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| Thread: moral relativism vs. moral absolutism |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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mvassilev
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posted June 06, 2011 11:49 PM |
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moral absolutism
Continued from here
Before we can talk about whether we are moral absolutists, we first have to agree upon what "moral absolutism" means. Corribus gives the example that someone who "could very well think that baby raping is immoral in all situations... yet stealing is not." Would this person be a moral absolutist? He does hold that a certain action is always absolutely wrong. To be a moral absolutist, do you have to consider that any action that is ever wrong is always wrong, only that at least one action is always wrong, or something in between? Or are we talking about a completely different meaning of moral absolutism (in this case, better called moral universalism): the idea that a system of ethics applies universally?
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Fauch
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posted June 07, 2011 12:29 AM |
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I suppose moral absolutism is like the 10 commandments.
you shall not kill. never, under any circumstances.
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mvassilev
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posted June 07, 2011 12:33 AM |
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TDL
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The weak suffer. I endure.
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posted June 07, 2011 12:42 AM |
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Edited by TDL at 00:43, 07 Jun 2011.
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Imagine someone just shot you in the leg or your arm and he said the next shot is at your head. Imagine a pistol lying next you. Out of self-protection, would you risk your chances and shoot him or just resign and allow yourself to be shot anyway, with no way of surviving? If in that situation you are still not allowed to shoot the guy, then it beats me.
There are hundreds of situations in which you may actually be forced to kill another person so as not die yourself or have your close ones die. Repent thou shall have to for thee have sinned, but you will live on...
EDIT: In this situation, what would that make me? If I rule out some absolute truths...
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baklava
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posted June 07, 2011 12:46 AM |
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Edited by baklava at 00:47, 07 Jun 2011.
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Quote:
Actually, it says "thou shalt not murder".
My language actually doesn't differentiate between the two.
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Elodin
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posted June 10, 2011 01:38 PM |
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Edited by Elodin at 13:50, 10 Jun 2011.
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Deity, humanity, and morality
Why there is no basis for morality if there is no God
Morality poses a very difficult problem for a materialistic atheistic world view. Certainly atheists can be moral people with great integrity. Most believe in the concepts of right and wrong. However, these concepts are illogical and inconsistent within a worldview in which God does not exist. When a materialistic atheist uses the concepts of morality and immorality he is borrowing from a theistic worldview. If the universe came into being from a steady state of absolute nothing without a cause that means evolution is non-theistic--there is no guiding hand behind it which means there is no basis for morality.
Non-theistic evolution
1) is based merely on chance--random events. It is a blind, with no purpose other than to benefit the propagation of one’s genes.
2) is merely survival of the fittest with the weak dying out or being exterminated to make way for "the strong ."
3) implies there is no such thing as a moral or immoral action.
In a world without God there is no absolute morality. No objective standard by which to measure what is ‘good’. What is moral or immoral is merely a matter of personal opinion and indeed the concept of morality makes no sense. "Might" is "right." The strong exterminating the weak is natural. There is no basis in such a worldview to say a person who kills another to take what is wanted committed an immoral act. Might is right.
Hitler (the ultimate "strong" person in Germany) decided to exterminate the Jews, who were in no position to oppose him (they were "weak.") So, on what basis would an atheist say Hitler committed an immoral act and on what basis is that the objective standard for judging morality? There have obviously been people who agreed with Hitler and people who disagreed with Hitler. Neither group's position is moral or immoral if morality is not absolute. It is obvious that morality based on societal whims or personal whims is inconsistent and contradictory.
4) The concept of charity, essentially "the strong" helping "the weak," is counter to the idea of non-theistic evolution. A person who helps a random stranger with no expectation of personal gain is foolish for expending his resources without gain, making him weaker and less likely to survive.
Does this mean those holding to non-theist evolution cannot live a moral, ethical life? No. But when they see unethical behavior by others, they have no logical grounds on which to judge that behavior as wrong. It may be their choice to be faithful to their spouse, and to do good to others. But it may be another’s choice to sleep around on his spouse, or to take advantage of everyone around them in order to get ahead. If non-theistic evolution is true, then neither position is right or wrong. Just different choices. In a world without God it can't be justified to call rape, murder, theft, or anything else morally wrong. The concept of morality simply can't be justified in a world view in which God does not exist.
