Do you treat your family and loved ones the same way you would treat a stranger?
Have you ever taken pride in being part of a company or team?
Are you proud of your country?
Do you value the lives of the soldiers of your country more than the lives of those they are fighting?
Your statement implies that all people should be treated equally regardless of the situation. Like I said, it’s a nice thought. But, it just doesn’t make sense in the real world.
As jjimm said, I think the term is being misunderstood here. Accepting moral relativism is not accepting no morality, it is accepting that lots of people think like Debaser regardless of where they live and who they are. It simply recognises that there are Iraqi Debasers and US Debasers, and that the Iraqi Debaser will wish death on the US troops before “his own” people, and vice versa.
1- Of course not. This is, I believe, a strawman.
2- Not really. I work for my employer and each of us provides what is contracturally obligated to the other. I haven’t had any particulary pride for any sports teams I have played for. I played when I was useful and quit when I was not.
3- I used to be. Until the US gave up the moral high ground.
4- Not really. Foot soldiers on both sides are but pawns in the game. The German soldier was not Hitler, the Iraqi street fighter is not binLaden.
What I do believe is that when I am judged in the hereafter, the pertinent question is going to be “how did you treat your fellow man?” NOT “how did you treat your countrymen?”
In that case, I understand the problem: You have no idea what moral relativism is.
This might be a nitpick, but I have a hard time understanding of your definition of ‘terrorist.’ How exactly does a resident of a country that we invaded, and who is in turn killing our soldiers, a terrorist? Seems like they’d be a guerrilla fighter, myself, unless you are trying to conflate this issue with the War on Terror ™.
They might not be women, children, and the elderly, but to deny that a sizable portion of our enemies in Iraq are now average guys that we’ve totally pissed off is a bit silly.
Though what do I know about the ‘real world,’ anyway? I pretty much agree with everything that BobLibDem wrote.
Debaser: *Like I said: I knew you’d deny it. But, it’s this sort of thinking that I consider to be moral relavitism. *
Oh, I see.
Gee, Debaser, by that logic, I could argue that you’re engaging in the sort of thinking that I consider to be puppy-kicking. Therefore, you are clearly a textbook puppy-kicker. I know you’ll deny it, though.
That’s what I meant to say, Kimstu.
It’s rather lame to accuse me of simply making up terms just because I used the phrase “I consider to be…”. My take on what constitutes moral relativism might be different from yours, but that’s ok. It’s not an easy phrase to define.
From Wilkepedia:
From Moral-Relativism.com:
Then you have these statements by Cliffy and Diogenes:
It seems clear to me that this type of thinking is moral relativism, or at the very least would logically lead to moral relativism. Maybe it’s not the most pure form of it, but is certainly in the same ballpark.
I think that all human life is equal. How is that a relativist belief? Are you sure you know what the word means? Because I don’t think you do.
“Moral Relativism” is a belief that all human systems of morality are equally valid. I don’t beleive that. I’ve never expressed that. I’ve never implied that. And your cited quotation has nothing to do with that. Moral Relativism does not mean accepting all human life as equal, it means accepting all human values as equal. There is a humongous difference.
No it isn’t. You don’t know what the words mean. Look them up.
And to me all human life is equal. Those are different values (and mine are better than yours) but neither of them is relativist. I think you really do have a misunderstanding of the terminology. Embracing all of human life is not the same as embracing all moral systems.
The people killing our troops are insurgents defendingt their country. It is a fact that we invaded them illegally and the we have killed thousands of civilians for no reason. If you are truly consistent in you morality, you will recognize that Iraqis have the same right to defend their country from invasion as Americans do. Calling them “terrorists” is just demagoguery. It’s much more complicated than that.
Actually, I misused the term myself. I meant to speak to an inconsistent moral code in which moral values are seen as valid only with regards to what is good or bad for one’s self.
If you break into my house, that’s a moral outrage. If I break into yours, that is my right and if you fight back, you’re a “terrorist.” There is no morality in that, just a motile tool of justification and convenience. It’s philosophical Calvin Ball.
It is a nitpick. But, that’s ok. 
I’d call them terrorists. Those killing our soldiers are also killing policemen, UN workers, and I’m sure will soon be targeting polling locations. The label “terrorist” seems to fit perfectly to them, IMO. The label “guerrilla fighter” would also work. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
First of all I didn’t deny that, so I find it rather odd that you would say such a thing. It wasn’t me who even brought up “women, children and the elderly” first. It was Diogenes.
[Samuel L Jackson] It ain’t the same ballpark, It aint the same league. It’s not even the same fucking sport. [/Jackson]
Valuing all human life has nothing whatever to do with validating all human morality. They are completely different things.
It’s rather lame to “it seems clear to me” to reach a conclusion that’s not supported by the definitions you just cited.
Dio, I find myself generally in agreement with your views in this thread. Except for the above. I’m not certain what you mean.
How does this sentiment operationalize? Given a hypothetical opportunity to save the life of a close associate versus a complete stranger, would you flip a coin?
Actually, Debaser, what I get from this whole thread (and even your very own citations) is that you are a moral relativist and that I, Dio and anyone else who proposes some morality which applies to all people, not just “our own”, are not.
Under moral relativism, “Kiling enemy invaders” is right or wrong depending on who the killer and the victim are. Dio and I would attempt to frame universal criteria for whether it was right or wrong.
You are incorrect.
It’s impossible to frame universal criteria for such a thing.
That your hearts bleed for the poor, unforunate Iraqi terrorists who are killing our troops makes you a moral relativist. Empathy and understanding are good things, but not when taken to such outragous extremes that they paralize you from action.
Well, no it isn’t. Whether you find them convincing is irrelevant.
Let us take the action of “killing enemy invaders”, defining an enemy invader as a member of a foreign nation’s armed forces present in one’s country without consent.
I contend that killing enemy invaders is morally justified, universally. I am asserting an absolute morality.
One who contends that killing enemy invaders is morally justified for “my” people, but not for “those” people, is applying morality selecively. This, I contend, is the very definition of moral relativism.
Without the consent of whom? Saddam Hussain? The US is in Iraq with the consent of the new government, which is now sovereign and recognized around the world. Soon there will be elections, and we will be in Iraq with the consent of an elected government. Polls show that the majority of Iraqi’s want us there. We certainly do have “consent” by any measure I can think of.
This is pretty close to flaming and you still have no grasp at all of what moral relativism actually means.
It is always immoral to kill human beings for non-defensive reasons. It doesn’t matter who the killers are or who the victims are. There are no special exceptions for Americans.
We had no right to invade Iraq and it was an act of profound immorality to do it. It resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians who never did anything to us. Dividing the world into “us vs them” is nothing but primative tribalism, not morality.
And for the last time, moral relativism means that you make no distinctions between value systems. It does not- IT DOES NOT- mean that you value all human life. That’s just called not being a psychopath.
We needed the consent of the UN before the invasion. Bush’s invasion of Iraq was legally no more justified than Hitler’s invasion of Poland.
The “new government” is a puppet installed by the US. Iraq is currently under the thumb of an illegal US junta after an illegal invasion and an illegal regime change.
The “election” will be a staged event and will only take place in small, cherry-picked sections of the country.
That particular person. We can quibble over what the actual consensus is and whetehr the puppet government installed by the occupying power represents “consent” all we like, but I will put it to you directly:
If you, Debaser, considered that killing foreign invaders in your country was justified, would you apply a different morality to someone else who did the same in another country?