Moral Relativism: Good, bad...etc?

[Immortal Wombat]

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.

That is rather the point. Bad things are only bad from the viewpoint of a different moral code. (Except people who believe they are doing wrong when the do so)
Moral relativism is true, it just doesn't describe any morality itself. It's a different way of looking at a question, but it's not an answer.

[Drachasor]

Do people ignore the entire body of my post and discuss only the footnote on purpose?

I address the issue of how one can evaluate wether a given ethical code is superior to another.

-Drachasor

[Immortal Wombat]

You don't. They're all equal. That is also the point.

[Whaleboy]

Yes but anti-relativists seem to take relativism as some kind of threat to the size of their penises, which tends to provoke bad reactions... we all know that relativism is (relatively) true, just some people are lost in a maze of dillusion. Or religious.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Bad things are only bad from the viewpoint of a different moral code.

Absolute nonsense. If you don't believe in bad or good you are just a pleasure seeker. What kind of universal sense does that make, or do you just claim that that also makes no sense, which would be contradicting yourself.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Snowflake


That moral is relative.

But when - like you put it - moral standards are result of a contract, they cannot be seen as relative anymore. They get "institutionalized", and even people who do not agree with a certain standard have to act according to it. The interesting thing is how you (or those who want to make that contract) justify that this contract should have one certain "content", and not any other.

[Snowflake]

You can believe in bad or good all you want, but another person may believe in a different set of bad or good. There is no universal sense Kid.

[Whaleboy]

Kid, your argument rests on the assumption that relativists can have no morality of their own, but merely recognise it to be relative... so valid in their individual context but not universalisable... which is what I've observed in all relativists I know, myself included. Doesn't some how make us abandoned hedonists, with no internal barrier within ourselves to that.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Snowflake
That moral is relative.

I know that, but what is the connection. You haven't made any yet.

[Imran Siddiqui]

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

Only to our current moral system. Perhaps in the future, the moral system will say it was just and right to do such a thing and we, today, were in the wrong.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Snowflake
You can believe in bad or good all you want, but another person may believe in a different set of bad or good. There is no universal sense Kid.

Not believing in universal sense, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. You seem to think that morals can be justified in an individuals head, and need not to be justified else where.

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by BeBro


But when - like you put it - moral standards are result of a contract, they cannot be seen as relative anymore. They get "institutionalized", and even people who do not agree with a certain standard have to act according to it. The interesting thing is how you (or those who want to make that contract) justify that this contract should have one certain "content", and not any other.

No. The society one lives in defines the current effective moral standard, and the content changes over time, when people's view point changes. For one time killing wild animals are herotic, but later it becomes cruel. We have no right to say that it wasn't herotic for people who lived in the wild age.

Moral is relative, and temporary. It's loosely defined, unlike laws being a more tightly defined and forced contract.

[Whaleboy]

Kidicious, if you are going to pursue the notion of the possibility of universal truth, if you can't establish what it is, you should at least attempt to induce it's basis.

[Whaleboy]

Snowflake

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

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

Only to our current moral system. Perhaps in the future, the moral system will say it was just and right to do such a thing and we, today, were in the wrong.

I'm not concerned with whether the alternate ethical codes justify it. It was bad period. Only a person who some how benefits from such and atrosity would say otherwise or maybe someone who just doesn't care about the suffering of others.