furt specifically talked about killing anyone they wanted. Even within those gangs, the killings are done for a purpose, rather than just because somone wants to. After all, the gang would surely object if someone chose to kill one of their own.
Also, as furt said, there’s a difference between what people do and what they should do. We should not draw hard conclusions based on the actions of individuals or groups.
It’s also interesting that you brought up the subject of sub-cultures. What if a subculture (e.g. a gang) has certain moral rules which run contrary to those of its larger culture (e.g. society at large)? Are they justified in holding contradictory and mutually exclusive moral views?
By this rationale, there is no such thing as morality, cultural-based or otherwise. Let me repeat: Morality tells you what you ought not do. It is not descriptive, but proscriptive. There is no need for a morality that tells people not to flap thier wings and fly; they can’t do it anyway. Morality consists of identifying a circle of human behaviors that can happen, and then saying that there is a smaller circle of what one ought to do. It is possible for me to murder someone. It is possible for me to murder every day of my life. Does it then follow that my culture believes murder is good? People run red lights … ergo there are no traffic laws?
I am not for an instant arguing that a subculture cannot embrace a destructive behavior. The whole point of asserting that there are universal morals is that it is indeed possible for specific subcultures to “go bad.” I specifically said so in my post. The point is that such a culture would be marginalized … and they are.
Gangs do not condone indiscriminate murder; they sanction violence vs. enemies, or against those outside the group for profit or as an initiation to the group. Please show me the gang which thinks nothing of one member knifing another for fun, and I will show you a gang that ceases to exist in a week.
**
Not at all. Incest generally leads to birth defects. Cultures that embrace widespread incest have exponentially more birth defects, which weaken the culture in relation to its neighbors. Hence incest is bad, hence cultures with widespread incest die out.
Preference for soft, loafy bread vs. long, crusty bread is harmless. It made no functional difference in France and Germany’s relative evolution. Lots of cultures tatoo. Harmless. A few rare, marginialzed cultures self-mutilate. Destructive.
The way to tell them apart is simple: How many cultures have this practice, and how are they doing? If a practice which appears destructive occurs in a miniscule number of cultures, all of which have been passed by their neighbors, it’s a good bet the practice hindered them. If a large number of cultures, some of whom are successful in relationship to their neighbors have the practice, it’s probably harmless.
If there were no clear patterns, then we could assume that there is no such guiding force at work. But the fact is that that we see over and over again that cultures that thrive have the same prohibitions, and cultures without said prohibitions do not thrive. It does not take much to conclude that the prohibitions have at least some role in the thriving.
**
See section above in re: the description between proscriptive vs. descriptive.
**
And if a mutation isn’t beneficial anywhere it would cease to exist. See below.
**
[/QUOTE]
As far as the God part goes, again we find that we would expect an exception. Nowhere have I seen something deemed universal that is supposed to have exceptions. It continues to make me wonder how we can tell which is the universal one and which is the fluke. **
[/QUOTE]
The Bible (Koran, etc.) says murder is wrong.
The Bible has stories about people who do, in fact, murder.
The Bible says those people have acted wrongly.
Unless you operate under the assumption that what is right=what people actually do, there is no contradiction here.
The problem with asserting relativism is that it reflects a failure of imagination.
–Lots of cultures say that incest is always wrong…where are the cultures that require incest? That insist that sex must only occur within the immediate family.
–Show me the culture that teaches that only human meat may be consumed.
–Show me the culture where boys must kill their fathers upon attaining manhood.
–Show me the culture where firstborn children must be set loose in the wild.
–Show me the culture where lying is encouraged.
–Show me the culture where stealing is encouraged.
To borrow a line, cultures may disagree about a man having one wife or three, but no culture anywhere says he may have any woman he likes.
And so on and so on. If these examples seem absurd, that’s the whole point. Imagining a culture that violates the universal norms is absurd. There are certain traits that can never lead to healthy cultures. Cultures which might embrace them would eventually cease to exist. Ergo, those traits are universally considered wrong.