Either morality is absolute or morality does not exist. Subjective morality is nothing more than opinions. Subjective morals change with time, differ between places, and differ from person to person. If morality is subjective raping and murdering a baby is not less moral than stopping to assist a stranger who is lying unconscious on the street.
The Foundation of morality
The Bible begins with, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) and goes on to say God made man in his image. As creations of God we are obligated to live according to his standard. Moreover, because man was made in the image of God (though that image in man is now marred) man is a moral being who partially reflects the character of God. The Bible teaches that God has written his Law on man's heart(Romans 2:15). Man has the ability to discover moral principles through contemplation of himself and the world around him and through fellowship with God.
The foundation of morality is God's will and his perfect and unchanging nature..Actions that are in opposition to God's permissive will or character are immoral.
As I have stated in other discussions, when God gave the Ten Commandments he was not giving a new revelation of morality but saying, "these moral principles that you know are the way I created you to be and I will hold you responsible for living by them." The Hebrew people already knew it was wrong to lie and murder before the Ten Commandments were given. Now they were told they were accountable for living that way and that God was the very reason for the existence of those moral precepts. Thus basic moral principles are God-given, written in human nature, recognizable by human reason, and applicable to all of humanity everywhere humankind lives.
Above I said that man has the ability to discover moral principles. Man does not have the ability to make moral principles. Morality is objective, not subjective. Congress can't pass a law tomorrow saying that it is ok to rape babies and actually make it morally ok to rape babies. A denominational church board can't declare that adultery is no longer immoral and make it in actuality a moral action.
To summarize, absolute morals are based on the perfect and unchanging character of God. God has internalized moral precepts in man and made it possible for moral precepts to be known by man and man is held accountable for living a moral life. The fallen nature of man imperfectly reflects the character of God. The Christian worldview can logically claim morality is absolute since Christianity views morality as being based on the perfect, unchanging nature of God. The atheistic worldview cannot claim absolute morality because it can only offer only a morality based on personal opinion or the whims of society--such a morality is relativistic: inconsistent and self-contradictory across time and places mankind lives.
Personal note: I am going out of town this weekend so I am unlikely to reply to anything for several days.
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JollyJoker
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posted June 10, 2011 03:05 PM |
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Before I start discussing I would like to give a definition of morality, so that we all know what qwe are actually talking about.
Wiki says the following:
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Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") is a sense of behavioral conduct that differentiates intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) and bad (or wrong). A moral code is a system of morality (for example, according to a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc.) and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code. Immorality is the active opposition to morality, while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any set of moral standards or principles.
Morality has two principal meanings:
In its "descriptive" sense, morality refers to personal or cultural values, codes of conduct or social mores that distinguish between right and wrong in the human society. Describing morality in this way is not making a claim about what is objectively right or wrong, but only referring to what is considered right or wrong by an individual or some group of people (such as a religion). This sense of the term is addressed by descriptive ethics.
In its "normative" sense, morality refers directly to what is right and wrong, regardless of what specific individuals think. It could be defined as the conduct of the ideal "moral" person in a certain situation. This usage of the term is characterized by "definitive" statements such as "That act is immoral" rather than descriptive ones such as "Many believe that act is immoral." It is often challenged by moral nihilism, which rejects the existence of any moral truths, and supported by moral realism, which supports the existence of moral truths. The normative usage of the term "morality" is addressed by normative ethics.
This definition seems as usable as it gets, but if we look right at the first sentence we encounter our first problem:
"Morality is a sense of behavioral conduct that differentiates intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) and bad (or wrong)."
Look at the underlined part: Good(right) - Bad (wrong).
Can we right out of hand DEFINE these two? Good(right) - Bad (wrong).
It would seem, that morality depend on how Good/Bad are defined, what is considered good and what bad.
