So who wins the argument? And why does it matter. Is this a negotiating technique? Or just a philosophy. I have heard relativism used frequently of late, by the supposed "thinkers" of our time.
Relative to culture of populist appeal that Osa bin Laden is seen as the Jesse James or Robin Hood of many third world countries and his poll numbers are very high.
Relative to the culture of populist appeal that our President is seen as "fill in the relative blank" and his poll numbers are very low.
Relative the the world geopolitik, and globalization factor and the "relativism of winning", what does losing look like if you are a super power?
I think the benefit is that, since things really are relative, having a relativistic approach does two things, one, it presents a more accurate state of affairs.
We are all fairly relativistic now compared to say 500 years ago, we know that other people's have other customs and all the superficial relativity of different cultural mores.
These mores can seem to conflict, but over the time we realize they don't have to. Formal dress in one culture may not be the same as in another, and to show up in your own culture's formal dress at a formal event may have seems disrespectful. But there are solutions, because for one, we see the difference as really superficial, a bit of an illusion, and we adopt a relativists approach, at a place like the UN you can wear you own cultures formal wear. If you are a diplomat visting a foriegn culture, you might wear their formal wear, or, these days, they are likely to recognize the formal wear of your own culture.
So the first practices of relativism is to separate out incidental conflict from real conflict.
When you get to real conflict, like someone that professes that it's fine to steal, that it's the law of the jungle so to speak... then no moral argument is going to help anyway.
Whereas classic ethical systems have held they can make such an argument, it's moot. At that point reasoning is not the issue, protecting your property and stopping this person from theiving is the issue.
So that's my answer. The approach in practice is to separate out superficial conflict (e.g. garb) from real conflict (e.g. apologia for what we consider crime). At that point yes, we just choose sides. We just decide if we are in the frame of reference in which stealing is a crime, or we are not.
I am not surprised to find that those willing to call stealing a crime outnumber those that profess it's not.
Having said that as a demonstration, I have to point out, even criminals rarely argue it's right to steal, they just do it even though they admit it's wrong (if you catch them).
People don't actually want to abandon the shared frames involved, people don't really want to give up the idea of property, they don't really want their stuff stolen, it's very difficult to come up with a moral system that allows for what we consider uncivilized practices because the person professing such beliefs has to submit to them. To say it's fine to steal is to say it's fine to be stolen from.
People doing that do not rely on moral frameworks to justify it.
However, people wanting to perpetrate massive cultural crimes, like acts of genocide, do use moral frameworks, and relativism is totally unusable for that purpose.
incidental conflict is resolved by a sense of the diplomatic, as in seeking commonality that crosses cultural lines to achieve goals of shared interest.
So it is an awareness of what we have in common to work through differences... or coming to a shared standard to seek agreement.
Real conflict is I WILL as an expression of purely selfish motives without forethought to consequences.
And the en masse crimes, or as it were, wars use moral frameworks for unethical purpose.
I am dizzy now, or should I say dizzzier!
I am just trying to figure out how this applies to our very topical problem of terrorism, as a tribal force exerting its will, that uses a moral framework.... faith or dogma to define the act of revenge as justice. Or is it revenge as humilition.
Are you making a study of this at the university?
(Since we can rate now, I give you my first rating, for writing this stuff down. It would have taken me four hours to write that one paragraph!)
at odds with (most) religious-based systems of ethics? It seems if you have what you believe to be a divine-issued set of moral codes, those would be incompatable with a belief that those moral codes might not apply to others.
That's only a partial caveat - even within religious groups you have those who are more fundamentalist and those who are willing to concede a bit of relativism. Incidentally, Kerry's infamous abortion statement fits here: whether something one personally considers wrong could be not-wrong for others, or at least rather one has the right to impose one's moral codes onto others. If you're anti-relativist, Kerry's comment seemed like base political pandering. If you're relativist, it was perfectly uncontroversial.
A corollary: atheists are naturally relativists (right?), since their universe lacks a defined moral center - an atheist who claims that something is "right" or "wrong" has to be specific in explaining why. This is one of the reasons they're distrusted and pretty roundly disliked.
I'm not a philosophy person, so feel free to knock me down. :)
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
It implies that whatever the moral qualities involves, one has to know their perspectives. If someone has a devout desire to kill and is not willing to relent except on your destruction, one still, or especially, would want to see things from their point of view.
We do tis all the time in lesser situations, and we do it in this case too. Bush and we all know the motivations. It has degenerated to a conflict that might not be resolved in a single generation.