What you’ve described are not exceptions to absolute morality. Rather, they are violations of this absolute standard. The fact that certain people act in violation of these moral rules does not mean that the moral rules themselves are not absolute.
In fact, the very nature of morality allows one to disobey! Morality means choosing to do what’s right. If people had no ability to choose otherwise, then there would be no such thing as morality.
So if a gang decides to drive around and shoot bystanders, they are not an exception to the rules of morality. Rather, they are in violation of those rules – and so are we, when our actions run counter to morality.
Furt and JTC, you are both taking a similar tactic here, so I feel relatively safe in commenting toward both of you in the same “breath”. I’m also jumping around a bit to make my own post seem a little more structured instead of replying to points in some chronological fashion.
This is, quite obviously, only an issue in reproductive behavior, not in sexual behavior in the general case. If the taboo against incest is biological in nature, then the existence of widespread birth control should effectively eliminate the taboo against incest. But as we would all, I think, agree, the taboo against incest seems to go deeper than mere congenital defects. This, of course, isn’t truly evidence one way or the other for absolute or relative morality, but I think it does help break down the “evolutionary” theory of morality, something I feel very confident in its incorrectness.
Well, this is sort of a strange way of looking at absolute morality, because in my mind an absolute moral system must be recognizable and denied, rather than ignored (in the general case). Consider:
[ul][li]Morality means choosing to do what’s right. [as if they already knew what was right][/li][li]Rather, they are in violation of those rules-[/li][li]The whole point of asserting that there are universal morals is that it is indeed possible for specific subcultures to “go bad.”[/li][/ul]
If you consider the moral relativist’s case, you’ll find that, indeed, under moral relativism all three of those above still hold. We can still say what is right, who is in violation of those rules, and how entire cultures can be mistaken. Again I feel inclined to see that the only problem absolutists have with relativism is that it is relativism. They are functionally very similar. All moral relativism adds to the fray is the idea that we cannot be absolutely certain that what we are calling “right” is, in fact, right; extreme relativism could take the form that there is no highest standard of right, but I would think most relativists rather simply feel that the existence of an absolute standard of morality is a moot point since we couldn’t obtain epistemological certainty that we had, in fact, discerned a perfect moral system. Note that epistemological skepticism does NOT dictate that we cannot know anything; similarly, moral skepticism in the form of relativism does not dictate that we cannot call anything wrong. If it did I would agree that it is inherently unusable as a form of dictating actions and would leave one somewhat paralyzed or acting chaotically.
This is not so. First, I don’t see how moral relativism is clearly incoherent; it is, in fact, based on a rather strong tradition of epistemological skepticism, more on the empiricist side than the rationalist side, of course. Witness existentialism, practical morality, and even in a limited fashion utilitarianism. Second, even if we do topple moral relativism this doesn’t lead us to accept absolute morality: the option to reject all moral systems is still open.
I would like to ask all absolutists here the following question: are universal morals prima facie discoverable, or are they in some way empirical in nature? The conversation so far has strongly lent itself toward the empirical side via a social evolution construct. Which I have no problem with, I just want to make sure what, exactly, I am arguing against.
Since we seem to be taking the empirical proposition thus far, and we have focused on some very common moral elements like a prohibition on murder, let us turn this to a case of inter-societal conflict. Is is good for one society to have a moral duty to kill other societies? What about cultural assimilation, like in imperialism and colonialism, like the Roman empire and the European colonies/empires? Is a “manifest destiny” brand of duty wrong because they couldn’t do it, or because they shouldn’t do it, or is the can/should distinction not crucial to revealing moral elements?
