Does "dictatorship of relativism" exist?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

I'm not suprised that people would want to compare moral decisions to decisions about taste though. But you don't get to have your own little correct morality that suits you. Morality is concern for others besides yourself. People don't just act morally because they have a taste to do so. They do so for morality's sake.

They do so because they have a taste for morality.

No they don't. You just have a limited capacity.

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker Everone acts as they would prefer. Else preference has no meaning.

I would say rather that everyone acts in the way they think will least discomfort themselves. Maybe this is what you mean by "preference."

Everyone is, in the end, a machine that asks the question "what should I do next", assigns a value ot each possible action, and chooses the one with the highest value.

Only in theory. In practice, most behavior is a result of merely satisficing, rather than optimising (in other words, people seldom look beyond the first action they think of that satisfies their minimum criteria, rather than loking at all possible actions, weighing them, and choosing the best). That is why politicians can even exist.

[Ramo]

First off, morality is no more a science than math. Both are structures of logic, not dependent on any empirical observations. Morality is a system of categorizing social behavior (as preferable or not), not predicting social behavior. Moral systems are in no way "disprovable" (whatever that means).

I don't have much more time for this. This is why moral relativism doesn't make a lick of sense to me. Deciding whether a claim or act is morally correct or not is not like deciding whether to have fries with your Big Mac. I think that's pretty obvious and common sense. There's a lot of reasons for it. I'll just say that one reason is that no one cares if you have fries with your Big Mac except for Ronald maybe. Whether or no you are moral or not is of concern to society however, because it's important to moral people to have a civilized society.

I'm not suprised that people would want to compare moral decisions to decisions about taste though. But you don't get to have your own little correct morality that suits you. Morality is concern for others besides yourself. People don't just act morally because they have a taste to do so. They do so for morality's sake.

Hindus care if you have that big mac. Jews and Muslims care if you have a bacon sandwich. Vegetarians and vegans care. Eating animals (or the animal fat that the fries might be fried in) is immoral accoring to many peoples' morality.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Ramo
Hindus care if you have that big mac. Jews and Muslims care if you have a bacon sandwich. Vegetarians and vegans care. Eating animals (or the animal fat that the fries might be fried in) is immoral accoring to many peoples' morality.

And again, just because they say it is immoral doesn't mean that it is, or is not.

[Ramo]

How do you know whether or not it's immoral?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Ramo
How do you know whether or not it's immoral?

I don't think you ever know for sure if something is moral. Finding out what is moral is a life's journey. If you claim to know what is moral then you stop searching for true morality. That happens to most people. They just accept what they are taught or just take whatever course suits them personally.

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Ramo
First off, morality is no more a science than math. Both are structures of logic, not dependent on any empirical observations. Morality is a system of categorizing social behavior (as preferable or not), not predicting social behavior. Moral systems are in no way "disprovable" (whatever that means).

Yes, we are bound up in meaningless noises like "morality." Morality is, at best, a philisophical concept. Moral reasoning, on the other hand, is a behavior and can be studied, measured, and categorized. "Moral systems" (whatever that means) are not disprovable, but scientific theories of the development of moral reasoning certainly are disprovable and have been disproven.

[Ramo]

Yes, we are bound up in meaningless noises like "morality." Morality is, at best, a philisophical concept. Moral reasoning, on the other hand, is a behavior and can be studied, measured, and categorized. "Moral systems" (whatever that means) are not disprovable, but scientific theories of the development of moral reasoning certainly are disprovable and have been disproven.

Moral system = system of morality. An ethic. I use system of morality since using two words for basically the same concept strikes my as inane.

Assuming that "moral development" theories are accurate, why is moral development relevant? IOW, why is the morality of an older person superior to the morality of a younger person.

I don't think you ever know for sure if something is moral. Finding out what is moral is a life's journey. If you claim to know what is moral then you stop searching for true morality. That happens to most people. They just accept what they are taught or just take whatever course suits them personally.

My point is, how can you possibly know what is moral or immoral, absolutely? How does this process work? Why is eating meat ok? Why is killing wrong? If morality is absolute, surely you can justify this on absolute grounds.

[BeBMan]

Edit. this was for grumbler:

Yes, we are bound up in meaningless noises like "morality." Morality is, at best, a philisophical concept. Moral reasoning, on the other hand, is a behavior and can be studied, measured, and categorized. "Moral systems" (whatever that means) are not disprovable, but scientific theories of the development of moral reasoning certainly are disprovable and have been disproven.

Wouldn't the relativist ask at this point how you can say something about moral reasoning when relativism is true? I mean - are different solutions to a certain moral dilemma results of different people behaving "more" or "less" moral, or do they simply hold different views on morality, which a relativist would (if I understood it correctly) see all as basically equal. I mean - if we conclude something would be "more" or "less" moral - wouldn't we need a certain standard to determine what is moral? But if I understood them correctly here the relativists would simpy say we can't have such a standard....

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Ramo
If morality is absolute, surely you can justify this on absolute grounds.

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.