My belief is that to stop terrorism we have to free the terrorist's children. If you get terrorism in free states, then you have your judicial systems.
religion's "tolerance" does equate to assigning some validity if just in the form of a "live and let live" mentality. There are plenty of tricks to still deny validity on higher spiritual levels but frankly I'm fine with material validity, no violence, as being the key to social situation.
I think that atheist ought to be relativists, and I think it's easier to convince them of relativism, because of science.
I should say on the mainstream philosophy angle that my view of relativism is not really drawn from a philosophical analysis. My idea of it is drawn as a metaphor from how relativity works in physical sciences, both Galilean and General Relativity. There is no priveledged point of view that is completely right above all others.
Velocity Relativity involves the fact that in space (or anywhere actually, but it's more clear in space where things are simple), and you may know this, but I'm using it as a metaphor... in space two bodies moving at each other at 100mph A and B make up a system where the facts of the matter depend on where you are.
If you are on B, then A is travelling at you at 100 mph. It doesn't just "seem" that way, it IS that way.
If you are on A, the B is travelling at you at 100 mph. This is not an illusion, there is not really any third objective point of view that says what you were "really" moving.
However, there is a relationship between the two realities.
They both think they are moving at the same relative speeds, because it's a characteristic of their relationship, which is a frame of reference that includes their interactions.
This is how I see our political reality. We have to coexist with people unimaginably different, we have to find the relationships between our opposite readings, match which is which, because the real solution requires more than one point of view, it requires mapping a web of relationships.
We have to coexist with people unimaginably different. . . because the real solution requires more than one point of view, it requires mapping a web of relationships.
This is why I feel so strongly that relationships, like the verbal relationships on this site, really do matter; perhaps the quality of the relationships matters more than the validity of the "facts" presented by each side. It is important that we be able to share and appreciate other points of view (we do not have to agree with them) to continue to have a pluralistic democracy. Insistence on only one point of view, no matter whose POV it is, endangers democracy.
Somehow we've gotten to the point where just listening to or exploring the ramifications of other POVs is seen as weak or indecisive. I think in prior times it was called prudent.
The physics-based explanation is really helpful, too, in explaining the reality of relativism.
Nice post.
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
I am an agnostic and I do not draw my morality from religion. However I am an objectivist in that I believe in objective moral and ethical good regardless of whatever moral/ethical systems exist and are being followed around the world. In that sense I come closest to the system of morality proposed by Ayn Rand. Here is a little exerpt from her essay titled "The Cult of Moral Grayness"
Before anyone can identify anything as "gray," one has to know what is black and what is white. In the field of morality, this means that one must first identify what is good and what is evil. And when a man has ascertained that one alternative is good and the other is evil, he has no justification for choosing a mixture. There can be no justification for choosing any part of that which one knows to be evil.
...
If, in a complex moral issue, a man struggles to determine what is right and fails or makes an honest error, he cannot be regarded as "gray"; morally, he is "white." Errors of knowledge are not breaches of morality; no proper moral code can demand infallibility or omniscience.
But if, in order to escape the responsibility of moral judgment, a man closes his eyes and mind, if he evades the facts of the issue and struggles not to know, he cannot be regarded as "gray"; morally, he is as "black" as they come.
She further goes on to discuss morality and the fact that it only deals with issues open to man's choice (free will).
Another very important quote from that essay, that is one of my guiding principles is:
Like a mixed economy, men of mixed premises may be called "gray"; but, in both cases, the mixture does not remain "gray" for long. "Gray," in this context, is merely a prelude to "black." There may be "gray" men, but there can be no "gray" moral principles. Morality is a code of black and white. When and if men attempt a compromise, it is obvious which side will necessarily lose and which will necessarily profit.
Such are the reasons why -- when one is asked: "Surely you don't think in terms of black-and-white, do you?" -- the proper answer (in essence, if not in form) should be: "You're damn right I do!"
So to reiterate my own view is that Moral Good and Evil exist irrespective of what we believe is good or evil, or what some culture believes is good or evil. Just like the universal facts are absolute so is morality. The fact that our understanding of what the universal truths and laws is ever changing does not mean that those universal truths and laws are actually changing. It's just that we lack anything close to full knowledge of the matter. Same with Morality, though in that field we definitely do not need as many facts and research to come to right conclusions. All we need are the rational faculties of our own minds. Consensus on the issues have led to deep moral abyss before (Communism, Fascism, various despotisms) and taking everyone's view into consideration will not necessarily lead to the best ethical or moral result. In fact it usually will not.
The rational result of individual thought of what is truly moral can be found in reading the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Our founders did not have to delve into the ethical thought of the world's cultures but instead created something completely new that made rational sense as best for individual freedom of a Free country. They clearly knew what was Good and what was Evil and led us to the side of the Good.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Our founders did not have to delve into the ethical thought of the world's cultures but instead created something completely new that made rational sense as best for individual freedom of a Free country. They clearly knew what was Good and what was Evil and led us to the side of the Good.
