Does "dictatorship of relativism" exist?

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Yes. Moral relativism isn't a moral position, its a theory of morality. So "there is no absolute moral truth" doesn't exclude moral relativity from being correct as a theory.

But then as a theory it has to apply a value (0 or 1 in a bivalent system) to moral statements.

[Immortal Wombat]

No it doesn't. Its a theory about morality, not a system of morals.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon

Relativism is the statement - the blindingly obvious statement - that there's no way to establish any particular moral code as "true". Clearly you cannot perform an experiment to measure morality, and just as obviously there is no reason to assume that any particular set of moral axioms are correct a priori.

No it isn't. That's moral scepticism. Scepticism could be true and yet a single moral code could exist -- it's just that we wouldn't know it.

And that it's unknowable. At which point it's like saying "You can't prove god exists, but you can't prove he doesn't either, so THERE!"

Relativism is different: it specifies that the acceptability of a moral code is relative to a person or a group.

...

This is blindingly obvious. Different people and groups find different moral codes acceptable.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Dracon II
Yeah... later in the post I concede that your point can be made. Personally I believe it... it's just a dangerous thing to believe.

It's an empirical truth. It doesn't matter whether you believe it.

[Kuciwalker]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by grumbler
These statements are both only partially true. Science CAN measure moral reasoning, and moral reasoning falls within a hierarchy of moral reasoning stages that everyone goes through.[/q]

I didn't say it couldn't. It cannot, however, measure morality. No supercollider experiment will confirm that killing is wrong

[grumbler]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Kuciwalker

I didn't say it couldn't. It cannot, however, measure morality. No supercollider experiment will confirm that killing is wrong

The distinction between morality and moral reasoning seems to me a distinction without a difference. What is morality but the process of reasoning used to determine what is right and what is wrong?

If you accept that definition, then "morality" can be scientifically measured, and has been. Not with supercollider experiments, of course, but then you knew that.

If you dispute that definition of morality, then you have to come up with one of your own that does not use the concept of reasoning.

[Imran Siddiqui]

What is morality but the process of reasoning used to determine what is right and what is wrong?

A quick interlude: There has been, in the past, Christian morality. It wasn't reasoning of what was right and wrong, but what God said. Isn't that morality as well?

[Kuciwalker]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by grumbler
The distinction between morality and moral reasoning seems to me a distinction without a difference. What is morality but the process of reasoning used to determine what is right and what is wrong?[/q]

Moral reasoning is a process individuals go through (if I understand what you mean by it). As such, you can state that certain individuals go through a particular type of moral reasoning. However, one cannot claim that some underlying moral principle is "true".

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
A quick interlude: There has been, in the past, Christian morality. It wasn't reasoning of what was right and wrong, but what God said. Isn't that morality as well?

But the moral reasoning that decided that the moral dictates of the "Christian Church" were correct is, in fact, moral reasoning. There have always been other choices. Following religious dogma blindly is classic stage two morality (out of six stages, according to Kohlberg). Even the religious hierarchy has not uniormly folowed church doctrine, as we can see from liberation theology in the Catholic Church in our own lifetimes.

"Religious morality" is not "low level" morality, according to kohlberg - it is extrinsic morality (ie dictated morality0 that is low level. The greatest moral reasoners acording to Kohlberg were Jesus of Nazereth (if he existed) and the Buddha, and Kohlberg postulates they would have few differences in their outcomes of moral reasoning.

I think that probably the height of moral reasoning as humans can understand it is "do onto others as you would have them do onto you" which is such a recurrent theme in moral philosophy that one must wonder if it is not the universal moral principal.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Following religious dogma blindly is classic stage two morality

It's morality, is it not... without any reasoning. And making the Pope infallible is intended to have followers follow dogma blindly.

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Moral reasoning is a process individuals go through (if I understand what you mean by it). As such, you can state that certain individuals go through a particular type of moral reasoning. However, one cannot claim that some underlying moral principle is "true".

Correct, given the POSSIBLE exception that "morality is the treatment of others as you would wish to be treated by them" which is by not means universal (and in fact is absolutely rare in real life) but which seems an ideal that almost everyone could subscribe to in the abstract.

The outcome of such reasoning may differ. One person may decide that they themselves should, indeed, be executed for speeding if it causes an accident fatal to another, while the next person might decide that this was not forseeable to them because they did not grasp how dangerous speding was on such a rainy night.

But morality is not about outcomes, it is about process. And the process of deciding what is moral can be evaluated, categorized, and placed in a hierarchy. That is an astonishing fact, but one that has not been disproven despite half a century's attempts to do so.

[Imran Siddiqui]

And the process of deciding what is moral can be evaluated, categorized, and placed in a hierarchy.

But it can't. You can say an argument is more logical than another, but not that the underlying morality is 'better'.

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
It's morality, is it not... without any reasoning. And making the Pope infallible is intended to have followers follow dogma blindly.

Ah, but if you talk to catholics, you will discover that they believe the Pope is infallible (and this is mostly a red herring, IMO, because the infallibility principal has been involked only twice, as I understand it) not because he has been elected by the Cardinals, but because he receives inspiration from their God. The Pope is not just the head of the church, but the living and divinely inspired interpreter of their religion.

I don't believe in gods anymore, and I know exactly why I do not, but I think (having religious and even Catholic family) that i understand why THEY believe.

And this is a charactoristic of the hierarchy of moral reasoning. EVERYONE believes, at some point, that one should do as one is told, either because they will be punished (read "go to hell") if they do not, or because "the authorities know more than I do and I am better off if I please them," or because "if I break the rules then society breaks down" or some such.

Each of these stages inevitably precedes the other, and each fails to answer moral dilemmas that are sufficiently complex.

It is also true that people at one stage of moral reasoning don't fully understand levels of moral reasoning above their own. This is why people tell me that I cannot be pro-life AND pro-choice at the same time. What they mean is that THEY cannot be both at the same time, and they cannot understand how I could be both. This, of course, is their burden and not mine.

[Kuciwalker]

All you've demonstrated is a progression of beliefs among humans (and you haven't actually proved that, but it's irrelevent). So what? There's no reason to assume that the beliefs assumed later in life are somehow more "true" - or that ANY of them are true.

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
[But it can't. You can say an argument is more logical than another, but not that the underlying morality is 'better'.

I surely can, and has been. Kohlberg's research, and that of his successors, has proven that despite half-century of attempts to prove otherwise.

This isn't some kind of mysticism you can dismiss as subjective, this is hard evidence from scientific studies, with al of the controls that that implies.

As I said, it is had for some to accept, but there it is.