I don’t know. I’m not against the possibility as such. To co-opt a term from game theory, such a system would probably have to result in a Nash equilibrium should all parties adopt it, or perhaps the qualification would be that to achieve a NE everyone would have to adopt it (so that everyone did adopt it, they would benefit by switching strategies which is to say adopt this system, after which no one benefited from leaving it), though whether this NE is unique is in question (if it isn’t, we haven’t removed relativism), and how context-dependent is it (does it only apply for small periods of time?). Many questions we are, at this point, probably completely incapable of answering. While the idea seems promising, eventually, maybe, it hardly helps us decide moral issues today in an absolute sense.
Unless you define your terms, such discussions are inane.
All cultures abhor what they consider to be deviant or anti-social behavior. It’s up to them to define what’s forbidden. So, I can say that anti-social behavior is absolutely bad. 
All cultures have some sort of incest taboo, but how incest is defined varies widely. (While some cultures won’t even permit sex between distant cousins, others permit ritual sex with parents or siblings.) So, you can say that incest is absolutely bad, too. It’s just the definition which needs decided.
Other than these, which, to be fair are more like concepts than actual examples of moral absolutes, there isn’t a single rule upon which all cultures can agree.
Hating Jews for being Jews is absolutely wrong. I know some people here would disagree with that statement, but I stand by it. And the mere fact that some people disagree does not have any bearing on its rightness, wrongness or the relativity thereof.
Besides, the burden of proof doesn’t simply rests on those who do believe in moral absolutes. If someone claims that there are NO moral absolutes whatsoever, then that person had better be ready to prove this as well.
so,
[ul][li]an absolutist pacifist will view his impending death with perhaps disappointment? for he would be killed by one he views as immoral?[/li][li]while a relativist pacifist will also view his impending death with disappointment? for he would be killed by one he views as immoral?[/li][*]then an empathist(?) pacifist will view his impending death with peace? for he would be killed by one he respects for obeying the moral code?[/ul]
Hi, pervert. Since in some ways we seem to think alike, I think that maybe I can help.
There is a key distinction that has been somewhat overlooked between evaluating a moral system and judging one. I’ll make an absurd example (one of my favorite activities):
Moral System “HEDON”: Whatever you would like to do is right.
Moral System “SA”: Whatever Smartass tells you to do is right.
We can most certainly evaluate these moral systems according to objective criteria. For instance, we could evaluate which produces the most “average” happiness in the world. Alternatively, we could evaluate which produces the most happiness for Smartass. We could see which one leads to people living longer lives or which one leads to people having more children (kinda tough with the vagueness of the systems). Where it becomes problematic is when we start talking about which one is better. The relativist is most likely to recognize that the question is incomplete: Better for what?
I could say that the SA system is better because it makes me more happy. You could say that the HEDON system is better because it makes everyone else more happy–in spite of the effect on me. Both of these are MORAL JUDGMENTS. They require you to favor an outcome. In effect, you are introducing a third system into the mix that evaluates the other two. So, a question is, can we discover an underlying system that is “absolutely” correct and base everything on it? And a more problematic question is, how do we know that we have found it?
You have suggested that there might be an absolute system based on the quality of society it produces or how it encourages or discourages human survival. I would say that you are making a moral judgment without realizing it: You are assuming that human survival is Good. Chances are, you won’t find many humans who disagree, but there may be some insect-dudes living around Betelgeuse who would say that your moral system is self-centered and could not possibly be “absolute” morality.
Let’s posit that there is a God, and He alone determines absolute morality. Perhaps he thinks that humans survival is good and that is why He has caused us to evolve such impressive faculties. So, an absolutist might say, “Here is evidence that there is an absolute morality and it says that human survival is Good.” On the other hand, perhaps He thinks that human survival is annoying and He is really more interested in black holes, and that is why we have only found one planet with humans among a whole buttload of empty space. A different absolutist might say, “Here is evidence that there is an absolute morality and it says that human survival is Bad.”
I think the main thing that makes the discussion interesting is with regard to religious beliefs. Most religious people seem to think that there is a God, that He has declared an absolute moral framework, and that they are privy to it. Which is why trying to get them to accept gay marriage is nigh to impossible. They recognize that gay people may be operating in a different moral framework. However, they are also convinced that this framework is Wrong (from a moral standpoint) and they have an absolute framework with which to make this judgment and be sure that they are correct.