This isn't really true. The founders created very little that was completely new -- what they did (and they did it brilliantly) was put together a hodgepodge of the products of "ethical thought of the world's cultures", and created a new synthesis of those ideas. But they struggled mightily with ethical considerations throughout the entire process, and after -- and we're still struggling with some of those same ethical issues to this day.
A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man -- e e cummings
the new morality that has not existed prior to the combined form of the new United States. Sure, they appear to have taken elements from other ethical models, but only because other cultures had parts of what is truly and objectively Good. Other cultures simply did not get it fully like our founders did.
Of course it was not easy, but they certainly did not make any apologies for the moral certainty of what they proposed.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Morally certain indeed.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
remember that not all motion is relative. The speed of light is constant in a vaccuum, regardless of whether you're 'stationary' (in relation to the source), traveling towards the source, or traveling away from the source.
I bring this up because I largely agree with you, but I'm not sure how this can be sold to those who do believe in a higer power. A higher power means that there is something above us, which, while it doesn't necessarily mean that morals become codified, does imply a hierarchy of values - superior v. inferior.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
It's not every day you get to read someone who was equally horrible at philosophy, language, and fiction. She's the perfect hat trick of awfulness.
Before anyone can identify anything as "gray," one has to know what is black and what is white.
Um, no. You can identify green without ever having seen blue and yellow.
On the scale of morality, "gray" is used not to designate something between black and white, but a mixture of the two - a mixture that is, by definition, irreducable to black and white.
In the field of morality, this means that one must first identify what is good and what is evil. And when a man has ascertained that one alternative is good and the other is evil, he has no justification for choosing a mixture.
She's creating a strawman out of grayness without understanding what grayness really means.
Example: Have you ever seen the movie Election? Perfect moral conundrum there: the teacher knows that his student has cheated to win the student council elections, but doesn't have the proof to stop her. Furthermore, he knows that she's won the election by a single vote, and that may be due to her cheating. Does he scrap that vote and lie for the greater good?
There isn't a "good" alternative and "bad" alternative. There is gray 1, which is allowing a cheater to win (bad) while upholding the purity of the process (good) or gray 2, which is breaking the rules (bad) in order to offset another break in the rules (good). We call these alternatives "gray" because both contain good and evil, inextricably - but the complexities of real life are usually beyond Rand's ken:
There can be no justification for choosing any part of that which one knows to be evil.
Again assuming that every situation will give one an option which is purely white. The question in the above situation is "which choice yields the better dividends in terms of good/evil?" but either way you're going to have to chose part of what you know to be evil. That's life.
The ancient Greeks understood this. Their epics, plays, and histories are dramas of moral dilemma - gray 1 v. gray 2, and there's no weaseling out of the choice. Drop the Rand and go back to the Aeschylus. You'll get a lot more to chew on.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
.... that there was a rather bitter fight about the whole 'Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness' thing, right?
And that John Locke was the one that wrote about man's inalienable right to 'Life, Liberty, and Property' well before Jefferson wrote that bit?
And that Jefferson took Locke's idea and substituted 'The Pursuit of Happiness' for 'Property' because he thought the right to own property was granted by the authority of the state, and not inalienable?
Even the founders were standing on the shoulders of giants. And they comprimised quite a bit to produce what they did -- and fought about it. I think your view of the moral clarity and certitude of the founding fathers may be a little Pollyanna-ish, Ender.
A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man -- e e cummings
Consensus on the issues have led to deep moral abyss before (Communism, Fascism, various despotisms) and taking everyone's view into consideration will not necessarily lead to the best ethical or moral result. In fact it usually will not.
This is why democracy has been and still is viewed by some as a radical and dangerous form of government. I don't believe the founders hid from this fact. Instead, they felt that despite the sizable risks of error in this system, the benefits outweighed the perceived ethical/moral benefits of tyranny. In other words, they accepted a certain amount of sloppiness and potential for misuse in exchange for giving the individual a voice in his government.
Preventing the individual from deciding on a unethical/immoral course of action was of great concern and they developed checks and balances to impede that. The electoral college, the state election of senators, the need for super-majorities in critical situations are all examples of their desire to thwart the (possibly immoral and unethical) will of the mob.
Our founders did not have to delve into the ethical thought of the world's cultures but instead created something completely new that made rational sense as best for individual freedom of a Free country.
