Whatever happened to right and wrong? Simple, it went away when people discovered that they could get off of the hook by saying things like:
I had a bad childhood, or
Don’t judge me/don’t force your morality on me, or
Society is to blame.
With these phrases and ways of thinking, you can justify anything. If there’s no right and wrong, why be against anything? Why be against murder, or theft, or rape? Sure, you need laws against these things in order to main social order and stability, but that’s about it. And again, if you do anything that’s not illegal, but that’s considered wrong by other people, you can just tell them not to enforce their moral values on you in order to get off of the hook.
Oh, and this doesn’t just apply to current behavior. In a thread I did a while ago about right and wrong, someone said that to the Vikings, raiding and pillaging wasn’t wrong, so then they weren’t doing anything wrong. So by that logic, slave holders weren’t doing anything wrong, because they didn’t see what they were doing was wrong, therefore, we shouldn’t condemn them for slavery, using our modern view of human rights, right?
In a nutshell, the relativists are saying that, yes, you can judge other people and cultures. The difference is that relativists recognize limits to moral judgements that absolutists don’t. So by your (quite cycnical) post, a relativist would admit that the things you list may be factors or considerations, but don’t pre-empt moral judgement altogether.
Well, to clarify things, I believe that there are both black and white and gray areas.
But as to what you said about relativists saying that you can judge other people and cultures, if you’re a relativist, what basis do you use to back up your judgments?
In the short, immediate term, I use my perceptions and judgements about the world, and the reasoning by which I’ve arrived at my various conclusions.
If you’re asking for the foundations of my relativistic moral system, then, beyond my own appraisal and assessment of the culture I live in, there is none. No God, no transcendental order to the universe, no syllogisms derived from unassailable first principles. To the relativist, such foundations are an illusion in which absolutists indulge, and the evidence that it’s an illusion is the long history of successive foundations that have been used to prop up moral systems that coincided suspiciously with the self-interest of those who believed in them. The relativist simply thinks that he’s being more honest about the relativism that already characterises the variety of moral systems available.
I submit, that it’s not the truth that changes, but our understanding of the truth. Going back to slavery for a minute, slavery is wrong, even though the slave owners didn’t understand it as such. The Crusades were wrong, even though people thought that they were doing right.
And you’re being too cynical by thinking that moral systems come from self interest. Well, to a degree most do, but, for example, using slavery one last time, white people in the North weren’t hurt by slavery, but they were abolitionists anyway.
White people in the north had no vested interest in the preservation of slavery, and arguably an economic interest in ending it.
You’ve stumbled into a classic philosophical trap here: how can we know what the truth is, independent of our understanding of it? If we can’t, then how are we justified in asserting that there is “Truth” out there, independent of our understanding?
Truth doesn’t rely on our understanding. There are truths out there, some we understand, some we don’t. Truth and understanding are independent of each other.
Now, let me ask you this, if right and wrong have no foundation, they they’re meaningless, correct? You said:
**
But then you said that there’s no foundation for that judgment other than peoples personal opinion:
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So, how can a relativist make a moral judgment, with nothing solid to back it up?
How do we know about truths that we don’t understand? What does it mean for something to be true, independent of our understanding of it? How can we talk intelligibly about truths we haven’t grasped, and how those truths should affect us? What does it mean when you say “I don’t understand it, but it’s true?” Is that anything other than a statement of faith?
The same way that absolutists do–the moral judgement is the result of reasoning from premises, or our intuitions, or just what we’ve been told and haven’t questioned. I just don’t make the mistake of believing that my moral judgements correlate to something inherent in the world/universe/omniverse.
Try a thought experiment: you’re face to face with a suicide bomber about to detonate himself. He says “Allah commands that you must die for being an infidel.” What do you say to him? Do you try to convince him that Allah doesn’t exist? Good luck. Do you try to convince him that he’s misinterpretted Allah’s word? Again, good luck. Do you try to convince him that what he’s doing is wrong by some other moral scheme, namely yours? What can you point to that demonstrates that your morality is superior to his? What can you show him? In a collision between moral systems, how does one side overcome the other?
Who said I don’t understand why something is wrong or not. If my mother was a millionair, and I bumped her off for her inheritance, everybody would know why I was wrong, even me.