Speaking for myself, I would say that if there is an absolute morality, there is little chance of our discovering it. However, that does not mean that we can’t distinguish between relative frameworks. In fact, I think that it makes sense to try to find some “core” moral principles that as many people as possible will agree with. The ones that I like are pretty straightforward: One person’s morality is no more or less valid than another’s. Also, each person is equally entitled to try to live according to his/her morality. From my standpoint, this leads pretty naturally to the libertarian position that everyone should be free to do pretty much what the hell they want as long as it isn’t actively interfering with someone else’s freedom.
To my way of thinking, the more people lean towards a relativist view, the more likely they are to accept the “fairness” of these ideas; whereas, an absolutist is more likely to insist that their way is the right way and we must all adopt it. For what it’s worth, it seems to me that many of the Democrats AND Republicans are absolutists–or they at least present themselves this way. The Reps rely on primarily religious notions of morality for their absolute. The Dems seem to rely on some sort of “equality of outcomes” absolute. I have seen so many debates in this forum where people argued right past each other because they don’t realize that they are working off of different assumptions of Good. I have also seen that it is very rare for these absolutists to move from their positions.
btw, I’m not trying to debate any of these examples–they are just the easiest ones for me to make, and maybe they will help clarify some of the confusion in the thread.
Hope this helps.
-VM
well, for one, i think we can make subjective assessments that aren’t necessarily moral judgements. however, i think ouryL makes a good point (to which you yourself allude below) in this regard: what exactly constitutes a “moral judgement”? is it a moral judgement to choose the net gain in my personal happiness as a means of evaluation? can it be considered arbitrary or simply useful?
i think you ask here more than i claimed i could do. it seems that if i was able to propose an answer, i would have to claim some sort of objective assessment of morality that is better than any other, which i don’t claim to have.
on to the problem of defining what we mean by “morality”: i suppose i don’t like the term very much, as it seems to be one of those words like “consciousness” or “life” that we all get an idea of what it is to which we are referring, but we can’t pin it down, nor can we define it without examples. let’s suppose we consider it a function from a set A of actions to the set {moral, immoral}, where when we consider something “moral”, the action is permissible, while if it is “immoral” the action is not. i would also like to further restrict A to actions dealing with other people, for this seems to be the purpose of morality. if i throw a ball up in the air and catch it and no one ever knows about it, for example, the action could hardly be considered either moral or immoral. if i throw a ball up in the air and catch it, and the ball belongs to someone else, or someone else is in the room trying to concentrate, or some such, the action might have moralistic connotations.
how’s that so far? i might like to restrict A even further in the future, as i consider it more thoroughly.
I disagree with your example, but perhaps not for the reasons you imagine. We can hardly be held morally accountable for our inner beliefs - those are compelled by the available evidence and our imperfect senses and thought processes. A guy who had been taught nothing but good things about Jews, but still thought poorly of them, would be neither moral nor immoral in his beliefs, but would probably be stupid. On the other hand, if he acted on his beliefs through speech, writings, violence, etc., he could be morally judged.
(On writing this, it occurs to me that some religious people, especially Christians, may claim that we in fact should be morally judged based on our inner beliefs. This I find bizarre and incomprehensible and is perhaps the main reason I cannot accept Christianity.)
By “absolute”, I think people mean independent of any cultural or local beliefs, so I don’t think your example of incest applies.
The reason I asked for an example of a moral absolute is that although I’ve heard many people claim to believe in moral absolutes, I’ve never heard a moral absolute yet that I couldn’t counter with some pathological case that requires an exception (Yeah, but what if…) So I have taken the position that moral absolutes may or may not exist, but if they do, they are beyond our human ability to discern what they might be or state them in a useful form, thus rendering the question pointless.
I’ve been too busy to post to this thread for a while, but I’m glad to see that it is still on the front page. First, I’d like to reply a post by Malthus that I somehow missed last week.
I cannot speak for the absolutist, but for the moral relativist, the distinction you mention both exists and is highly significant. Most moral relativists hold that “fact claims” and “value claims” are of an essentially different sort. They also hold that it is fundamentally impossible to deduce value claims purely from fact claims. In the context of moral value claims, this impossibility is sometimes called the “is/ought gap”.
This criticism is based on a misunderstanding of relativism – or at least of the version held by moderately reflective people. As has been mentioned several times in this thread, judgement is always possible, but moral judgement must always happen in the context of a moral system, and (the relativists maintain) no moral system is privileged above any other in the sense of being “truer” or more in accord with a true objective morality.