So for those who are in favor of an absolute morality we would need absolute workable definitions of Good(right)/Bad(wrong). We would also need a convincing reason why Good(right) would be Good(right) in an absolute sense and why Bad(wrong) would be just that.
Now, it seems tht an easy answer to this, given by our faithful comrade Elodin, would define "Good" as "doing God's will" and "Bad" as the opposite - "not doing God's will", based on the premise that
a) God created the world and
b) God is defined as perfect
Even though there would be some questions to be asked at this point, before we even get to them we have to ask this:
If this is supposed to hold true, it follows that God's will must be ABSOLUTELY (in the same sense as the morality is supposed to be absolute) CLEAR, otherwise we are none the wiser.
This, however, is not the case. There is a wealth of things we simply don't know God's position to - or which his position is object of discussion.
Question: If the absolute foundation of morality is God's will, but God's will isn't absolutely clear - how can there be an absolute morality based on that?
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Corribus
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posted June 10, 2011 03:26 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 20:20, 10 Jun 2011.
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Amazing I never saw this thread before!
Elodin, while I appreciate the time you took to write out your thoughts in a non-confrontational way, I have to say that your facts about evolution are totally wrong. I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you'd do well to read some literature by evolutionary biologists.
To wit:
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1) is based merely on chance--random events. It is a blind, with no purpose other than to benefit the propagation of one’s genes.
Misconception, and one I've corrected here at HC dozens of times before. Evolution is not a random process and is not based merely on chance. Natural selection is decidedly non-random. In fact, you yourself admit this indirectly by your point 2.
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2) is merely survival of the fittest with the weak dying out or being exterminated to make way for "the strong ."
If evolution was truly random, then "the strong" would not live at the expense of "the weak". That one group is favored should clue you in to the fact that evolution is not a random process. If it was, then the weak and the strong would have equal likelihood of surviving.
In any case, your use of the words "weak" and "strong" are also inaccurate. Natural selection stipulates that phenotypes/genotypes that are better suited for survival will have a better likelihood of passing on their genetic information (reproducing) than phenotypes/genotypes which are less adapted for survival. This has nothing really to do with strength or weakness, per se, at least as absolute, generalized concepts. A trait that provides a selective advantage in one geo-ecological context (strength) could provide a selective disadvantage in another geo-ecological context (weakness). And in any case survival of the fittest as a concept certainly...
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3) implies there is no such thing as a moral or immoral action.
...has nothing to do with morality, other than that from a purely biological standpoint morality likely arose as a selective adaption to help humans thrive as a social network of organisms. Safety in numbers, say, or the whole is more than the sum of the parts.
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What is moral or immoral is merely a matter of personal opinion and indeed the concept of morality makes no sense. "Might" is "right." The strong exterminating the weak is natural.
I really don't see how you make this leap of logic at all. Aside from the fact that evolution has nothing to do with "strength" or "weakness" from a social and military standpoint, all evolution deals with is statistical likelihood of survival of large bodies of organisms over incredibly long periods of time. To somehow extrapolate the principles of evolution to why or why not a bully steals lunch money from the other kids in the classroom makes no sense whatsoever.
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4) The concept of charity, essentially "the strong" helping "the weak," is counter to the idea of non-theistic evolution. A person who helps a random stranger with no expectation of personal gain is foolish for expending his resources without gain, making him weaker and less likely to survive.
Even supposing your interpretation of evolution was correct, this is also flawed reasoning. By helping society at his personal expense, an individual makes society a better place and increases his likelihood of survival. One could easily argue that charity is little more than an investment in the health of society as a whole, and thus an indirect investment in one's own welfare. Nevermind that compassion itself could be argued to be an evolutionary adaptation, as a way of strengthening community bonds and increasing the likelihood of an individual's survival by increasing the survival of the collective (strength in numbers, say - together we live, alone we die, that kind of thing).
Anyway, I don't spend too much more time with this because I think you're very unlikely to listen to anything I have to say. It's a shame, really, that such an important and fundamental scientific theory is so badly misunderstood by a lot of people. Aside from that, to my mind, not only is evolution not opposed to traditional notions of morality - in fact I believe evolution explains the existence of morality quite well.