Nonsense. Relativity surely allows for disagreement on moral elements without a need to abandon morality. This is, I think, its strength, and goes a long way to explain why two different cultures can view each other as “devils” or evil, or wrong and bad, without having to bring in a universal (and, I should think by implication, objective) system of morality. Again, if universal morality exists, it seems that those that go against it must still regonize it and simply reject it. This could take a Nietzschean angle by simply exchanging the notion of good and evil, or it could take a more elaborate approach.
erislover, I thinl there are several flaws in your reasoning. For example, let us consider your statement " in my mind an absolute moral system must be recognizable and denied, rather than ignored."
You mentioned street gangs. I submit that these gangs are are of the moral prohibitions against their killings; in other words, they DO recognize those rules, and they do deny those rules insofar as they deliberately violate them.
But even if that’s not the case… why should we assume that universal moral rules must be recognized by all? A motorist can alway say “I refuse to recognize the speed limit” or “In my opinion, the speed limit does not exist.” Does this mean that the traffic rules do not apply to this person? Hardly. His recognition or non-recognition of the rules only reflects his mindset, and has no bearing on whether the rules truly apply.
Ultimately, that’s the question. Is there a set of moral rules which apply to apply people, regardless of whether these people choose to follow them? To dwell on whether people recognize, acknowledge or submit to these rules is a red herring. It has no relevance to whether these rules exist or not.
Recognizing a moral system and rejecting it is not the same thing as recognizing an absolute standard of morality and rejecting it. As well, I did say in a general case, trying to remove the “exception” clause from necessity. Of course, anyone can deny that 2+2=4.
Well, I have no doubt that if a universal set of morals exist that they would apply to anyone whether or not they recognized it. That brings us no closer to the conclusion that a universal set of human morals exists, and definitely no closer to determining which moral elements are universal and which are simply incidental.
True. And if the human species lives for a significant period with effective birth control, who knows? But we’ve had effective birth control for a few decades, which is an insignificant amount of time to overturn a prohibition developed over millenia.
No, it doesn’t. However, this point was raised in response to a line of argument which purported to demonstrate the validity of moral relativism. It was not meant as a proof of moral absolutism itself. (Can you see the difference?)
As for demonstrating moral relativism, we’ve already mentioned several moral principles which are fairly self-evident, and which appear to be acknowledged by all cultures – even if there may be aberrant individuals who refuse to follow such laws. Killing anyone, for any purpose, for example. This appears to be universally abhorrent, even though there are cultures which justify killing certain people for certain specific reasons.
Is morality simply determined by one’s culture? What if a subculture (e.g. a gang) has certain moral rules which run contrary to those of its larger culture (e.g. society at large)? Are they justified in holding contradictory and mutually exclusive moral views?
That’s a good point, furt, but I’d also like to add that the “effectiveness” of birth control is relative. All methods still have a failure rate, so even if millenia of birth control had already passed, incest could still be considered “bad” due to the consequences of failure.
This is but a fine point in this debate, of course, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.
Yes, you’ve pointed out a moral that large portions of people have. I still see no reason to use that as evidence that it is a universal moral, or that the reasons people have for not “killing anyone” are the same. Or now are we saying that an absolute moral needn’t have an absolute justification?
Yes; I think this has been the main disconect at least with me.
I am attempting the OP’s question as empirically as the question will allow, and my case, as laid out in my 2:10 post, is as follows:
[ul]
[li]We can easily make a list of behaviors that all cultures have condemned or put under strict regulation.[/li][li]Even if we were to grant the “one tribe” exception, it would still be the case that the vast, vast majority of cultures condemned these behaviors, and those that did not have manifestly been outstripped by their neighbors.[/li][li]There is far, far less moral diversity than we would expect if morality had no “hand” (Darwinian or Divine) guiding it: we can easily think of many, many behaviors, some of which exist in the animal kingdom, which no culture has embraced.[/ul][/li]
I’d enjoy your response to any of the above.
I’ve been referring to social evolution mostly because saying “the Koran says so” usually doesn’t lead the debate anywhere productive unless everyone accepts the Koran as authoritative.