I would say rather that the nature of existence and the nature of a given agent’s goals provide a basis on which to evaluate moral systems. But holding one set of goals to be preferable over another set of goals is a value claim. Therefore, using such a basis is not to derive a morality purely from the facts of reality.
Can you explain? I don’t think that it is a moral claim to say that a particular moral system is better at achieving a given set of goals (such as “living in reality”). Rather, it is a factual claim about how the universe works and what consequences will follow from certain behaviors. Whether these consequences are desirable depends on working within a particular value system (perhaps a moral system, depending on the type of desirability being attributed).
I agreed above that, ultimately, the choice among moral systems depends on “personal opinion”. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say “personal preference”, but when I use that phrase, I refer to psychological dispositions that most would not characterize as “whim”. When we characterize someone’s action as a whim, we imply that it was not a consequence of deep reflection and that they might have acted differently had they been in a different mood. In contrast, my desires to stay alive, to not cause pain, and to increase my knowledge of the world are, I think, so fundamental to my character that the actions they motivate cannot be called whims. However, they can still be called “personal preferences” because someone else might not care whether I do any of these things.
Relativism (qua relativism) does not dismiss the importance of reality in evaluating moral systems, but it is only half the story. The other half of the story is our goals, i.e., just what do we want to do in that reality. And on this point I agree with erislover – any system for concluding that one set of goals is better or more moral than another is vulnerable to the relativist critique.
Ok, thought so.
Ah, I see now I have been laboring under a misunderstanding. To me the implication that a morality can be objective itself implies absolutism and refutes relativism. Your earlier definitions of “objective moralities” were simply randomly chosen valuation methods. The link, as you so cleverly noted, between objective and absolute morality is the “is - aught” gap. I have always believed in the notion that what a thing is determines what it aught to do. That is, what type of entity a thing is determines absolutely the context in which the search for a morality is made. Objectively, reality is the context in which we live, and that we live means we are a specific type of entity. The characteristics of reality and ourselves determine what sort of morality we have to adopt.
Or, at the very least, suggest a method for evaluating which one we should adopt. I have been thinking that perhaps I am talking about a revised relativism. One which does not elevate all moral systems to equal status, but does not negate the possiblity that different formulations of the same general principles could work as well from one person (or group) to another. There may be moral absolutes, but there might not be one and only one complete fromulation of duties and actions (complete map to use the earlier language) possible using those principles.
I think the only reason to elevate one method, set of morals, or morality above others is the extent to which they server the purpose of morality. That is the extent to whcih they allow people to live their lives*
*I mean life in the most expansive sense possible. I am not talking about simple biological existence.
[QUOTE=shijinn]
so,
[ul][li]an absolutist pacifist will view his impending death with perhaps disappointment? for he would be killed by one he views as immoral?[/li][li]while a relativist pacifist will also view his impending death with disappointment? for he would be killed by one he views as immoral?[/li][li]then an empathist(?) pacifist will view his impending death with peace? for he would be killed by one he respects for obeying the moral code?[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
Yes, Yes, and ???
You added a third possiblity that I was not addressing.
I’m not sure that I have suggested any of these methods for evaluating moral systems. What I am suggesting is that there are reality based objective (and thus absolute) principles by which a person can judge for himself any given moral system. I agree that these principles qualify as moral principles. That’s why I am arguing that absolute moral principles exist.
I am not “assuming” that human survival is good. I am positing that unless your moral system includes such a principle, it is not a good fit within the context of your life lived in the real world. The only way we can propose (as I believe relativism does) that another moral principle exists in place of “human survival is good” is to propose unreal scenarios. Such a principle might not apply to insects, a moral system could be internally logically consistent even based on the opposite, etc.
Morality serves a purpose. It is not simply a collection of opinions. What I am suggesting is that moralities which serve that purpose better than other are more “real” than those others. Thus, more absolutely correct.
But the nature of existence and the nature of the existant determine to some extent the nature of that existant’s goals.
Right. The moral choice is in determining which set of goals to use in evaluating morality. However, relativism tells us that there is not method for chosing such with out first adopting some other set of goals etc. It is not a useful method for deciding on how to behave.
Let me explain further in the next paragraph.
Allow me first to say that I am not in any way trying to denegrate the though or ideals you put into effect in choosing your personal morality. I’m going to make some comments and use the pronoun “you”. Please accept my appologies for any offence. I mean this in the generic “you as a relativist example” rather than “you Tyrrell McAllister”.
