Taking a stand on moral relativism

Great Debates
161

Hmmm, I’m interested.

So, then, do we begin by asking if moral systems arise from a combination of co-operative and punitive behaviours selected for as successful survival and reproduction strategies? And if these systems are maintained by an active awareness that one’s own well-being/success/genetic survival is tied to that of others, especially others in one’s immediate family/tribe/society?

Maybe I’m jumping the gun here (or trailing way behind – good old either-or:p ), but is what you’re reaching for as an absolute or prime morality a kind of altruistic pragmatism? Or pragmatic altruism? (It does sound very similiar to the Tit for Tat PD solution) And are you saying that all seemingly distinct moral systems are but variations or elaborations on that prime?

162

But evolution only means “survival”. Thus you’ve simply equated “good” with “is conducive to survival”. There is no resolution on whether or not it is ok for me to kill the man in front of me and step over his dead body rather than go all the way around him. After all, killing this one man won’t end my life, or the life of the species. Which brings another question to bear, being, whose survival? Mine? Mine and those I like? Everyone’s? I notice that nature hasn’t answered that question. So I guess we have a few independent moral systems to choose from still.

Yes, that theme is quite common, if perhaps useless as far as actually constructing a morality from. Is it obeying nature to decimate the paper wasp population around my house? How about in my neighborhood? How about the entire world? What if my son had been killed by them, would that change the answers? I’m not looking for eternal answers to eternal questions, I’m looking for how I’m supposed to resolve these questions by understanding the nature of man and the wasp.

What I understand quite clearly is that there are seemingly normal people who do completely abnormal things like serial killing. Evolution made us both. If I understand my nature and his, and man’s, where is that going to get me? I don’t think we can reduce morality to psychology any more than we can reduce intention to psychology (psychologism).

163

Sorry, psychologism is the reduction of various epistemological traits to psychology, which would include moral epistemology.

164

** Not an active awareness, no. Biologists often talk about “interests” and “strategies” when discussing evolutionary concepts; although these words make a certain amont of sense when considering built-in tendencies, we’re not suggesting that bacteria think about their goals.

I observe that certain kinds of altruism combined with pragmatism seem to be very successful, but I’m not advocating any particular moral code.

Well, that’s not quite true: I suppose I’m advocating the idea that we should ultimately decide moral questions by allowing evolutionary selection to take place, and that we should encourage the conditions necessary for such selection. What evolution produces is up to the universe.

165

** No, it doesn’t.

** There doesn’t seem to be any kind of “general” answer to that question.

Killing a creature that poses a minor obstacle seems to be a very poor strategy: it requires energy and risk that aren’t necessary at all.

But there are plenty of creatures who commonly kill each other. Whether this is a wise thing to do depends on the environmental pressures on that creature. For organisms who depend on communal life for their very existence (human beings, wolves, etc.), it seems to be much better to avoid rampant killing. How do we know this? Those beings have developed methods for avoiding it. Creatures whose existences would be threatened by close association with others of their kind (tigers struggling over the same hunting grounds, for example) often fight, but they too avoid wasting energy and taking the risk that comes from killing another if they can avoid it.

** On the contrary, nature has answered that question over and over.

Most humans would be highly disturbed that you would kill a human for such a minor reason. They would probably be concerned that you would be willing to kill them for such a minor reason as well, and as such they would probably kill you or neutralize you in some way (prison, etc.). Now your goals cannot be met. It’s a “bad” strategy.

** The only way such a question can be answered is through trial and error, and observing the results of trial and error.

How do you mean the word ‘abnormal’? This is a very important question. In everyday English, ‘abnormal’ means “both unusual and wrong”, while in psychology it’s a technical term meaning “outside the norm”. High intelligence is as abnormal as low intelligence in the technical sense, but not in the vernacular.

166

By “abnormal” I mean “statistically uncommon”. No value judgment was meant to be implied.

Very well, elaborate please WRT morality.

Yes, we’ve covered that. But one of us seems to be of the opinion that there is a general methodology that will guarantee optimal solutions and, furthermore, that there is a unique and privileged definition of “optimal” for all situations (if not, there can of course be no general methodology). If not, then we’re outside the scope of the OP and we both accept the framework of relativism, in which case I’m not interested in going on in this thread on the matter.