Clearly, not all morality is universal, so I woudn’t say it’s a prima facie thing at all. Rather I’d say that in examining the specific moral codes of diverse peoples, we can find:
A few specific behaviors that are universally condemned (as our conversation has focused on), but also
Underlying principles that are universal. i.e. some cultures say honesty is less important than, say, justice or courtesy, and others say the opposite … but they all agree that honesty, in and of itself, is a good thing.
**
The sentance of mine was not about exceptions, but violations. JTC covered this already. I don’t see anything in the rest that goes against anything I or JTC has said.
**
[/QUOTE]
Or now are we saying that an absolute moral needn’t have an absolute justification?**
[/quote]
As I understand it, the question on the floor is “Do fundamental [i.e. universal] human morals actually exist?” I believe that question can be at least tenatively answered yea or nay more or less empirically. Why is another question entirely, and one which I have avoided for reasons given above.
FWIW, I do believe in a God who is the source of morality, but I do not believe any cultural moral system (nor even my own personal system) is entirely congruent with the wishes of the Almighty. I further believe that the moral principles he sets out are not arbitrary, but are those which are conducive to our own good; hence the usefulness of social evolution ideas.
But for now, I think the debate does not need to go that far.
This question clearly implies that if people don’t agree on any absolute points of morality, then those absolutes don’t exist. Well, we’ve just pointed out a moral principle (or rather, multiple such principles) which every culture appears to acknowledge, and for which no counter-examples have been proposed.
Now there may be individuals who choose to violate these moral rules, but what does that tell us? Nothing, really. After all, the very nature of morality allows for disobedience (i.e. immorality) to occur. Besides which, if we claim that the culture determines morality, then we should examine the expectations of society, rather than the disobedient actions of individuals.
It’s incoherent because it’s self-contradictory. The logical implication of saying “No moral framework is better than another” is to say that all moral worldviews are equally valid. Moral relativism is itself a moral framework, and so, it would have to be judged as no better than any other worldview.
Well first of all, would do you seriously consider that a viable option? If not, then rejecting relativism would still require accepting absolutism.
And second, the rejection of all moral systems is itself a moral system. It’s a moral system which says that everything goes. Its moral absolute is that all things are permissible and acceptable, and that it’s wrong to claim otherwise.
The only logical alternative to moral relativism (i.e. the claim that morality is relative) is moral absolutism (the claim that morality is no relative, but absolute).
Well, since we’ve already determined that we don’t really mean universal when we say “universal morals” then we do come to a point where one simply points to a majority of cultures or subcultures which have some moral elements in common and dictate that here, then, must be a fundamental human moral.
I agree that a society’s morals are pretty much determined by majority consent. I could even agree that we, as a species, can reach a set of morals by majority consent. I see no reson to assume that just because we did such a thing, that these morals are somehow granted the status of “absolute,” or “universal.”
We can easily make a list of behaviors that all cultures have condemned or put under strict regulation. Certainly we can. However, as I pointed out, in the case of incest—one of the “more” universal morals—I demonstrated that it is conceiveable that this taboo would be overturned due to the availablity of birth control. So in at least one case we find a moral that, by the empirical evidence we are willing to accept here, should by all rights be universal and yet is conceivably not universal. In other words, using our criteria to discover universal morals, we find a decidedly un-universal moral, or at least one that allows for reasonable skepticism.
This does not bode well for divining the existence of universal morals.
Even if we were to grant the “one tribe” exception, it would still be the case that the vast, vast majority of cultures condemned these behaviors, and those that did not have manifestly been outstripped by their neighbors.