How can the adoption of any moral system be the result of “deep personal reflection” when there is not basis for using such a reflection for evaluating a moral system? Which moral system says that deep personal reflection is better for choosing morality than flippin a coin? Relativism tells us nothing about whether flippinga coin or deep personal relfection, or even communing with god is a better method of deciding between one morality an another. My only point is that I agree that “whim” implies less importance that preference. But that such a difference is a moral one. Relativism tells us that we cannot make such judgements except from within a moral framework, no?
And on this we disagree. Relativism dismisses the context which reality imposes on us to choose moralities based on living our lives within reality. I could, for instance, compose a morality based on the ideal that the earlies death possible is the highest good. Relativism tells us nothing about whether this is better or worse than a morality based on the ideal that the longest and happiest life possible is the highest good. Reality, on the other hand will intervene and demand that a living organism actively working for its own death will not long be a living organism. That it is alive detemines that it aught to live.*
*Again, I am not using life only in the biological sense even here. Also, I am not proposing ay of these examples as examples of absolute moral systems. Merely pointing out that relativism does not help very much in determining the difference.
Now, pervert, when has objectivity every implied absolutes? The study of light propogation, for example, is clearly the study of an objective phenomenon. Yet there have been several competing theories for some time. Now we’ve settled into one area, but it is also true that other theories have just as much explanatory power (Kaluza Klein, for example) WRT light but are not considered orthodox theories. Objectivity does not by itself reveal absolute truth.
Because they accomplished the rough outline we had available to use: a method for choosing alternatives that was not subjective. They certainly fit the bill. 
I have been bewitched by that notion several times, and each time I fall in love with it I end up abandoning it again.
Speaking with respect to evidence by inspection, a great many people do live quite differently, and yet they are all living. This is not an easy analysis, but I’m not dismissing it out of hand.
Um, that is the only relativism there is. Relativism does not suggest any measure is possible whatsoever of systems which determine such measures. There is no way to tell if one moral system is more moral than another without adopting a system; there is no way to tell if one method for acquiring knowledge is more sound than another without already having an epistemology; there is no way to tell if any two objects are more beautiful than others without a stand on aesthetics in the first place. It seems we almost understood each other for a moment there. 
Without a unique formulation, no moral system can be said to be absolute. As far as the existence of moral absolutes go… well, I don’t have much comment on there. I see no way to distinguish them unambiguously or without operating in another relativism. You are correct that the is-ought gap strikes us hard here.
It is easy to suggest a rule above all rules. All it takes is a few keystrokes. It is much more difficult to support the notion of its privileged status.
Perhaps not, but it implies that there is an absolute truth we are talking about. It does not allow that any and all theories concerning the characteristics of light are equally valid, nor that there is no way to know which of them is closer to this absolute truth. It certainly does not allow that the absolute truth we are talking about does not exist.
Quite. I’m not disputing this. I’m suggesting that there is more to the idea that an objective morality exists than merely that a non subjective method for evaluating moralites exists. Again, the context is implied by the nature of the discussion. We are talking about morla systems people could use for their lives, or not.
Fair enough. I have not seen good reason to do so.
Quite so. And for my part I am not claiming that an absolute morality can be easily determined. I am not even claiming that such a thing exists down to the level of whether or not to wear hats, for instance. What I have meant by that is that yes indeed many people live very differently and may be to one extent or another living according to an absolute morality. I’m not sure why this seems unlikely to anyone. If the accusation that relativism means all moralities are equally good makes no sense, then the accusation that absolutism means everyone should live exactly alike seems equally foolish.
Yea, almost. But I think the argument that no moral claims can be made without morals implies that all morals are equal. At least until you accept one or the other. I am saying that there is a way to evaluate morals without accepting any of them. That is I am postulating an objective basis for an absolute moral principle based on the characteristics of the being which would have to adopt such a principle.
I disagree. At least if we limit the level to which we require uniqueness. For instance, I offer that a morality which holds the life of the individual in very high esteem is superior to those which do not. Specifically I am claiming that such a morality is objectively better for people living in the real world. Based solely on the characteristics of people and the world. Now, this statement has nothing whatsoever to say about wearing hats. IF you were to require that a moral system is not unique unless it permits, requires, or forbids the wearing of hats with absolute certainty, then I would have to admit defeat and say I have no such formulation. If, however, you were to say that a morality based on the earliest possible death of its adherents was not absolutely morally wrong, then I would have to say you had taken relativism too far. I doubt that makes our positions any more clear.