I think I have to disagree with you on this. Most of the founders' class were educated in a time when knowledge of Greek and Roman philosophy was part of the standard curricula. The first half of the eighteenth century was very neoclassical in thought as well as art. They would be very familiar with the various forms of government that had been tried in the past and able to argue the pros and cons of each form. They did not have to delve; they had already internalized it as part of their education. The world's prior cultural experiences were a part of their own thought processes and paradigms. They used rationalism and knowledge to develop a system that kept the best and minimized the worst.
I don't have cites as I'm working off of internalized knowledge too ;) but I believe most of this came from the Federalist Papers.
I've not read Rand (well, not more than the first chapter, anyway) but I was under the impression that she focused more on the individual and how the individual should operate, not on how governments should operate.
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
So when you argue that yes, collateral damage will happen in war, you don't think it is reasonable that the collateral damage's family will reasonably consider the attack to be evil even while you consider it to be good? You think that a moral person would eventually get over the fact that you blew their family up based on bad intel rather than consider your act evil?
Because if you believe that that person can be moral when blaming the bomber at the same time that you accept the bombing as an unfortunate necessity then you have accepted relativism.
Just the bits that Ender quoted are like this philisophical traffic accident. You want to look away. You KNOW that it is going to scar your psyche, but you just can't.
Something along the lines of 'good people do good things.'
It is the reason that fundamentalists see nothing wrong with trying to force their religion on others. Sure, other religions have tried that too and they are evil, but they are forcing FALSE religions on others. Forcing the one true religion is a GOOD thing.
We are torturing people for freedom and democracy and it is therefore absolutely good (not like those other torturers for non-freedom, how dare we even make the comparison!).
First off, if everyone believed in your relativism, it would become a universal, which would contradict your entire argument. Ok, enough of the paradox games for now.
Second, I think your version of relativism verges on utilitarianism when you say
they don't really want their stuff stolen, it's very difficult to come up with a moral system that allows for what we consider uncivilized practices because the person professing such beliefs has to submit to them. To say it's fine to steal is to say it's fine to be stolen from.
It seems you are missing why they do not want to have their stuff stolen. I think, though I could be wrong if you wish to expand on your point, that you are implying that they would not be happy losing their property. If that is the case, then your relativism is mixed with other ethical theories. In the very least, there is a bit of abstract Christian/golden rule* moralism going on here; a ‘do unto other what you want done to you’-type reasoning.
Third, I was wondering if you find any rules/laws/conventions that you think are universal? I tend to refer to myself as a relativist also (for different reasons than you--mainly I don’t think there is such a concept as 'Truth' or absolutes as such, which I don’t take great pleasure in, but it still seems to be the case [or the only truth that exists is that there are no absolute truths—more paradox!]), but I do believe that there are a few constants that I think make societies more functional and just (if that is the goal of a society). I’ve read one of the main arguments against total (or absolute) relativism is that most societies, if not all, condemn corruption/abuse of power by leaders, partiality in judging disputes, and (the big one) incest. What do you think of some constants (or frames of reference as you put it) in all societies? This does not mena that societies have discovered 'Truth,' just that they have come to the same conclusions.
*As a side note: The golden rule can be shown false if you take into consideration the masochist. The masochist wants pain and beatings; therefore it is fair for him/her to beat you also according to the golden rule. Maybe they should downgrade it to the bronze rule.
*As a side note: The golden rule can be shown false if you take into consideration the masochist. The masochist wants pain and beatings; therefore it is fair for him/her to beat you also according to the golden rule. Maybe they should downgrade it to the bronze rule.
Another interesting paradox:
A masochist can't "do unto others as he would have them do unto him" because that would make him...
... a sadist.
Conversely, the sadist would have the same conundrum. To do unto others as he would have them do unto him would require him to "submit" to someone else.... instantly turning from a sadist to a masochist.
S&M is incompatible with the golden rule.
It is therefore un-Christian and will henceforth be banned by our GOP overlords.
....especially Katherine Harris.
But man, she looks like she's been beaten with the ugly stick already.
Anyway..... Can a person be a sadist AND a masochist at the same time?
If so,
1. would they beat themselves and then ask for more?
2. What would the "safe word" be and how would it work?
3. Theoretically, the beatings would never end, because both halves of his personality would be doing exactly what the other half most desired. He theoretically would continuously ask for the punishment and also continuously dish it out. In effect, beating himself to death.
Sorry, it's late and I'm getting a little loopy. ;-)
can be ascribed to the laws of nature or the laws of physics.
Some science teachers I have known have been awed by the beauty of the universe and its interwoven elements where birth and death are less about "superior inferior" but just a constant in the continium of being.
created all the parts, but they sure built the entirely new whole that never existed out of these many parts. There has never been created a country like the US, that was based on all those principles.
