I’ve read a couple of threads about moral relativism and arguments between them and believers in moral absolutes, and I’m curious as to what those people believe the long term consequences would be if most people became moral relativists
From what I’ve experienced personally it really affects your thinking in a lot of subtle ways.
This is what I think would happen.
Where do people get their moral ideas, probably first from the values instilled by family and friends or later well known personalities in a culture (Martin Luther King)
Lots of values that a relativist may personally believe in were originally believed in absolutely by someone. The people who most loudly advocate a value or set of values were probably believers in absolutes (example: Objectivists or Christian fundamentalists)
If there is no basis but personal belief (which is what you already believed in anyway) for choosing amonst different sets of values, it would seem that values themselves would gradually go away as fewer absolutists remained.
Who could argue forcefully for values if they believed that there is nothing absolute about them.
Without someone advocating forcefully an absolute belief in some values, I can’t see how values would continue at all in the long run.
Now maybe the argument is that social pressures etc would cause different people to believe certain things without believing in them absolutely, but I believe that values don’t spread without an advocate.
I see little reason to believe in absolute values, I can’t find evidence of what their source would be, but I am confused of the consequences and feel led into valuelessness myself.
one mistake of people who believes in moral absolutes tend to make is to assume that moral relativism holds that no morals are valid in any context. this is simply not true. also, if you agree that there is no absolute “ether” (if you will) from which morals came, you agree that they had to develop somewhere. someone, somewhere, thought it was wrong to kill other people. so there’s already proof that values can develop without a belief in their absoluteness.
also, moral relativism does not eliminate the possibility of a god. it just states that if it were a different god, or if god changed his mind, my morals would be different. god, as far as morals go, is just an absolute authority.
let’s try to develop why “thou shalt not kill” might come about. as an animal, i likely have an instinctual desire to prolong the species. so i might still be able to believe that murdering one person isn’t so bad, but when it threatens the species, it can be dangerous. so i do not want to kill every member of my species. now, let’s try to narrow it down. i have a friend named bob. i really like bob, and i would sure hate to see him go. in my view that human life isn’t all that valuable, i kill some lady named sarah. sarah’s mate, ted, gets pissed off, and instead of killing me, he kills bob, because he knows how much i liked bob. now i’m all kinds of upset, and i see what happened when i killed someone. i can even see it turning into a chain reaction of sorts, and wiping out everyone.
so just like i don’t go around punching people in the face, because i don’t want to be punched, it makes sense to me not to take away something that might be so valuable to someone else.
value can come from many places other than some absolute source. in my examples, it was the pleasure i derrived from having a friend.
I’m curious to know why you think most people aren’t in the first place. To this relativist, everyone is an MR and just doesn’t know it yet.
But, think of this question in terms of a democracy that addresses issues like: the rights of a fetus, the rights of humans, the method to choose when deciding between conflicting rights, and many other hot-button issues that come along form time to time.
There is no basis other than human belief. But this is not the end of the formation of morality, it is the beginning.
Who could tell me how they achieved absolute certainty that [this moral] is absolutely right?
So you think it is not the belief that drives these people to argue so forcefully, but the fact that those morals are absolute?
You are expected to make moral decisions. This includes the adoption of various moralities. What do you find important? Is absolute assurance necessary for you to behave in any fashion? Then why would you expect it here in the form of prescribed actions? Choosing between relativism and absolutism isn’t the choice between value and no-value. As a former objectivist, ask yourself the question: what is the absolute value of a dollar?
Another common misconeption about moral relativists is that the only basis for a relative morality is “socail pressure”. I assure you, it is quite possible for a moral relativist to have strong moral convictions which are at odds with those of the majority of his neighbors.
“Murder” is being used where “homicide” would be more suitable. Murder is the unjustified killing of a human. “Homicide” is quite obviously put on a relative basis, even in the Bible, and it ranges all the way from first degree murder down to justifiable homicide going through a whole range of definitions during the trip.
As an ex-objectivist myself, I can say with confidence that if you are interested in the sort of things Objectivists like to talk about, you should stick around this board.
Moral objectivism cannot exist. There are situations where you must compromise your absolute values in some way or another. Things don’t exist in black and white, but in varying shades of grey.
(1) It is wrong to let your family starve.
(2) Stealing is wrong.
BUT: What if the only way to feed your family is to steal a loaf of bread?
No matter what you do when deciding a moral course of action, you will violate either moral principle 1 or 2.
Blalron, I think that’s true of all rights in general. Each of them, taken to their extreme application, will eventually conflict with another right (or possibly more than one). I wouldn’t say that, for example, morality is really grey, for it is what we make it (and so you can’t say it is really anything). But we can’t make it anything but grey.