Well, that's all not really related to the opening post, either. I'll return to that at some point in the near future.
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Fauch
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posted June 10, 2011 06:47 PM |
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Edited by Fauch at 19:13, 10 Jun 2011.
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Man has the ability to discover moral principles through contemplation of himself and the world around him and through fellowship with God.
it's hard to prove that, since what we fundamentally are is burried under all our experiences, all we have learnt, but I think it might well be true. nevertheless, I think the god part is irrelevant and that you don't need to believe in god in order to do that.
also, it might be "rediscover" instead of "discover", maybe.
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3) implies there is no such thing as a moral or immoral action.
now that corribus commented on that, I realize elodin uses similar arguments than propagandists who spread (probably) lies to divide and conquer.
Quote:
Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") is a sense of behavioral conduct that differentiates intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) and bad (or wrong). A moral code is a system of morality (for example, according to a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc.) and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code. Immorality is the active opposition to morality, while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any set of moral standards or principles.
I disagree with that. at least if we consider that being moral is knowing what is good and bad to do, and acting the good way.
it is said that being moral is acting in accordance with a set of moral standards. I think it is uncompatible with knowing what is moral. if you knew, you wouldn't have to follow what others says.
then it depends how you define morality. but if morality is following an authority, why isn't it called obedience? because it is obedience.
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Vlaad
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posted June 10, 2011 06:54 PM |
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Edited by Vlaad at 17:18, 20 Jun 2011.
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There are various issues with moral absolutism in religion. Let's put aside the question whether God exists or not and make it an exercise in logic.
Does God command things because they are good or are they good because God commands them? Does He make laws or simply gives them? In other words, do good and bad exist independent of God?
I'm not familiar with other religions, but Christians will tell you "no". There is nothing independent of God, before or outside Him. How is this a problem for moral absolutism?
According to the Bible, God has commanded contradictory things. For example, He ordered killing people because they were of different religion, then later said that you should love your enemies. Also His laws don't apply to Him, so He killed babies because of their nationality and it was considered moral. In other words, whatever God wills is good.
So what are the issues here exactly?
How is this absolute? It's not universal, unchangeable, unconditional, perfect or complete. It depends on God's will. What if tomorrow God commanded us to kill our babies? Highly unlikely, but let's keep this an exercise in logic. Would then killing babies be moral? How is this absolute then? If you think the argument is invalid because God would never command such a thing, reread the previous paragraph.
Furthermore, God's will is not based on reason, as we'd like to believe when discussing morals. Because there must be a reason why something is good or bad, right? Well, no, no other reason than God saying so. Thus He can kill a man because he disobeyed His orders about coitus interruptus, for example. Might makes right? What other reason is there? What other source of authority does God have?
In addition, God turns out not good as such. This is not what Christianity teaches. Nevertheless, it seems God is simply God, a powerful being who wills whatever He wills - and it becomes good. Thus obedience becomes goodness while disobedience becomes badness. This is the punishment-and-reward mindset, which cannot comprehend other origins of morals.
Finally, there are moral standards outside of God. Humankind has moved beyond slavery, whereas God was rather lenient.
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Keksimaton
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posted June 10, 2011 06:55 PM |
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In the subtext of Elodin's post a good point rises up. The question of moral relativism and absolutism is an ethical question regarding what moral norms are like, which is connected to the bigger questions on what a moral norm is and "where does it come from" so to speak.
Though his views on evolution were quite appaulingly flawed he did manage to invoke ethical viewpoints of naturalism and supernaturalism.
Naturalism here means the view that morals can be derived from the workings of nature. For an example of naturalism, you could see man as a biological lifeform of sorts that seeks to fulfill certain basic needs such as self preservation, companionship and passing on genes to the next generation. That which helps achieve these goals is good and that which is detrimental to their attainment is bad and thusly actions that are favourable or unfavourable are good and evil. As an example of this thinking: For a male it is good to demand fidelity of his partner as it would be a waste of his precious time in regards to passing on his genes if he were to raise someone elses offspring instead of his own while for a female it is good to demand fidelity of her partner as to assure that he will use his resources to help her and her offspring instead of some other female.