Bad example, the fact that somebody is doing something wrong, and convencing them are two different things.
I didn’t say that you didn’t understand. I was making a point about your more general assertion that there are truths, and there are human understandings of those truths, and that those two are separate. That entails truth existing independently of our understanding of it. While that’s not difficult to think in the case of the physical world, it becomes a lot hazier when it’s moral truths we’re talking about. Where is the truth of “murder is wrong”, independent of all the people who think that “murder is wrong”? In what sense is murder wrong except insofar as a lot of people think it’s wrong?
Surely if there is some foundation for the rule “murder is wrong”, there must be something in principle to which you can point (metaphorically) that counts as the source of that rule, and that, under ideal circumstances, you could demonstrate to someone. If you’re Christian, then the source is God’s commandment; if not, something else (Kant thought that moral rules were inherent in the rational nature of the universe).
Go back to my thought experiment and imagine that you can pause the situation and talk to him, and that he’ll talk to you. How do you convince him that you’re right and he’s wrong? Assume he’s not crazy or in the grip of such a religious fervor that he can’t understand you. He’s an otherwise intelligent person who speaks the same language as you, who has chosen for his own moral reasons to be a sucide bomber.
It isn’t a question of whether everyone knows it is wrong or not. It is a question: how do you know it was wrong?
Good example, because apparently this keeps us on track. You seem to think relativists are wrong. But you have a hard time convincing us. We think absolutists are wrong, but have a hard time convincing them. Only one of our two groups has a problem explaining the behavior. And it isn’t relativists.
Hmmm, I see what you’re saying, but how is that useful in any way?; “I know it’s wrong to harm a tapeworm in order to cure a patient, but the greater good is served by me doing it, so I will definitely do it in every case” boils down (in every practical sense) to “it is right to harm a tapeworm in order to cure a patient”.
Maybe my comments will be clearer (or at least you’ll be able to see why I thought them worth making!) if I approach it from another angle.
I’m affirming the ultimacy of conscience as the basis for morality. And I propose a universal obligation to take conscience seriously and to strive to receive its promptings: acknowledging how pathetically easy it is to mislead oneself by taking viscerally self-interested impulses–and other unworthy substitutes–as the last word (when they ought to be only the first word).
There’s a quasi-Anselmian argument to be made here. If we posit an informing “something” that is the essence of “oughtness,” so to speak, there seems to be an entailment that this something OUGHT to be sought out and obeyed–or the definition isn’t met. The authority of “ought” is surely part of what the term means.
Whether some given person is acting in obedience to his conscience (a) is a question of fact; and (b) cannot be verified. The best we can do is recognize our intimations that the consciences of individual mortal humans will generally harmonize with one another–generally, and thus not necessarily in every case.
Thus I maintain that this approach is
–ABSOLUTE (as “seek out and obey your conscience” is a universal dictum); and at the same time
–INDIVIDUALIZED (for only the individual has access to these promptings, which indeed are meant for that individual alone; and that is why I don’t seek after “common moral qualities” in circumstances that are not, very literally, one and the same).
This all seems to me entirely consistent with my original suggestion as to how right and wrong are to be defined, in my initial post above.
Well quite (and the tapeworm’s opinion is noted), but the tapeworm experiences life just as subjectively as everyone else. There is no absolute frame of reference.
Scott, I’m sorry, but that seems to be a rather disjointed sense of “absolute”—a dictum that doesn’t tell anyone what to do? Well, I suppose in some sense it does: to thine own self be true. But that we should listen to ourselves… do you suppose anyone doesn’t do that? Even, say, murderers or theives?
Which is to ask—I’m sorry that seemed really obtuse!—but isn’t listening to one’s self a question of fact, and not a moral statement? That is, given that we are moral agents, how do we not listen to ourselves? (How is that a moral dictum?)
You say yourself it is a question of fact. So… er… I mean what are you saying? That moral considerations are not seperate from questions of fact?
correct me if i’m wrong, but from the posts thus far i gather there may be am absolute truth about right and wrong, but for sure nobody knows what it is, and it is pretty moot to attempt it.
so we all cross our fingers and do what we personally think is best, and live to experience the outcome…