Moral absolutes

[clairobscur]

*Originally posted by JThunder *
**No, I said that torturing babies FOR FUN is never justified. I was quite clear in emphasizing this point. Unfortunately, whenever the subject comes up, I am repeatedly forced to point it out.
**

I noticed the “for fun” part and perfectly understood your statement. You’re the one “dancing around” and not adressing my point which is that your reasonning is :

1)I Asssume there are moral rules

2)Try to justify torturing babies according to these moral rules

3)Since you can’t, it proves these moral rules do exist.
Once again, it’s a perfect example of circular reasonning. You want me to justify morally the torture, which means that I would have to accept at the first place that there are such a thing as moral absolutes. For the second time, it’s the same than telling me : proves me according to the bible that the bible isn’t true.

I gave my justification for torturing babies : I enjoy torturing babies and my take about life is that the strongest does as he pleases if he can get away with it. In other words, I totally reject your basic assumption that to justify suffering I need to proves it avoid a greater suffering, or something like that. I certainly won’t take your morals as a given when precisely discussing whether or not your morals should be considered as a given.

So, instead of stating once again that “moral relativists just don’t want/ are unable to adress my point”, reread my post and try to adress my actual answer.
You have to assume that it is morally wrong to torture a baby in order to ask for a justification for doing it. I f you don’t assume it’s wrong at the first place, then there’s no issue at all with torturing babies, with any justification, or without any at all. But if you assume that it’s morally wrong, then tell me why it is so. Of course without refering to another arbitrary moral rule. You won’t be able to.
You’re the one apparently unable to adress the point, or not understanding it. And I’m the one " repeatedly forced to point it out". You need at least one (and most probably several) basic moral assumptions to build your other moral rules upon it. And this first assumption is necessarily arbitrary. As long as you didn’t provide any evidence that torturing a baby for fun is objectively and demonstrably immoral without resorting to other arbitrary moral rules, your point is totally moot.

[clairobscur]

*Originally posted by JThunder *
**Without hesitation. Why? Do you honestly believe that his worldview is somehow justified?

The society pressures of overpopulation have no bearing on this matter. After all, torture would not be necessary to curb overpopulation. Moreover, the fact that their society hold babies with less regard is irrelevant; **

Your definitely not getting the point :rolleyes: :
Why should we have to “justify” torturing babies if in this hypothetical example, since they’re considered irrelevant, a nuisance, and people like torturing them? A justification is only needed if you assume that there some sort of moral issue and that the justification must be more important than this moral issue (and I assume, also based on the same moral rules that you’re still and again pressuposing). You can’t prove there are moral rules which always apply (torturing babies for fun is always wrong) by presupposing that these rules actually exist (torturing babies for fun is wrong).

[clairobscur]

*Originally posted by Joel *
**quote:

Ah, but I replying to you saying
Murder is illegal killing, and if the government ok’s killing, then it’s not murder is it? It’s killing, but not murder. **

Nope, because you choose to only take into consideration the first definition, while ** zoe ** listed them all and pointed at the second one “to kill brutaly and inhumanly”. You selectively choose to ignore it.

[clairobscur]

*Originally posted by Joel *
**Just because people believe or don’t believe in something, doesn’t make it so. People believed, and in fact, some people still believe, that the Earth was flat. Did the fact that they believed it make it so?

Your comparison doesn’t stand. You can prove that earth isn’t flat. For instance, buy a boat and sail west or east. But you can’t prove that something is immoral.

Nazis had no problems putting Jews, Gypsies, and other such ethnic minorities into concentration camps, did the fact that they didn’t believe it was wrong, not make it so? **

I will soon be tempted to invoke Godwin’s law…

It certainly not make it so in their eyes. They had justification which they believed were morally valid. That’s the first fucking point!!! And the second fucking point is that you can’t even say “killing Jews (or anybody else) is wrong” without making an arbitrary statement about the value of human life.