Supernaturalism on the other hand is the view that morals originate from some higher realm, such as a deity or an universal force. An example of this would be Plato's Idealism and the Idea of Good. A good part of Plato's ontology is about so called Ideas. An Idea as according to Plato is a sort of a supernatural exemplar figure that can be percieved only through the mind. Objects in the material world are reflections of the Ideas that they take part in, as for exapmle a piece of stone is a piece of stone because it takes to the Idea of Stone. So, in Plato's ethics, good thing are good because they reflect the Idea of Good and in order to find out what is good, you'll need to examine the Idea of Good which can be found in the mind.
Edit: As of Vlaad, I'd like to point out that moral absolutism is not necessarily theistic. Also, Absolutism differs from Dogmatism. Dogmatism is when knowledge is seen to come from an authority, such as a leader figure or the bible. In Ethics, Dogmatism would be an answer to the question "how to gain knowledge of morals," which is slightly different from "what are morals like."
Now, to the thing Mvass was talking about. Firstly defining moral absolutism and relativism.
Absolutism here would be the view that an act in itself is either moral or immoral, regardless of motivations or outcome. Par example, in the Heinz dilemma, if he stole the medecine and saved his wife, it's immoral for him to have stolen the medecine regardless of his motivations and the outcome. An example of an absolutist moral theory would be ones falling under Deontology.
Relativism in terms of ethics could be broken into two or more. For one it can refer to morality being relative to time and place, as in Modern Finland vs. West Rome (Also known as cultural relativism). That connects more to the question "who does morality concern?" But for the counterpart to moral Absolutism as defined above, we'd be talking about morality being relative to a moral agent's motivations and/or the outcome of his actions. This is basically teleology, virtue ethics and whatnot.
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mvassilev
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posted June 10, 2011 07:06 PM |
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Vlaad:
However, remember that God is not necessary for absolute morality.
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Vlaad
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posted June 10, 2011 07:33 PM |
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Edited by Vlaad at 19:33, 10 Jun 2011.
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@ Keksimaton: It was mostly in reponse to Elodin, not the opening post. I've edited the beginning of my post to make it clear.
@ mvass: There is no God. Not sure what you mean.
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Corribus
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posted June 10, 2011 08:15 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 20:21, 10 Jun 2011.
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@Vlaad
You could easily believe that morality is never conditional or contextual and still be an atheist. God is not a precondition for having an absolute morality, though it certainly serves as a convenient linchpin for such a framework.
Also, while I am personally in love with the idea of a discussion that proceeds only on a level of logic, I've realized it's only a pipe dream. Good luck with that. 
EDIT:
By the way, I've already laid out some of my thoughts about morals before, if anyone is interested.
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mvassilev
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posted June 10, 2011 10:53 PM |
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Vlaad:
Take some form of deontology, for example. You don't need to believe in God to believe that you have the duty to always do something, regardless of circumstances. It's not a form of morality I support, but it's plausible to hold such a view.
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JollyJoker
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posted June 10, 2011 11:26 PM |
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That's not Elodin's point.
It is clear, that if you believe in an absolute moralty, no matter how it looks, you must believe in something absolute, no matter what that is.
Let's leave the paradox out, if you believe that all is relative, you believe that there is an absolute (all is relative), because Russell did show that no logical system is free of contradictions.
Elodin's question is can there be any moral at all without something absolute except that there is none because one's good is the other's bad.
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Keksimaton
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posted June 11, 2011 02:31 AM |
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Now, to again point out how Elodin was kind of on the right track with his post and to encourage a continuation to a discussion I think is already being touched upon by pretty much everyone here, I'll make a statement.
Instead of so much emphasis on Relativism and Absolutism "in themselves," the more meaningful discussion to them is in discussing the different Metaphysical, or more broadly Ontological and maybe Epistemological, assumptions and value statements that are taken in order to reach the position of Relativism and Absolutism. Perhaps this could be more laymanishly stated as: "How do you reason the viewpoint of relativism or absolutism?"