167

Evolution in the biological sense is the change in the gene pool due to selection and mutation.

In a broader sense, it’s what happens in any system where the processes of generation and elimination are combined. Why does sand in older deserts tend to become spherical? Why are raindrops tear-shaped? Why do jingle spread? Why have teddy bears changed their appearance as time passes? Evolution.

Many topics widely considered “moral” (Should I cheat on my spouse? Is it wrong to be selfish?) can be considered to have had answers produced by evolution.

168

So you keep saying.

169

**

Um…

Que? How so? The selfish/nonselfish issue is vastly complex, and leads to “situational” questions quite readily.

Nature has a lot less to say about “spouses,” as there aren’t any there…

Sorry, dude, but this time (a first?) I side with erislover… (Which is unusual, as I’m the sort of person who dreams of reason…and produces monsters…)

Trinopus

170

It’s all in modern game theory. Or evolutionary biology.

C’mon, you must have at least heard about these ideas before. Scientific American and Discover have articles involving them relatively frequently.

171

Hey, Trinopus.

What ‘um’? What’s so hard to understand about the example? Granted, it’s not the world’s best…

I agree – it is very complex.

Ironically, finding answers to these moral dilemmas often requires first asking other questions:

Who are you?

What do you want?

Once you have answers to these questions, it’s relatively easy to find the others.

How much do you care about your spouse’s feelings? How will he or she feel about adultery? What societal cost, if any, are you willing to pay if you’re found out? What is the risk of being found out? How do you benefit? How can you gain? What might you lose?

172

OK, I promised not to try to explain the difference between moral absolutism and moral relativism to TVAA any more, and I shall abide by that statement. However, am I the only one who doesn’t get the connection between game theory and evolutionary biology?

I’ll admit that I haven’t read all the literature, but my impression is that game theory shows how people with full information and the ability to make rational choices will act a certain way in order to maximize their benefits. What does conscious choice have to do with evolution?

Just wondering, is all…

Barry

173

Indeed. I simply don’t perceive the distinction you kept making. It seems to be that one condition is merely a special case of the other.

[sigh]

Game theory also analyses cases where actors have imperfect knowledge, and “consciousness” is not required. Trial and error can stand in for it quite well – which is where evolutionary biology comes in.

174

Raindrops are not teardrop shaped…

175

Again:

How does this indicate that there is a privileged method of evaluation? How does it guarantee the existence of optimal solutions?

In short:

In what way is this moral system undermining relativism?

176

Rather than cut in on the dance others are enjoying I will simply make a couple of observations of my own.
[ul]
[li]Wonderful OP, erl. It is unfortunate that nobody from th conventional schools of moral absolutism stopped by to pick up your gauntlet.[/li][li]Game Theory is a useful model for morality only if we start by assuming that the goal of morality it to win the game being modeled.[/li][li]Among the several fallacies involved in applying evolutionary analysis to morality are: the unspoken utilitarian assumption (“fitness” as moral measure), the incompleteness of the selection set (can we assume that every possible moral system has been tried in every applicable human context? If not, then what can evolution tell us about the untried systems?), and quite possible a hint of the “directed evolution” fallacy (though it is not clear whether TVAA personally inclines that direction.)[/li][li]I aways find it useful to note when people pepper their discussions of evolution with reference to “memes” and “teddy bears” and “sand”. It is a prevalent sign of someone departing from conventional science and entering the zone of rampant speculation.[/li][/ul]

177

The opposite of moral relativism would be absolutism, correct? (I’m getting confused by the claimed definitions) I think that’s much closer to where my thoughts on morality lie; although I’m not there completely since I will consider the validity of other viewpoints instead of insisting mine are the only correct ones. How egotistical and draconian.

Basically, things that are morally wrong are morally wrong no matter who does them, and there aren’t things that are morally wrong for some people and not others.

Murder for example. Child abuse. Taking advantage of those not mentally capable of making good decisions. Rape. War for personal gain. Those are all immoral no matter who does them.