[clairobscur]

*Originally posted by Joel *
**If I’m a professional theif and feel that it’s immoral to work for a living, but ok to steal, then I would be a moral person for acting on my beliefs, right? **

Exactly. You would consider yourself as a moral person. And whether or not we would agree with you wouldn’t change a thing. That’s why we say morality is relative and a matter of opinion. Obviously your opinion and your moral values as a professionnal thief aren’t the same than our moral values and opinions as law-abiding citizens.
And by the way ** spiritus mundi ** wasn’t saying that getting out of the way of your fist was a moral choice. He was making a comparison between the theory of relativity in physics and moral relativism. He meant that he can accept that there’s no absolute reference to determine the movement of your fist but still try to avoid it. And that similarily, he can accept there are no absolute morals and still have his own moral beliefs.

[Father_of_Loki]

We were discussing axioms and Godel’s theorem on another board the other day. A quote I posted from a book by Edward de Bono that may be of some use:

To the delight of philosophers and mathematicians, Godel showed that no system could prove the axioms on which it was based. For example, Euclid had to take for granted, and could never prove, the parallel-line axiom which stated that two parallel lines would never meet (on a plane surface because, of course, they do meet on a spherical surface.) The axioms have to be provided by an outside system or meta-system.
Christianity was built on such axioms as the kingdom of God and universal love. These axioms were not developed from within the system but supplied by Jesus. Judaism was based on axioms supposedly handed by God to Moses directly. In the Koran, Muhammad provided the axioms from which the meta-system of Islam was to develop. Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital provided the axioms from which the religion of Marxism was to develop.
There might seem to be a big difference between meta-system axioms handed down personally by God, since God is the supreme meta-system, and those generated by a man such as Marx browsing through the British Museum Reading Room. Godel’s theorem, however, states that a system cannot prove its own axioms, not that it cannot produce them. The authority of the axioms handed down by God seem to prove their validity, but only if one already believes in the infallibility of God and in his personal transmission of the axioms. The basic Marxist axiom that the happiness of the state is more important than that of the individual is unprovable.
Since there is no way in which a system can prove the axioms on which the system is based it is open to anyone to set up a series of axioms and then to react to them as though they provided a meta-system. It is the belief that is invested in a meta-system that makes it work.

[JThunder]

*Originally posted by clairobscur *
**I noticed the “for fun” part and perfectly understood your statement. **

So you say NOW. Yet earlier, you restated my position as follows:

Your stance is “torturing babies is always morally wrong because there’s never a moral justification for it”.

Note that in your rephrasement of my stance, you clearly omitted the part where I spoke about torturing for fun.

**
You’re the one “dancing around” and not adressing my point which is that your reasonning is :

1)I Asssume there are moral rules

2)Try to justify torturing babies according to these moral rules

3)Since you can’t, it proves these moral rules do exist.

Once again, it’s a perfect example of circular reasonning. You want me to justify morally the torture, which means that I would have to accept at the first place that there are such a thing as moral absolutes. **

For pity’s sake. YOU are the ones who claim that there are no moral absolutes. None whatsoever. The burden of proof rests on your shoulders to defend your claim. Or is the problem that you can’t defend it, and that you thus want to shift the burden or proof onto someone else?

So let me ask you again. DO you believe that torturing babies for fun is justifiable? I’m not talking about situations where there is some external compulsion, or where one must choose between the lesser of two evils. I’m talking about torturing them for fun.

[loinburger]

*Originally posted by clairobscur *
Once again, it’s a perfect example of circular reasonning. You want me to justify morally the torture, which means that I would have to accept at the first place that there are such a thing as moral absolutes. For the second time, it’s the same than telling me : proves me according to the bible that the bible isn’t true.

Asking for a justification (or giving justification) doesn’t require one to accept that absolutes exist, it only requires that one accept that some degree of objectivity is possible (through cultural relativism, or logic, or language, etc). F’rinstance, one basketball player may be objectively better than another basketball player by virtue of the fact that he/she is a better dribbler, rebounder, passer, and shooter, even though it wouldn’t make sense to claim that there are “basketball absolutes” (since basketball is an entirely man-made creation). Similarly, one person may be objectively more/less righteous than another even though there may not necessarily be any moral absolutes (if morality happens to be an entirely man-made creation).