For example, Elodin reasons that in order for morality to have any meaningfullness, there needs to be an aknowledged deity for otherwise moral norms are just a bunch of opinions. There is an underlying value statement to God's will being the important thing and what is classified as opinion is of value incomparable and thusly somehow an opinion can't be argued or used to judge another. A connection is made with an underlying epistemic and metaphysical assumption that with God, moral values are a matter of knowledge and without they are opinion. This is of course making assumptions about the acquisition of knowledge and what knowledge is. This is the sort of stuff that is super interesting to discuss!
I'll give you guys a piece of my mind on morality.
Morality sort of stems from there being moral agents and moral subjects, the enactors of moral actions and potential targets for moral action. I'm not talking about the existence of norms yet here, simply the fact that there exists moral situations in which benefits, damages and values are at play for the agents and subjects.
That's the least I can say for now.
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Fauch
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posted June 11, 2011 03:12 AM |
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Edited by Fauch at 03:53, 11 Jun 2011.
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personnaly, I would replace the word "deity" by authority, which seems wider to me. authorities can often clash with each other, and we see it is also the case with religions praising gods.
there are things you know you wouldn't like to suffer, and from that knowledge, you can deduce others aren't going to like them either.
I think it is the base.
but it can differ from individuals.
I think the problem is what can hurt psychologically. because physically, I think we all know what will hurt (unless maybe if you are ivan drago?) but psychologically, just everything and his contrary might hurt people.
in that case we could wonder if it is the result, the intention, or both that makes an action moral. for observators, of course, it will most likely be the result.
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Keksimaton
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posted June 13, 2011 02:38 AM |
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Turns out that I've defined Relativism as Consequentialism. Sorry, I guess.
A bit of pondering on Absolutism:
If we were to define moral Absolutism as the ethical stance that an action is either immoral or moral regardless of a context such as motivation or outcome, I'd like to ask what we mean by "an action."
Should we think of an action in the sense of a concept such as "killing," there's the matter that we are referring to a group of physical events as composed in an individual scheme within the mind of an interpreting individual. We get into a problem: Physical events can be described and interpreted in a multitude of ways. Let's take an event which could be described as: "Agent A kills subject B" such as "non-descript knife killing, X." We could also describe the very same event with a very neutral sounding: "Agent A moves his arm, causing a mass to collide with subject B." Here we also need to take note that in Absolutism as defined above, only the action is relevant for moral value, not the consequence. In here "Agent A moves his arm," is the action (morally relevant) and "a mass collides with subject B," is a consequence (not morally relevant). Perhaps, we could even think that "Agent A kills subject B" is a consequence (not morally relevant) of the action "Agent A moves his arm" (morally relevant). Moving one's arm doesn't always even qualify for a moral action. We could see a whole variety of different actions as variation on moving an arm: Saving a person from being hit by a car, punching a man in the face, patting a puppydog, strangling a puppydog and what have you. Unless all of those actions have the same moral value (moral/immoral) the value for the action "moving an arm" becomes contradictory. From this I'd think that language can't be trusted if we go with Absolutism.
Alternatively, we could say that an action should be thought of as an actual event that takes place physically. A physical event is always individual thusly so is an action taken by a moral agent; there are never two of the same action. The amount of different actions, actual and hypothetical, would be innumerable and all of them would individually have to be either moral or immoral. Of course there's no problem for the existence of such moral value, but the problem here is when it comes to being normative: How would you expect anyone to keep track of all the different actions and their values?
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Fauch
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posted June 13, 2011 04:06 AM |
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Edited by Fauch at 04:14, 13 Jun 2011.
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aren't you over-simplifying here by saying "the dude moved his arm" ?
if we are considering only the action, and not the goal, he still moved his arm and stabbed something. more specifically a person. or is that considered a result?
though, I failed to see the sense of your post. if we consider actions without their effects, it's useless to talk about morality.
if an action had no consequences, that would just change nothing. there would be no point in saying : such action is bad and such action is good. actually, it would be impossible to even say such things, because it would mean the action actually had a consequence (the consequence is that someone judged it)
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