemingly contradictory, assertions are made. That requires digging into the specifics of the relativism.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
(cont)
I can immediately think of at two ways in which her position, as you've presented it, isn't self-contradictory. First, she could say give a (*nerd alert*) "Prime Directive" type of response: "Interpreting things according to cultural relativism is part of our culture, and so, since our behaviors should accord with our culture's view, and that view includes respecting the cultural norms of other cultures, we shouldn't interfere."
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
@VeryEvilPettingZoo
Nice use of the prime directive.
However, you are taking the exact same path I did to fix her example. My next step was to say instead of "we ought not interfere with other cultures" you change it to "we should only interfere according to our cultures values" (which is our culture values the prime directive, we ought not interfere).
As I showed in the vid, this only leads to another self-refutation (and she said we were ethnocentric rather than prime directive followers).
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Epydemic2020
Re: "As I showed in the vid, this only leads to another self-refutation (and she said we were ethnocentric rather than prime directive followers)."
I'm not defending her claims, since I don't know them in any detail. (Perhaps she intends that the prime directive is included within our ethnocentrism. I don't know.) I'm concerned with relativism's coherence in general.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
(cont)
Your vid's 2nd claimed contradiction can fail for same the reason as I gave for her 2nd possible reply:
"No universal moral principles exist. And you ought to act in accordance with group moral principles (a universal claim, so a contradiction)." The 1st sentence well could only refer to directly normative moral claims. The 2nd sentence is more like a meta-moral claim; it's an ought about other oughts, not an ought about deeds. Cultural relativism could seemingly consistently hold both.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
@VeryEvilPettingZoo
"it's an ought about other oughts, not an ought about deeds"
I am not sure what you are getting at here.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
Comment removed
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
Re: "it's an ought about other oughts, not an ought about deeds" I am not sure what you are getting at here
Claiming how one ought to make moral evaluations ("one ought to consider all the consequences when judging a deed"), or which perspective on morality one ought to take ("one ought to follow the Prime Directive", "one ought to follow Jewish Law"), isn't a directly normative ought ("one ought to aid the needy"). It's an ought about other *oughts*, not an ought about *deeds*
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
(cont)
Second, she could say "When I say what ought be done, sometimes it's a normative moral claim, and sometimes it's not. That we ought to respect other cultures internal moral norms isn't itself a moral claim, and so doesn't fall under my position of moral relativism. It's more like a meta-moral claim, and on that I never argued for relativism. Not all oughts are *moral* oughts."
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
@VeryEvilPettingZoo
If you knew the professor and the way she spoke it would be clear she was making a normative claim. She was saying the equivalent of "in spite of your personal or current cultural desires, american's have a duty not to interfere with other cultures values due to morality being relative.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
Re: your anthro professor
If you'd asked her about 90's Serbian or Rwandian culture, or Nazi Germany's culture, I bet you would've heard some fast-talking back-tracking, and the qualifiers would come pouring out. I'd likely agree with her position in many cases, but it's obviously false in its complete generality.
It seems to me that sweeping claims about morality usually fall apart under specific examples; our moral instincts are much sharper than our moral theories.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
@VeryEvilPettingZoo
Look no further than the example of my anthropology teacher. He was telling us that we ought to behave a certain way in spite of our ethnocentric values and simultaneously supporting cultural relativism. She was telling us how we morally ought to behave regardless of our personal values. That version of moral relativism is self-refuting.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@VeryEvilPettingZoo
Bingo! You really hit the nail on the head with that one, and Epy seems to be proving you right with every response.
army103 10 months ago
@army103
Re: '... Epy seems to be proving you right with every response"
i obviously think you're right about that, but I also suspect that he and I are unproductively talking past one another. Everything he says I'm interpreting in terms of my point, and I suspect he's doing the same. Speaking is so much more fruitful than writing...
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
@VeryEvilPettingZoo
My argument is not that moral relativism is a completely incomprehensible system. I explained how it could be comprehensible in the video (which looks an aweful lot like nihilism). What I am saying, is that a moral relativist cannot talk about human rights, or talk about how people "should" not do things in the same way that moral relativists are often caught doing.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
Comment removed
VeryEvilPettingZoo 10 months ago
I don't understand how there could be objective morality. Morality is made by individuals and everyone of us has a different set of values. Some people have very close values some not so close but relative are they nonetheless. Just because it is subjective you don't have to respect crackpot practices. I don't see the dilemma.
Uhmu45 10 months ago 2
@Uhmu45
Morality is made by individuals? Can anyone make it true that "killing non-consenting people solely for entertainment is morally right"?
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
We are making it true. We lock up people who do that, self-selecting out people who kill others for fun. We do that because most of us want to live, not to die.
Uhmu45 10 months ago
In this case even a hard-core atheist like Sam Harris agrees with you. ;-) I agree that moral relativism is extremely iffy in praxis and that it is rather an observation (many moral systems out there). However, the plethora of moral systems does not mean that they do not mean that there is not one underlying system (like your example of killing in self-defence). I tend to see moral relativism as a stance as an argument from ignorance.
timeofwonder2009 10 months ago
@timeofwonder2009 - """ I tend to see moral relativism as a stance as an argument from ignorance.""" - Please, explain ... I don't see how any stance can be considered an argument, let alone a fallacious one .
A stance is a position one takes on an issue using the facts that are availible to them.
MaitreyaRocket 10 months ago
@MaitreyaRocket Hm, yes. Should not make YT comments before breakfast. The grammar is garbled. So here we go: moral relativism is a stance on ethics. However, to me it is based on an inference from ignorance. Just because there is variety in moral expression does not mean that there are underlying mechanisms at work. It's almost like inferring from the huge variety of dishes that are and have been prepared by humans that there is no underlying explanation for what ends we prepare dishes.
timeofwonder2009 10 months ago