On the flip-side of the coin there are things that (some) people apply a moral judgment to that I do not. Like people in some countries eating dogs and cats, for instance. Some lovely celebrities protest that this practice occurs overseas. I don’t ascribe a moral judgment to this practice, although many do. I don’t think it’s morally wrong to eat animals, period. We don’t eat dogs and cats in the US as a matter of preference not to eat carnivorous mammals, nor many omivorous ones besides pigs, in general (though some people will eat anything even here), not because there’s some moral superiority keeping us from doing so. If dogs and cats tasted as good to us as cows, we’d surely eat them no matter how cute they are; calves and lambs are adorable after all, yet we eat them, after all. With an all or nothing approach, many things fall into this catogory- more distasteful if anything than an issue of right or wrong. Lying that won’t cause another person harm(" your hair looks great" vs " Of course I don’t have aids" mind you), assisted suicide etc

There are also things in which I feel are wrong, although potentially “less” wrong than the alternatives. Theft, abortion, killing someone while defending yourself, those are things that fall into this category. While they are less wrong than the alternatives in many cases (someone starves to death, back alley abortion kills mother as well as baby, a family is murdered instead of their attacker) that doesn’t make them morally positive, or even neutral. They may be regrettable, unfortunate, understandable or even necessary, but there’s still a wrongness to them. Often a forgivable one, however.

Of course, my own moral views are subjective in the extreme, and it’s probably a good thing they’re not the basis for laws :slight_smile:

178

They are when they fall. Air resistance makes it impossible for them to be spherical, which they would be if they were floating.

The best way to avoid air resistance (as can be seen on the designs for the solar-cell powered cars) is to have a rounded front and a pointed or tapered back, so that the air is brought back together smoothly without turbluence. That’s what a raindrop looks like when it falls (roughly).

179

** There is no more priviledged method of evaluation than the way the universe changes over time.

Which is most valid: the opinions of engineers or the laws of physics?

Isn’t it obvious that there must be strategies that work better than others? As long as there’s some difference in the effectiveness of strategies, some won’t work as well, and some will be better.

By recognizing an absolute and unchanging standard that shapes all ethical systems.

It also emphasizes that ethical and moral questions must ultimately be resolved by experimentation. (Pure thought would work, but it needs data as raw materials, and data is acquired through observation and experiment.)

180

… while at the same time recognizing that the same actions can be considered “moral” or “immoral” relative[sup]*[/sup] to the circumstances of a particular society (i.e., why the action was performed), right?

Barry

[sup]*[/sup]Sorry, I know I said I wasn’t going to discuss this anymore, but I couldn’t resist. I tried to resist, mind you, but in the end it was to no avail…

But come on – now you’re admitting that there are multiple “ethical systems,” and that these different systems can all be considered equally valid as long as they are all “shaped” by the same “absolute and unchanging standard.” The fact that you are positing some amorphous underlying “absolute and unchanging standard” does change the fact that this standard has different applications relative to different societies and that multiple ethical systems can validly coexist. It’s not enough to judge a ethical system solely by examining the alleged “absolute and unchanging standard” provided by evloution. Instead, you have to examine the particular circumstances of each society and then then judge whether the “absolute and unchanging standard” has been correctly applied to those circumstances or not. Your undefined “absolute and unchanging standard” would indeed provide a basis for judging the validity of each society’s ethical system (assuming such a standard actually exists), but that judgement would still need to be made relative to each society’s particular circumstances. All you’ve done is provided a justification for moral relativism with an appeal to an “absolute and unchanging standard” that can shape different moral systems. In short, the “absolute and unchanging standard” may be absolute, but the application of that standard is relative.

Whether a theory that proposes an absolute standard that is applied relatively is one of “moral absolutism” or “moral relativism” depends, I suppose, on how one chooses to define the terms “moral absolutism” and “moral relativism.” I submit that your definition is not one that is shared by most people who talk about “moral absolutism” (see, for example, the comments by elfkin477 above), but I suppose people have always been free to redefine words as they see fit. It does make conversations a bit awkward, however. Or, to put it another way, may I mambo dog face to the banana patch?