Yes.
I disagree. Again, what a thing is determines what it aught to do. For moral systems, this also applies. What is morality? What use is it put to? Does any person need one? The answers to these questions determine a method for evaluating moralities. If we assume that we are only talking about people living on earth then some of these answers are objectively determinate. Again, reality determines the context.
Nothing wrong with it, per se, but I don’t think you can escape that it requires a little moralizing on some level. Makes me think of evolution. We refer to species that have been “deselected” as “failed”. There is a built-in assumption that continuing to survive was their purpose. On the other hand, someone dying in pain probably does not have that purpose, at least not any more.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your trying to find “better” ways to evaluate a moral system, but I don’t think you will find a way that doesn’t have to lean on at least one moral principle for its evaluation–even if that moral principle is nothing more than “it is good for a species to try to continue to exist” or “it is good for people to try to maximize happiness”.
To me, the good thing about relativism is that it sort of pulls the rug out from under people like religious fundamentalists. When they say, “Here is what I believe is right and I believe it because I believe God says so,” it makes room for someone to say, “Well, that’s fine for you to believe, but that doesn’t make it the absolute truth for everyone else.”
JMO
-VM
For what purpose? Do you not have to decide that one kind of result is better than another, and is this not a moral determination?
-VM
For the prupose of being what it is. I know this sounds circular, but note that some things require actions to continue being what they are. Note also that actions require choices. Some of these action/choice requiring things need rules sets or values in order to make such choices. Furthermore, some of these action/choice/value requiring things are pretty free to choose whatever values (and the associated hirearchy) they want. What they are not free to do is choose a set of values/choices/actions which prevents them from being the sort of thing that they are.
What I mean by all of that gobbldygook is that if a person decides to choose as his guiding principle values which cause his death* then that person is no longer a person. At least no longer a living person.
Actually no. You don’t have to decide that one result is better than another. You do if you want to continue being what you are, but that choice is actually up to you. All I am saying is that claiming that the choice to no longer exist being equally valid**, or simply another option alongside the choice to exist seems silly to me.
*Again, I am not speaking merely of biological life and death.
**I know, erislover, relativism does not require that all moralities be judged at all. I’m talking about the theoretical person trying to choose a morality before he has chosen a morality.
It’s not that it’s circular; it’s that it requires a moral determination that “the purpose of being what it is” is good and that “the purpose of not being what it is” is bad. I understand that you think the second option is silly, but I don’t think that you can escape that deciding that it is silly requires a moral framework.
From my perspective, you are trying to find some sort of root objectivity to rely on, and I just don’t see how this is possible. Is it not good enough to find a root moral position that you think all living creatures can reasonably agree to? That would give you something to move on from; whereas, seeking an objective absolute keeps you lost in an endless search.
Seriously, I think that you WANT there to be an objective basis and so you are trying to “push the morality farther upstream”. I work with auto makers who are always trying to make inventory disappear. They succeed in making the inventory not be in the plant, but the practical result is that the suppliers have to have more inventory in order to respond to “just in time” requests. You can only reduce inventory so low, and after that you are merely pushing it upstream.
In the same way, you can only eliminate so much of the moral determinations from your argument, but on some level there always has to be a notion of what is good. The fact that you come up with such a notion that no one would disagree with does not make it objective; it makes it popular.
-VM
This is exactly my point. The central tenet of relativism seems to be that one cannot make any moral judegements about morality except from within the framework of a morality about which we cannot make judgements except…
What I am saying is the nature of reality and our nature makes a certain type of judgement regardless whether we acknowldge it or not. That is, there is a certain objective absolute moral which exists.
This is because you have confused the biological aspects of life with others. A person’s “life” is not simply breathing, eating, drinking, shitting and sleeping.
I agree. If I can propose one such principle which is based on objective reality and which is absolute for the given set of moral actors, I think I have proposed a moral absolute. No?
Well, but it does not even do this. If it is taken far enough (Morals are simply opinions and nothing else) it does not even provide a common language to discuss the issue. All it does is provide this sort of exchange.
“Here is what I believe is right and I believe it because I believe God says so neener neener.”
“Well, that’s fine but for you to believe, but I don’t belive in god nor any authority he has to determine right and wrong, so neener neener.”
Without some agreement that morals exist how can they procede?