[Ramo]

You totally misunderstand the idea. Morality is equal on objective grounds. Not on subjective grounds. I have my own morality which I strongly believe in. I use my system of morality to resolve moral conflicts. But I know that my system of morality is not absolutely true, rather is borne out of the specific way that my brain works

[Whaleboy]

I don't have much more time for this. This is why moral relativism doesn't make a lick of sense to me. Deciding whether a claim or act is morally correct or not is not like deciding whether to have fries with your Big Mac. I think that's pretty obvious and common sense. There's a lot of reasons for it. I'll just say that one reason is that no one cares if you have fries with your Big Mac except for Ronald maybe.

You cannot simply repeat your statement and expect it to have any gravitas with the points raised to counter it originally! As people have pointed out, it quite simply *is* like deciding whether or not to have fries with your big mac, and you pwn yourself later on by saying "no-one cares if you have fries with your Big Mac". You're saying there that validity of personal morality is relative to other people, hence social morality, etiquette, and law... whereupon the moral crime of killing someone is only such if it occurs in a society with that given morality. Whether or not the beholder has that morality is incidental and subjective, which brings us back to emotivism.

Whether or no you are moral or not is of concern to society however, because it's important to moral people to have a civilized society.

You're confusing morality and civilisation, which will send your argument into a flurry of circular logic. Your first sentence of course is just plain wrong, since societies ask for compliance in one form or another, and that one should comply with the dictat "do not kill" for instance, is part of that compliance. Put simply, social morality only applies when other people are there... you can't have a society of one where the notion of "do not kill" would be meaningless.

But you don't get to have your own little correct morality that suits you. Morality is concern for others besides yourself. People don't just act morally because they have a taste to do so. They do so for morality's sake.

That assumes altruism and that moral acts are essentially altruistic and not merely apparently so. We know each other's positions on this, but the topic itself is not relevant unless you're saying our intent is always and ever altruistic, which leaves you with utilitarianism as your only guise of morality, which takes you back to my point about social morality.

Your main problem there is the statement "morality is a concern for others besides yourself", whereas all that can be taken from the statement; "I think that person's actions are morally wrong", is that "I would not do that if I were in his shoes", and it is a fallacy to assume that this necessarily implies an objective moral statement. This is a perfect illustration of Hume's Is-Ought gap and how the idiocy of communism is constructed right in the middle .

Moral reasoning is not an economic principal, and moral reasoning dopes not always even acknowledge the existance of other people (in Stage One morality, for instance). I have no idea even what color an absolute holism is, so i cannot say whether moral reasoning is a piss-poor attempt at one or not.

Holism means a system, or attempt at systematic thought given some premise(s). My point there is that all you are doing is consequentialism, which is to say that something should be judged whether or not it is moral if it's consequences are good (typical needs of the many outweigh needs of the few stuff). It's an economic principle in as much as society is based upon economic grounds, which I know Kidicious will have a problem with .

It is possible, I suppose, that you simply do not understand behavioral science, and so have confused it with psychiatry (I am guesing this based on your refence to "our minds"). Otherwise, your attempts to distinguish between the "quantification' and "transparency" of behavioral science and other sciences make no sense. Behavioral science is very "real world(TM)." It is simply less precise - it is not less accurate.

No I fully understand, but I still place it as a humanities field because it is based upon variant and conceptual assumptions... physics is based only upon mathematics and the idea of that 1cm on a ruler = 1cm IRL. In that sense it has more in common with economics. All of this means that to scientifically assertain group morality is simply to understand how the group effects the constituent individuals' motivations, morality remains subjective and emotive. That they would correlate under given situations requires a more psychological answer than philosophical.

Moral systems are in no way "disprovable" (whatever that means).

And thus in no way verifiable by the same means, so cannot make the same claim to objectivity that physics can.

I don't think you ever know for sure if something is moral. Finding out what is moral is a life's journey. If you claim to know what is moral then you stop searching for true morality. That happens to most people. They just accept what they are taught or just take whatever course suits them personally.

So your entire argument comes down to this search for perfection / utopia / el dorado / my money... concepts that would be very nice if they existed, but the question of whether or not morality can logically exist is different to whether or not it can... like asking the question "can a water lilly grow in a desert?". I could calculate Pi with your argument for nary a more perfect circle was ever found.

[Ramo]

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.

I'm asking you to justify your ideas of absolute morality. In some way. Any way. I've already justified relative morality: a moral system is an abstract logical structure, and thus can be constructed arbitrarily. QED.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Ramo
You totally misunderstand the idea. Morality is equal on objective grounds. Not on subjective grounds. I have my own morality which I strongly believe in. I use my system of morality to resolve moral conflicts. But I know that my system of morality is not absolutely true, rather is borne out of the specific way that my brain works

That brings us around to the way our brains work. I think that they mostly work the same, except that some people have limited capacity.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Ramo
You totally misunderstand the idea. Morality is equal on objective grounds. Not on subjective grounds. I have my own morality which I strongly believe in. I use my system of morality to resolve moral conflicts. But I know that my system of morality is not absolutely true, rather is borne out of the specific way that my brain works

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