I gave my justification for torturing babies : I enjoy torturing babies and my take about life is that the strongest does as he pleases if he can get away with it. In other words, I totally reject your basic assumption that to justify suffering I need to proves it avoid a greater suffering, or something like that. I certainly won’t take your morals as a given when precisely discussing whether or not your morals should be considered as a given.

It isn’t just his assumption that you’re rejecting, it’s the “assumption” by society as a whole that you’re rejecting. The dictionary defines malice to be “Enmity of heart; malevolence; ill will; a spirit delighting in harm or misfortune to another; a disposition to injure another; a malignant design of evil” (bolding is mine). It’s all well and good to then claim something along the lines of “Well, I reject the English language’s use of the term ‘malice,’ because I don’t believe that malice is evil at all,” but then you’ll either need to reject the entire English language or else you’ll need to justify your reasoning behind rejecting one term and not another (otherwise you’re being arbitrary).

You have to assume that it is morally wrong to torture a baby in order to ask for a justification for doing it. I f you don’t assume it’s wrong at the first place, then there’s no issue at all with torturing babies, with any justification, or without any at all.

Unless you happen to be infallible, why shouldn’t people ask you to justify your opinions? What you’re saying here amounts to “If everybody agreed with me, then I wouldn’t have to justify my opinions to them.”

But if you assume that it’s morally wrong, then tell me why it is so. Of course without refering to another arbitrary moral rule. You won’t be able to.

The English language defines malice to be evil. If you reject this justification as being “arbitrary,” then I’m left wondering why you’re bothering to use a language that you apparently consider to be meaningless.

You’re the one apparently unable to adress the point, or not understanding it. And I’m the one " repeatedly forced to point it out". You need at least one (and most probably several) basic moral assumptions to build your other moral rules upon it. And this first assumption is necessarily arbitrary. As long as you didn’t provide any evidence that torturing a baby for fun is objectively and demonstrably immoral without resorting to other arbitrary moral rules, your point is totally moot.

The basic rules for morality (such as “benevolence is good” and “malice is bad”) come from language itself. The total relativist must either offer a sound justification as to why these particular terms are invalid, or else he/she must reject language altogether.

Another point is that morality itself means “being in accord with standards of right or good conduct” (bolding is mine). The total relativist who claims that he/she defines morality is simply misusing the term (unless they claim to speak for all of mankind in defining the “standards” of right and wrong).

[Nobody]

quote:

Originally posted by Joel
If I’m a professional theif and feel that it’s immoral to work for a living, but ok to steal, then I would be a moral person for acting on my beliefs, right?

*Originally posted by clairobscur *
**Exactly. You would consider yourself as a moral person. And whether or not we would agree with you wouldn’t change a thing. That’s why we say morality is relative and a matter of opinion. Obviously your opinion and your moral values as a professionnal thief aren’t the same than our moral values and opinions as law-abiding citizens.
And by the way ** spiritus mundi ** wasn’t saying that getting out of the way of your fist was a moral choice. He was making a comparison between the theory of relativity in physics and moral relativism. He meant that he can accept that there’s no absolute reference to determine the movement of your fist but still try to avoid it. And that similarily, he can accept there are no absolute morals and still have his own moral beliefs. **

Societies advancing from barbaric to civilized have done so after overcoming the notion that might makes right.
The only people who believe that you have the right to do as you please as long as you can get away with it are bullies, tyrants and dictators.

[sotally_tober]

If i may, let me offer a (somewhat) different perspective.

How about this:

I believe in moral absolutes only if there is perfect information, (or well, rather, only if there is relevant necessary information). Else, morality should be judged based on the context of the situation.

(disclaimer: ‘judged’ here implies that you are making a personal interpretation of the scenario. It can be argued that morality is self-defeating, in that to judge another would mean imposing your values/experience on him, which would be totally ironic, since you can never totally understand, hence judge, a person; but let us not deal with that at the moment…)

but anyway, so a baby tortorer might be justified in torturing a baby for fuN if he thought that a baby was a dandelion, or somthing similar. If he could feel how the baby felt (this is what i mean by perfect information; often,this is impossible, but we can get around it if [and very often] the baby torturer has to be able to vividly picture the pain), and still does it, it would be wrong, and/because he (knows that) he would be wrong.

Very often, we judge others (assign moral valuations) based on our own personal experiences. However, ignorance can and should be a defence against this.