It seems patently obvious to me that the need to allow for “one tribe exceptions” pretty much overturns fundamental morality, but I guess we are looking at the question somewhat differently. At that, I see no reason to accept a metaphysical principle just because the majority of humans think that it is so. Also, I still think it is an error to equate survival with “goodness”. Christian martyrs were not evil to me, and yet clearly their actions, if taken as a moral duty, would be detrimental to Christian society (that is, if everyone had to die for their beliefs—something that really, at one time, wasn’t so outrageous of an idea). This presents us with a pretty clear conflict: it is bad to act against survival, and it is bad to not stand by one’s beliefs. In any absolute system one must trump the other. If we assume that “survive” trumps “stand” then a person could act in a “good” manner by lying about one’s beliefs. If we assume that “stand” trumps “survive” then we are in a rather strange predicament because we’ve used "survive as a trump card in our empirical process: the societies standing with the most similar morals are “right”.
And the Christian martyrs were still wrong, a proposition I find absurd. There is far, far less moral diversity than we would expect if morality had no “hand” (Darwinian or Divine) guiding it: we can easily think of many, many behaviors, some of which exist in the animal kingdom, which no culture has embraced.
There is far, far more moral diversity now that more societies have become free. And yes, similar societies have similar morality. Since morality guides behavior this is a pretty unsurprising result.
A little circular, wouldn’t you say?
But you still expect me to find that “the way the majority of societies think” is an authority I should accept.
If there are fundamental human morals, I don’t see any reason that they must be accepted by a moajority of people. Can “good people” not ever be a minority?
No, it doesn’t. It asserts that to say one moral system is better than another one must be acting within a moral system. It also says that we can never have absolute certainty that the moral system we are acting within is correct.
[quote]
Arguments for moral relativism often involve two principal contentions:[ul][li]Primacy of De Facto Values: our conceptions of morality should be based on how people actually behave (de facto values), and not on an ideal standard how people should behave (ideal values).Cultural Variation: in point of fact, our main moral values vary from culture to culture.[/ul][/li][/quote]
Critics of relativity often say that there is no way to judge whether one system is inferior or superior to another. Certainly some relativists might even agree with that, but I, for one, do not, for the reasons I have given several times in this thread.
Sorry, but we have determined no such thing. You may have but I differ.
I am not calling for a vote. I am observing the species as it exists and drawing a conclusion. There is no culture that promotes unjustified murder. None. Anywhere. Non-existant. Never ever ever.
I make that as a statement of fact, and challenge you to either acknowledge it or refute it. Pending your refutation, I will regard it as a universal moral.
It is concievable that one day I will be named king of Siam. So what? I have already stated that I am attempting to look at this empirically. The fact that we can concieve of so many alternate moralities, which nonetheless have not come to pass, is one of my arguments, you’ll recall.
As I already asked, non-rhetorically:
–Lots of cultures say that incest is always wrong…where are the cultures that require incest? That insist that sex must only occur within the immediate family?
–Show me the culture that teaches that only human meat may be consumed.
–Show me the culture where boys must kill their fathers upon attaining manhood.
–Show me the culture where firstborn children must be set loose in the wild.
–Show me the culture where lying is encouraged.
–Show me the culture where stealing is encouraged.
I suppose the phrase "Even if … " wasn’t clear enough. I do not have any such need. I have made several empirical statements that I believe to be true of all cultures that ever existed. Since you have declined to refute them, I imagined you had actually found our hypothetical “one tribe,” and went from there. I had thought we would be capable of a two-track discussion: “Is X true? and what would it mean if it is not?”
This is where we are not connecting.
I am not arguing for a set of morals. Nor am I asking your opinion, or for you to personally accept anything. In the question of “What is universally true in human cultures,” our personal opinions are irrelevant.
In a discussion of “Was any American Presidential candidate gay?” our opinions of homosexuality and/or Franklin Pierce are irrelevant.
I repeat yet again: I am seeking to be descriptive, not proscriptive. Empirical, not metaphysical.
This is how I use universal. It is NOT the same as “absolute.”
