Does "dictatorship of relativism" exist?

[Whaleboy]

And it's just like enjoying ice cream.

Yep. Refute it, instead of saying you find it distasteful. Relativism that is, not ice cream. Everyone loves ice cream. Oh ****, an absolute!

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Whaleboy


If it means anything like your meaning of "absolute", then you really should buy yourself a dictionary. Care to elaborate?

In that context it means that I haven't proven anything to Ramo that meets his criteria. It just so happens that that crtiteria is just beyond what I am able show. Isn't that something.

It's not an assumption, it's a conclusion that leads to moral relativism. You would make it upon consideration of emotivism, or the like.

I understand the consistency of your argument. So your conclusion is just as ridiculous as your assumptions.

And it's not a contradiction to say that one person likes murder, and another likes credit card fraud. Think context

The contradiction is that one person thinks that murder is immoral and the other doesn't so they are both right. I understand that asking the question "Is murder immoral" can not be answered, but the above is still a contractiction. It still can not be both moral and immoral if morality exists at all.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Whaleboy


Yep. Refute it, instead of saying you find it distasteful. Relativism that is, not ice cream. Everyone loves ice cream. Oh ****, an absolute!

I refute it because it's based on absurd assumptions and custom made definitions.

edit: Specifically, but not limited to, that "objective" is a proper synonym with "absolute" in this context, and that deciding what is morally correct is like deciding whether or not to have chocolate or vanilla ice cream.

[Kidlicious]

btw, here are the synonyms for absolute at dictionary.com

Synonyms: pure, absolute, sheer, 2simple, unadulterated
These adjectives mean free of extraneous elements: pure gold; absolute oxygen; sheer alcohol; a simple substance; unadulterated coffee.

"Objective" aint in there.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kidicious
No. That's similar to saying that something doesn't exist, because you haven't proven it to exist. I don't find that to be good logic.

Pink unicorns.

God.

Owned.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Ummm... unless you believe that the functioning of anything can be described outside of causality, you've pretty much pwn3d yourself.

Where'd I talk about causality?

[Fake Boris]

How do you predict what will occur without causality?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Pink unicorns.

God.

Owned.

There's a whole wide world out there that hasn't been proven to exist by Kuciwalker believe it or not. You aren't quite as significant to the universe as you are in your own mind.

[Whaleboy]

In that context it means that I haven't proven anything to Ramo that meets his criteria. It just so happens that that crtiteria is just beyond what I am able show. Isn't that something.

From what I've read he's not being unreasonable, his criteria is you providing something objective, thus far you have only been able to speak of the arbitrary. You can't cry foul because logic prevents you from turning an "is" into an "ought". It's the very problem with your argument, you should be looking at resolving it instead of attacking Ramo's perfectly good criteria.

He wants you to be able to show an irrational foundation atop an arbitrary structure, whereas all you are doing is proving my point that the irrational foundation is the source of the arbitrary which separates morality from science and demonstrates emotivism -> moral relativism .

I understand the consistency of your argument. So your conclusion is just as ridiculous as your assumptions.

And, pray tell, how are my assumptions ridiculous?

The contradiction is that one person thinks that murder is immoral and the other doesn't so they are both right. I understand that asking the question "Is murder immoral" can not be answered, but the above is still a contractiction. It still can not be both moral and immoral if morality exists at all.

But again you're looking for an absolute where one cannot be shown which takes you back to my first point in this post. You're trying to find out which one is "right", whereas that very question is nonsensical once you accept no moral absolute, and as a sidenote I would very much like to see how you would show this absolutism upon which you are depending (yet you seem to be rejecting it also ).

edit: Specifically, but not limited to, that "objective" is a proper synonym with "absolute" in this context, and that deciding what is morally correct is like deciding whether or not to have chocolate or vanilla ice cream.

No. Any idiot can see that my use of objective and absolute is not synonymous, since objective is contextual (i.e. science is objective to human context "truths" whereas absolute is a kind of god's eye view... though for the social context they are both absolute).

That "morally correct" is more an aesthetic choice is not an assumption but the very conclusion! . And you cannot claim that someone's conclusion is ridiculous when you provide no argument to counter it's reasoning and premises.

As for custom-made definitions, again with the self-pwnage, since you are the one who is using the words "absolute" and "objective" inaccurately, and seemingly not understanding Wittgenstein's use of context to differentiate between them.

"Objective" aint in there.

As I said in a previous post, objective exists as opposed only to the "subject and predicate" of an arbitrary statement, where morality is the subjective and the predicate is the beholder.

There's a whole wide world out there that hasn't been proven to exist by Kuciwalker believe it or not. You aren't quite as significant to the universe as you are in your own mind.

Kuci was raising a very valid point about Occam's razor, or the Schroedinger's cat problem. That something's positive existence cannot be proved |= equal it's non existence for sure, but rather it's meaningless existence, so you need proof to make a proposition +1 or -1, without it the proposition is 0, like god, pink unicorns and moral absolutes . That is to say, I could talk about God or absolute morality and it would have the same value as me talking about my 12th finger, or the giant pixie on the moon.

[Agathon]

He wants you to be able to show an irrational foundation atop an arbitrary structure, whereas all you are doing is proving my point that the irrational foundation is the source of the arbitrary which separates morality from science and demonstrates emotivism -> moral relativism

The problem with emotivism is that it's bollocks.

[Az]

There's nothing that's purely rational. You need to impose an irrational foundation on any logical structure.

In that case, any debate on anything is fallacious, because any argument appeals to emotion.

[Agathon]

Az, don't waste your time.

It's a feature of human discourse that a person can deny or pretend to deny anything that's claimed, no matter how absurd. This is down to the fact that propositions aren't infallibly self evident and that you can't really make someone believe something in a practical sense. It's also a feature of human discourse that some things are just held true as a matter of practice, and that asking for a justification of said practice doesn't really make sense (this was Wittgenstein's much misunderstood point).

That is about all there is to say about relativism of all sorts. People disagree about some moral issues, but no one is a relativist in practice, just as no-one is an epistemological sceptic in practice - not because it's hard, but because it's impossible.

So relativism is just people engaging in mental masturbation – if they were honest about their own actions, they would realize that they don't believe in it either.

[Agathon]

PI - 242

"If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in judgements. This seems to abolish logic, but does not do so. It is one thing to describe methods of measurement, and another to obtain and state results of measurement. But what we call "measuring" is partly determined by a certain constancy in results of measurement."

This is why relativism is wrong: if it were true it could not be communicated to any other person, and nor could one even articulate it to oneself.

There is no strong cleavage between the logical and the empirical – that is why relativism is false.

[Kidlicious]

I wrote a long post in response to Whaleboy, but the server ate it. I don't think it matters anyway. To the MRs I say that the foundation of reason is making sense not mental masturbation.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
How do you predict what will occur without causality?

Luck?

We have observed that our physics has worked in the past; for our own reason, we will continue to use it. You're free to abstain if you want.