Moral Relativism

Moral Relativism. Randall Niles looks at Hamlet, who said, "There is Nothing Either Good or Bad, but Thinking Makes it So."

Yes indeed, in Hamlet, William Shakespeare declares:

"There is nothing either good nor bad but thinking makes it so."

This also seems to be the mantra of the day:

There is no universal right and there is no universal wrong. Morality is relative to the person and place in which it is applied.

You might have heard someone say, theres no right and theres no wrong, but you have to ask yourself, is their statement right or wrong? And Im sure youve heard someone say, Its wrong for you to impose your morals on me! But if you think about it, by them telling you that something is wrong, they are imposing their morals on you! How about this one There is no such thing as absolute truth. I must be snippy and ask, Are you absolutely sure about your absolute statement?

The fact is, we all inherently know right from wrong; we just have this crazy tendency to disregard morality when it conflicts with our desire for personal pleasure or personal gain. Sure, we might justify having an affair, but we certainly wouldnt condone our spouse cheating on us. And we might justify taking something without permission, but if we were the ones being robbed we wouldnt think it was OK.

Simply, there isnt a person alive today who would come home from work to discover that their house has been robbed, their dog murdered, and their child kidnapped, and say, Oh, how wonderful that this person is able to destroy my life and enjoy all of my things. And who am I to impose my view of right and wrong on this poor, misguided soul?

Heres a good way to determine right from wrong: turn the situation around on yourself. Jesus said it best: treat people the same way you want them to treat you. The truth is we all know that murder, rape, lying, stealing, cheating, child abuse, torture, genocide, and other patent injustices are absolutely wrong. Why? Because we wouldnt want any of these things to happen to us!

Visit http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/moral-relativism.htm to examine the philosophy of Moral Relativism for yourself.

Also, go to http://www.RandallNiles.com/videos.htm to watch more videos on the subject of Moral Relativism!

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Moral Relativism
• Absolute Truth
• Right and Wrong
• Relativism
• Morality
• Randall Niles
• Hamlet

[reflect7]

Hey Goph000 --

You claim, "Moral relativism...is true." Is that a universal truth, or just true for you?

[Anarkokommunist]

If it is so f****** absolutley (excuse me if I spell wrong btw) wrong to rape, lie etc, how come people rape, lie and so on? Think people! Moral is relativ!

[reflect7]

If people violate a law, does that make it OK? You're truly saying that an instance of rape justifies rape on a moral basis?

[sqlblindman]

Lying is "absolutely" wrong? I think is pitiful easy to come up with actual scenarios where lying is justifiable. Score one more for moral relativism, and one more against simplistic ideology.

[CamillaCalamity]

Morality is a set of rules we live by and it changes depending on circumstances and varies from one person to another. It's absolutely relative. Children can usually reason beyond moral black/white good/bad by 9 or so.

[zenowing]

@Hufflewaffle I'm sure that you recognize your straw man - Niles in no way implies that tolerance and opening up are immoral. You're arguing against a premise that you constructed.

Turning the other cheek doesn't mean that you're not supposed to defend yourself, it means that you don't do it with pride or anger.

What's bad, here, is your thinking. I recommend a dose of Greg Koukl. Maybe start here.. watch v=vzdpp73Osvc

[types10000]

@Aaron518

"People who believe in moral relativism..."

- not at all, as a moral relativist i'm yet to run into any hypothetical i've been provide an answer for, you seem to be confusing the human limitation on perception of right/wrong to be a mark against the position (it isnt)

- to simply say 'if you cant provide me with a position in which YOU CONSIDER x to be good then moral relativism is incorrect' is infact just an argument from ignorance (logical fallacy)

[Hufflewaffle]

Ironic how he talks of 'tolerance' and 'opening up' as if they were somehow immoral.

I seem to recall something someone said once about turning the other cheek and opening your heart.

I'm confused. Are these things bad now?

[Aaron518]

People who believe in moral relativism are just as wrong as people who believe in moral absolutism. Both cannot avoid simple examples to which the person would not agree to. Would you agree that its wrong to kill a man whos about to kill your children? Or is it absolutely wrong to lie when the Nazis ask if you're hiding any jews? Most people are really consequentialists/utilitarians­.

[TheVisibleDentist]

The laws referred to in this video are corporate reforms by political and bureaucratic authorities via processes of abstract rationalisation and imperfect empirical investigation.

Most often these corporate statutes and policies are based on Marxist and neo-socialist ideological assumptions. This so-called evolved law is thereby fractured and reshaped with unpredictable consequences. It also tends to remove questions of public morality from the community.

see: tinyurl com / ykvgexy

[TheLordSod]

you could say that all truths are objective. That is to say, it varies from case to case and therefore could be said to be relative (not through the observer, but through those concerned) truth, although i still think its Objective.

in short i think there is a set right and wrong. it only differs for different situations. i consider people having different views a possible candidate for 'different situations'.

[army103]

I think rapists, thieves, liars & murderers would disagree with Niles' point.

[iceefreet]

i think this guys ether had a horrible critical thinking & ethics teacher or he only went to one class. there are two types of truth relative/Objective. relative just means that something is true relative to a the observer ie you. objective truths are truth that are still true regardless of the observer. but neither are absolute truth. ethics is part of relativism because rights and wrong do change from culture to culture, there for his teacher was right if he was only teaching ethics.