I am making a proposition. There are universal morals, accepted by all cultures. For now we’ll stick with murder and incest. NO culture at any time or place has actively encouraged these AS NORMATIVE BEHAVIORS. Hence, the prohibitions against murder an incest are universal morals.
You are of course free to disagree; individual persons often do, which is part of why murders happen. But that does not change the fact that there are morals common to the cultures.
If you choose not to accept the murder prohibition (for example), you may indeed be “right” in the eyes of God Or Someone Like Him. Who knows. But the discussion here is not about what God thinks. It is not about what is right in some abstract sense. It is a more or less empirical anthropological question, limited mostly by our incomplete data set.
If true, it would bear on the declining ability of cultures to maintain internal consensus among individuals. It has nothing to do with what is or is not true of all cultures.
Not at all, but I’m not going to get into a theology hijack here. I shared my beliefs, because you seemed to be asking where we were coming from philosophically. As my argument here is empirically refutable, however, my religious beliefs are irrelevant. Hence, my prefacing them with “FWIW.”
An absolute standard of morality should holf true for all time and in all situations, should it not? Thus, most importantly, it should hold up to hypothetical examples.
You are drawing your colclusion from majority consensus.
They don’t need to require it, they just need to not forbid it. I think my comments on incest possibly progressing to a non-issue are all I really need to provide if the reason incest is bad is because of congenital defects.
I don’t believe this is necessary either. I can point to several examples throughout history where survivors ate their companions as a means of survival. No one condemned their actions.
Not all firstborn children, but certainly the weak ones. Sparta, anyone? There is also a problem with this in China.
What would be the point? All you would say is that these cultures are denying the fundamental morals anyway. Apart from that, why don’t you ask the OP for a cite to his comment, “Incest has been recorded as both common and acceptable in Egyptian and Roman (imperial) societies.”
Well that is a matter of perspective. When someone asks whether fundamental human morals exist I have to consider the possibility that the question is of a more abstract nature.
Well, in that case my morals are universal, too, as I have already stated. I apply my moral judgements to everything.
This conversation is rapidly approaching nonsense. Question on the table: do fundamental human morals exist?
I cannot cite empirical counter-examples, because these only show that absolute morality can be denied. I cannot create plausible hypotheticals, because these aren’t empirical. You do see that you’ve framed the argument so that it is not falsifiable?
Exactly. NO ONE. My whole point.
And if that consensus wears away over time, what then? Have we lost some fundamental morals?
Need I say: duh. The question is when is it justified; this can very well differ from one society to the next.
Gosh, what a fascinating thread my li’l OP has become. Thanks to everyone for the stimulating debate. Just to answer a couple of things that have come up:
I already have provided cites, here’s another one, one for ancient Egyptian society too, and furt you will see that I earlier provided a cite that indicates a requirement for incest in contemporary Balinese society.
(Oh, and Razor, I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I think you’ve misinterpreted the OP utterly).
I think that there is a growing concensus in the thread that there indeed are a few fundamental human morals. Whence they are derived is still moot. And I myself am still not convinced.
However, assuming that they do exist, can we come to the second question I asked: what are they? Let’s make a list. Then compare that list to what our modern Western societies deem moral, versus what other societies, ancient and modern, deem moral.
That might be an interesting exercise, but I don’t think it would prove anything. If one’s motive is to verify the correctness of this list (i.e. whether these moral rules are truly absolute or universal), then this test would prove nothing. It would only demonstrate whether other societies choose to follow said rules, which says nothing about their validity.
“But wait!” one might exclaim. “If some societies don’t follow these rules, then surely they’re not absolute or universal.” Such reasoning is multiply flawed. It assumes that a law is only valid if people follow it – and obviously, that makes no sense. Additionally, it assumes that morality is a matter of cultural perspective – the very notion that we’re seeking to prove or refute. In other words, it amounts to circular reasoning.
So while this exercise may prove interesting, I don’t think it would demonstrate anything worthwhile.