Moral Relativism: Good, bad...etc?

[Immortal Wombat]

Moral relativism is a valid theory about the "rightness" and "wrongness" of cultural morality worldviews: morals cannot be based on some transcendental "truth".

But given that there is no transcendental truth, there is no "objective" "good" or objective "bad", so we're quite at liberty to make up our own "good" and "bad" and impose them as we see fit, provided that said imposition is justified by our own moral code.

[BeBMan]

Relativism has its merits to refute intolerant, dogmatic positions. But it fails (which was even admitted in this thread) completely when it comes to the justification of moral standards or norms, because then you have to go through a decision-making process where you have to find reasons for specific positions. But then you cannot think all possible positions are equally valid.

[Snowflake]

Moral standard is a contract between a group of people. They can make the contract anyway they want, as long as they all agree to it.

[Gangerolf]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


In that case, it is an empirical claim - this culture's moral system claims that such-and-such is moral, while this other culture's moral system thinks that it is immoral. It's obviously true.

Not exactly. But close
Maybe I didn't explain it properly.
Read more here if you wish http://www.philosophyofreligion.info...elativism.html

They explain my main beef with CR pretty well:

This strength of cultural relativism, however, is also its weakness. Cultural relativism excuses us from judging the moral status of other cultures in cases where that seems inappropriate, but it also renders us powerless to judge the moral status of other cultures in cases where that seems necessary. Faced with a culture that deems slavery morally acceptable, it seems appropriate to judge that society to be morally inferior to our own. Faced with a culture that deems ethnic cleansing morally acceptable, it seems appropriate to condemn that society as morally abhorrent.

[Kidlicious]

A lot of people believe that truth is not transendental. That doesn't make them moral relativists. They know that the ethical code that they believe in can't alway provide the right answers, but they prefer one over the other.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Snowflake
Moral standard is a contract between a group of people. They can make the contract anyway they want, as long as they all agree to it.

Not all people are going to agree with it.

[Drachasor]

I would note that moral/ethical behave is about what is *good*. In particular, a human ethical system is about what is good for humans to do (and what is bad for them to do).

"Good" in its simplist sense, is about what is desirable/beneficial to those concerned. Evaluating wether a particular ethical system for humans actually produces good ends is a perfectly valid question. In other words, ethics are about desirable behavior for humans to have; what behavior they should have to promote the good. Some ethical system simply do this better than others.

For instance, if I proposed that everyone should should commit suicide, and that was a moral mandate, then I would then have to prove how that was for the good; how that aided the welfare of humans.

Some religious ethical system, then propose that the good of the soul is more important than the good of the body (very roughly speaking). Of course, what the soul is, its existence, and wether its good is more important to the welfare of people than the good of the body are all debateable topics.

Utilitarianism supposes that the good is happiness, and that this should be maximized as much as possible for all concerned. This rather simply stated axiom of the system can lead to a rather convoluted mess when evaluated some particular situations.

Ethical systems are just a random collection of rules. There is an end they are supposed to acheive, and some ethical systems are inferior at acheiving this end.

Moral Relativism then, is the easy way out of the evaluation, imho. You are simply stating: they are all equal and so why bother with evaluations? It certainly sounds nice, and it is often innoffensive to hear*, but that does not make it true.

As a side note, someone can certainly believe moral relativism is true and have their own particular moral code. Believing moral relativism is true means you can have any moral code you want; and that moral code might indepedently evaluate moral relativism as a good or a bad thing (often the latter), but a moral evaluation of "bad" certainly doesn't mean something is false.

Of course, if anyone disagrees feel free to correct me. I started the thread because I wanted to discuss this (and I thought the poll would be amusing).

-Drachasor

*Of course, it is not always innoffensive to hear, for someone that truly believes moral relativism is true would have to say that the Americans taking over land and killing the Native Americans was just as valid as the the Native American moral outrage over it. Most advocates of moral relativism don't readily understand this corollary.

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by Kidicious

Originally posted by Snowflake

Moral standard is a contract between a group of people. They can make the contract anyway they want, as long as they all agree to it.

Not all people are going to agree with it.

That's what divide people into different ethical groups.

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by Drachasor

*Of course, it is not always innoffensive to hear, for someone that truly believes moral relativism is true would have to say that the Americans taking over land and killing the Native Americans was just as valid as the the Native American moral outrage over it. Most advocates of moral relativism don't readily understand this corollary.

In fact, the English immigrants killing Native American was NOT considered immoral at the time. This is exactly the point of Moral Relativism. And the ethical codes have changed over time and now we believe that it was indeed a bad thing.

[Kidlicious]

Snowflake,

I know, but what are you getting at?

x-post

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Snowflake
In fact, the English immigrants killing Native American was NOT considered immoral at the time. This is exactly the point of Moral Relativism. And the ethical codes have changed over time and now we believe that it was indeed a bad thing.

But it was a bad thing, and it was caused because they had a bad ethical code.

[Whaleboy]

Oh for gods sake, is this some kind of conspiracy against my fingers? Well it's not GOING TO HAPPEN!! Relativism pwns (relatively) all of your arses, and I'm riding on the back of both beasts, so either take off your clothes and grab onto the love handles, or prepare to be trampled by the hooves of superior logic and annoying paradoxes.

[Kidlicious]

[BeBMan]

Nice try

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Snowflake,

I know, but what are you getting at?

x-post

That moral is relative.