I have to tell you first, I have a very open mind. I am open to almost any scientific and philosophical theory, especially if it is nontheistic.
(Presently, I think I still believe in God, and consider myself a nominal Catholic. But forget that for the moment. I am still very agnostic and antireligious.)
Anyway, I am somewhat interested by and somewhat troubled too by the metaethical theory of moral nihilism. It claims nothing is inherently good or bad, moral or immoral.
I find that hard to believe. But I may just not know. I find Quantum Physics hard to believe too. But what do I know?
Anyway, from what I understand, most philosophers are moral nihilists. (I have heard that from a number of good sources. Although some people on these boards have disagreed with that estimation.)
Anyway, one thing I have a problem with ethical nihilism, is the view that there is no such thing as moral progress. I think we have made some amazing moral progress, in just the past couple hundred years. Outlawing slavery, giving women the right to vote. And there is so much that needs to be done. Gay marriage, for example. I think gay people should be given that right. And we are just beginning to do that now.
Why would a moral nihilism disagree with that? And how would they respond?
BTW, I am sorry I have included no cite for my OP. I did a Google search. But I didn’t find anything I liked. Actually, I seem to recall this Australian philosopher wrote a book on just that topic (that morality is invented, not discovered–and there is no such thing as moral progress). But I can’t recall his name. Any help in this regard would be greatly appreciated:).
There are some who might claim that women getting the right to vote is a bad thing. Or that slavery is a good thing (yes, people have argued that position).
It is hard, philosophically, to nail down any fundamental truths. For instance, a gazelle might consider lions to be un-repentently evil. After all the lions chase and murder the gazelles and eat them. Of course, from our perspective, the lions are not evil. That is just nature doing its thing and is neither good nor evil.
Read, I am Legend for a fun take on the gazelle thing (skip the several movies based on it).
Even if morality was invented by humans, it still exists. Lots of things were invented by humans and can be judged on their merits. Morality is no different.
They would respond that those are cultural judgements and not morals in the objective sense. It’s also self-fulfilling. Every culture thinks that they are at the pinnacle of moral progress or else one hopes they would stop whatever they were doing. You are saying we have made moral strides because your morality is aligned with the cultural morality. If your morality were not, you would not see great moral strides, but rather moral degradation. They would say there is no inherent objective reason that slavery is ‘evil.’ Some cultures might consider it just and that freeing slaves is an immoral act. Simply because you are the result of a culture telling you that what it is currently doing is moral and you agree does not make it so.
Seems that ever since Trump’s election, the notion of “moral relativism” and “there is no such thing as objective reality” or “there is no such thing as moral right and wrong; morality is relative” has gone into sudden decline, and is in fact now on the verge of death.
I suppose somewhere someone has doubted the existence of objective reality, but it’s never been a mainstream position.
And surely you would agree that [people can have different views of what the moral course of action should be in a given situation. A well framed moral hypothetical will test those views. Do you let 5 people die instead of 1, or do you actively flip the switch that kills the one. Different people will come to different conclusion, and it’s hard to see where you can have an objective answer. Where would you find it?
And what the hell does any of this have to do with Donald Trump? Where are you getting this notion that the idea of moral relativism–whatever you mean by that–has any relation with the current president?
No it isn’t. If morality is invented by people, it changes because people change it. Over the last couple hundred years, a lot of the things that were good are now bad, and bad, good. People did that.
I don’t judge whether an iPhone X (another human invention) is better or worse than an iPhone 8 because of morality.
It is very easy to look at a place where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”, compare that against another place where it isn’t, and say “that’s better”.
I’m not trying to make this a Trump thread, but I do think his campaign, and especially his election, marked the tipping point at which moral relativism went into sudden decline. It’s hard to find anyone who believes in it anymore.
By moral relativism I mean “morality is a social construct; morality is relative; your right is someone else’s wrong”, which still seemed to be going relatively strong in the 1990s and 2000s.
I don’t agree at all. I think moral relativism is alive and well. It’s just that Trump is in the news a lot and is (objectively) an egregiously stupid and immoral person.
I would agree with this, that morality, and the measure of its progress, is inherently cultural. We say that women voting and gay marriage are evidence of moral progress. I would point out that one does not have to look far to find human societies where they would say allowing women freedoms and the vote, and allowing gays to marry, is the height of immorality. Which one is correct? For western culture, the answer is “we are”. So therefore, that is a cultural lens of morality.
If you’re going to put it that way, then I disagree. If we’re going to accept that it’s moral to deny women and gay people rights in another culture because that culture says so, then there’s nothing about “western culture” that says it’s improving when we stop treating people like dirt. It’s just changing from one equally-valid morality to another one.
The claim that morality is improving - that there’s such a thing as “moral progress” - is inherently a statement that there’s a form of objective morality that applies to human societies. Now, to get all philosophical about it, when I say “objective” I mean “objective relative to the needs and properties of humans and their societies”, but that’s objective enough to say that if we’re improving, then other human societies that marginalize women and gays are objectively immoral.
Icarus, sorry, that argument breaks down. In non-Western cultures there are still women wanting equal rights and LGBT people asserting their right to exist within these non-Western cultures. To give all authority to patriarchal men who mostly control political power in a non-Western culture, while erasing feminist and LGBT voices there, is no progress at all.
That’s the point. If you’re a moral relativist, then it’s not progress. It’s just changing one form of morality for another. To a moral relativist, there is no difference between allowing gay people to marry and burning them at the stake. They are simply societal constructs. These moral systems may lead to different outcomes for a society that a particular individual may or may not like, but there’s nothing inherently ‘good’ about either stance. Honestly, after Camus’s famous objection, I think it’s a major dilemma in any nontheistic worldview.
I would say that you have that backwards. There seems to be a vocal contingent that holds the opinion that the president is good and right and fixing all the damage that his predecessor did. That his behavior may be less than perfect but he is avidly pursuing the ideal. The division here shines a blinding floodlight upon moral relativism.
First, your definition of moral relativism is vague. Can you give a specific example? If two people differ on a moral dilemma, does that mean the entire concept of morality is thrown out the window? Just because Utilitarians and Deontoligists exist doesn’t mean the idea of the good gets thrown out, it means people have different ideas about what the good is. And in reality we make compromises between individual rights and the greater good all the time.
Also, I’m still baffled with what any of this has to do with Trump. You might as well say “Since Trump got elected, fewer people eat rocky road ice cream.” What are you on about? What is your evidence?
Morality has advanced quite a bit, but much of the advanced occurred after the Industrial revolution which started in the 18th century.
Which begs the question, what is the relationship between Industry and social justice? Why are wealthier people more moral as a group?
I know I saw a study saying wealthy, healthy, educated people tolerate dictatorship less well than poor, sick, uneducated people. But I’m not sure why.
But either way, the more wealth, health, education and justice a person has in their own life the more they seem to support social justice. In general.
:).