For example, if Guy A were to be necrophil-incestuo-cannibalistic i.e. if he rapes Gal B, his dead sister, then eats her…urm…brains or something (i don’t want to get too vivid), and he turns out to be your new classmate/co-worker. What if, then, i tell you, that he is newly-imported from Papua New Guinea or someplace simiilar, and has grown up in a tribe; his sister died in a hunting accident, and all his life he was taught that the above custom was meant to be performed to show utmost respects to the coconut gods so that they could have a bumper harvest. And he believes it. Then, are the actions justifiable?

Not to us, but, well, to him?
What does the pure-moral absolute camp (if there is one) say?

hmm…just some points to ponder…

[Ramanujan]

*Originally posted by JThunder *
**How does it NOT equate to forcing one’s beliefs on him? You just said that you would be justified in going after him, based on your own beliefs.

For a moral absolutist, that is no problem. For one who advocates complete moral relativism though, it’s a self-contradictory response. It amounts to saying, “All morality is relative. Nevertheless, I’m the one who’s right, and so I’m coming after you!” **

actually, i believe it amounts to saying:

“all morality is relative. in these circumstances, and in my mind, i’m justified in coming after you.”

take a moment to ponder that. how is it contradictory? please don’t simply restate it and claim that it’s contradictory.

how does it NOT equate to forcing your beliefs on him, you ask? because i never asked him to believe the same things i did. i attacked him because he offended one of my beliefs. who is it that can say that either of us are right? what reasons would he have for taking that position?

that said, what if one of my “moral” beliefs was that everyone ought to believe as i do? that doesn’t seem unreasonable, given the state of the world. it certainly doesn’t seem contradictory to moral relativism.

-d-squared

[Ramanujan]

*Originally posted by JThunder *
**Without hesitation. Why? Do you honestly believe that his worldview is somehow justified?

The society pressures of overpopulation have no bearing on this matter. After all, torture would not be necessary to curb overpopulation. Moreover, the fact that their society hold babies with less regard is irrelevant; after all, Nazi Germany had little regard for Jews and homosexuals. Did that justify their actions? **

1. please demonstrate to me that his worldview is unjustified. please explain to me why he is wrong.

2. i never claimed that torture was necessary to curb overpopulation. i claimed that it could present him with a scenario in which babies were hated, and as such, torture of them would not be considered wrong.

3. the question about nazi germany was already answered in one of my previous posts. i’ll say it again. they felt they were justified. otherwise they would not have done it. that many others felt their justification was inadequate or inaccurate just goes to show that different moral systems exist. why is one more valid than the other? careful to avoid ad populism here.

-d-cubed

[Ramanujan]

*Originally posted by JThunder *
For pity’s sake. YOU are the ones who claim that there are no moral absolutes. None whatsoever. The burden of proof rests on your shoulders to defend your claim. Or is the problem that you can’t defend it, and that you thus want to shift the burden or proof onto someone else?
**

actually we are the ones that are not claiming anything. you are claiming that moral absolutes exist.

we ask you to prove it, you provide us with what you consider an example of a moral absolute. that would be fine as a proof. we proved that if you do not assume that there exist certain things that are morally wrong, your example is worthless.

can we in the future avoid this? it becomes very tedious when the conversation goes like this:

“it is wrong to x.”
“why is that wrong?”
“because it is.”
“but why??”
“because it is.”

if you have an example, make sure that it does not assume that there are moral absolutes before you post it please.

-d^(n+1)

[t-keela]

The problem with absolutes in morality is not so much that they change. It is the fact that in order to disprove what most people consider to be an absolute wrong act. Relativists usually resort to ridiculous/extreme examples to prove their point.

While this does in fact disprove the examples cited as proof of absolute morality. It does not disprove any possible examples which might be forthcoming. We’re talking apples and oranges here. Science vs. faith…if you want an example of a possible absolute which might be considered a proof then I will have to beg the question :

Premise being The universe is FINITE…true or not?

if the universe IS finite >

then it is possible to know all that is in it>

It is then possible to have absolute knowledge.

IF the universe is INFINITE, then absolute knowledge is NOT possible
I think there are some things that all cultures at all times consider wrong…and if it weren’t for an absurd example used as “evidence against” then most would probably agree. .

Peace

[Spiritus_Mundi]

The problem of absolute morality is not so easily solved, t-keela. Even assuming that one had perfect knowledge of the consequences of any action, one would still require a moral heuristic with which to weigh one outcome against another. Certainly there are a number of hese from which to choose, but it is in making that choice, in determining what values we will place above other value, that we define a morality. And even perfect knowledge of material events does not grant us an absolute perspective from which to view that question.

To asll those who think moral relativism == “might makes right”. You are very clearly misunderstanding what moral relativism means. It is possible that my moral understanding is exactly the same as yours, except that you feel the moral precepts we both accept are absolute while I see them as relative. Do you think that I am paralyzed from action because of that distinction? Do you think that if we join together to stand against something we both see as evil, you are exercising righteousness while I am exercising “might makes right”?

Moral relativism does not prvent me from standing up for what I believe is right, it simply means that I cannot claim my understanding is infallible. My political understanding is also not absolute, yet I have no problem marking out my ballots each year.

[erislover]

I want to tangentially note to Spiritus that, after several of our discussions on the matter here, and the thought that follows from them long after the fact, I have come to terms with moral relativity, I would consider myself a moral relativist.

But, Spiritus, I do not think your argument from epistemological uncertainty is entirely convincing. Someone who believes in moral absolutes would, I think, also believe in epistemological certainty.

I must admit that I cannot imagine how one would really put the whole shebang forward as the application of morality seems to involve information (i.e.- knowledge) pertaining to the situation in question, and so to apply a moral absolute one would need absolute certainty about knowing the situation, which is only what many philosophers, mathematicians, scientists, and mystics have been searching for since the records of these pursuits began.

But, even considering that epistemological certainty is impossible to achieve, this doesn’t automatically mean that we cannot postulate absolute morality. We would simply imperfectly apply it. No?

[erislover]

We would simply imperfectly apply it given epistemological uncertainty of the situation in which we are applying it.

[jjimm]

*Originally posted by JThunder *
**Torturing babies for fun is always, always wrong. Ditto for a man beating his wife when there is no external compulsion involved.

'Course, the last time I raised the baby torture example, one moral relativist exclaimed “Forget about the babies! Leave them alone!” Interestingly enough, nobody could offer any coherent reason why such actions could be legitimately justified. **

Hey JThunder, that was me. (Sorry to have come to this so late, and sorry if I am regressing the argument.)

Firstly, I am not necessarily a moral relativist. I was exploring the concept, and trying to discover if there were a basis for moral absolutes. If an argument were put forward that were sufficiently strong to convince me that there are moral absolutes, then I would be a moral absolutist. So far, I haven’t seen any.

Secondly, you have invoked baby torturing in several different threads on the subject, and my comment was a humorous reference to this, implying that you have an obsession - purely satirical.

What I was trying to say is You and I think baby torturing is one of the most heinous crimes ever. However, I can conceive the possibility of a society where it isn’t. That would be a f***ed up society as far as I’m concerned, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of its existence.

Simplistic reasoning: there are plenty of things that we see as morally reprehensible in other societies that they see as perfectly reasonable (e.g. female genital mutilation), and vice versa (e.g. non-burqa clad, educated women).

[Spiritus_Mundi]

erl
I think we are pretty much in agreement. My point has never been that no absolute morality is possible. My point is that human beings cannot, due to inescapable phenomenological and epistemological boundaries, gain an absolute moral perspective even if it does exist. As I noted above, even perfect contextual information does not allow one to exercise absolute moral judgements.

As to what someone believes: that is hardly a weakness in the epistemological case unless one cared to argue that what is believed is necessarily true. In my on experience, I have never seen anyone argue the absolute certainty of their moral understanding without almost immediately begging the question.

[erislover]

In my on experience, I have never seen anyone argue the absolute certainty of their moral understanding without almost immediately begging the question.

I think that, when it comes to theories of any kind, there is a subtle shift where we go from theory explaining the data to data explaining the theory, all tails end up wagging the dogs. But that’s a little aside of the point, I think.