I disagree about them standing on the shoulders of giants. Their accomplishments speak for themselves in the most moral and powerful nation that has ever existed.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Um, no. You can identify green without ever having seen blue and yellow.
Without any frame of reference you certainly cannot start identifying the middle ground. Without knowing what is right and wrong you cannot suddenly claim that something is neither. Her point is valid while yours seems to be an unrelated diversion.
The statement that a mixture of black and white somehow is irreduceable to its base components is silly and makes no sense. Being that I know a bit about the making ink, I know that by definition you are wrong about reducing colors to their base components. But please explain how that is wrong in reality?
I am not claiming that there is always pure good and pure bad, but if there is you have an obligation to pick what is good.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
it's constant RELATIVE to you, no matter what speed you go with respect to other bodies, and it's constant with respect to them.
It's a higher order relativity, truly surreal.
If I'm going half the speed of light relative to you, a beam of light still travels at the speed of light for both of us, indeed the very same speed of light. That's relative as well.
To make the spatial mathematic work out, time itself runs at a different speed... so motion is still relative.
If one wants to have a higher power, that's still fine, it just has to take this odd web of relative relationships into account.
There are no true universals, but there are "approximate universals"... of course, traditionally that is an oxymoron... but I use the term because what you have are facts that are deduceable on widely shared frames of reference, some of which may be involuntary. E.g. we all share a frame of reference as mamals, there are genetic and other aspects that unite that frame of reference.
One can draw arguments for cooperation from the frame of reference of mankinds ultimate familial relationships, such truths work as social universals, provide access to universal arguments against murder.
My point about the stealing and the golden rule-esque thinking is merely that if someone opts out of some shared frames, denies them or honestly does not share them, there is a point at which conflict is the result... the debate will be decided by force.
So it goes with any criminal that truly believes they have a moral system that allows their criminal act. At that point we use the force of police to arrest them. If the criminals outnumber us, we are stuck with that, and so we can see that with many historical and present injustices... we may marshal arguments that take a thousand years to convince, but in the meanwhile we will simply struggle.
But I'm not surprised that people willing to claim robbery or murder are morally right find themselves eventually in the minority, because our shared frames of reference really do argue, I think, for shared interests and ultimately maximizing cooperation and minimizing accepting pure conflict for our resolution. Over time we've learned there are fewer and fewer situations where that sort of conflict is beneficial.
The end state is much like that with petty crime, it still goes on, but not because people think there is a moral justification, they do the crime believing it to be wrong but willing to do wrong.
That's a workable solution because policing the minority of criminals becomes possible.
Crimes everyone agrees on are much more difficult.
As for your paradox... I believe the solution comes in discussing the real definition of "universal"... your thought experiment example of "everyone adopting my view" falls apart, for example, on several points, the first of which comes from the definition of "everyone"... if that's all people, we have practical reason to doubt that agreement could happen, but if it did, what of other simians? How do we even know people really agree, what is a sufficient expression of agreement? Relativity enters into all these questions, and there is no way to get the cart before the horse.
A more general answer is that by defining relative on the epistemological basis of skepticism which you and I seem to share. No truth is absolute, all truths are approximate. So we have things that are functionally like universals because they are aproximations, that is, they pointedly ignore the approximate error because they involve calculations that produce practical results... and I suppose relativity itself is such a principle. It is like a universal, it focusses on relationships and denies our ability to judge a thing-in-itself directly... at not time adding all the relationships together does one actually judge the thing in itself, but it creates an approximation which triangulates to converge TOWARD a statement of a thing in itself... e.g. a person with many bad relationships to other people, say, as slave holder, rapist, embezzler, liar, can be approximately considered bad-in-itself because as a survival decision the error is negligible compared to the risk of considering that person trustworthy.
Comments :
What, no Niechie referances?
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Actually, you put it out there very well.
Fascinating
So who wins the argument? And why does it matter. Is this a negotiating technique? Or just a philosophy. I have heard relativism used frequently of late, by the supposed "thinkers" of our time.
Relative to culture of populist appeal that Osa bin Laden is seen as the Jesse James or Robin Hood of many third world countries and his poll numbers are very high.
Relative to the culture of populist appeal that our President is seen as "fill in the relative blank" and his poll numbers are very low.
Relative the the world geopolitik, and globalization factor and the "relativism of winning", what does losing look like if you are a super power?
I am not clear on the practical applications?
I'm only half stupid
honesty to self
I think the benefit is that, since things really are relative, having a relativistic approach does two things, one, it presents a more accurate state of affairs.
We are all fairly relativistic now compared to say 500 years ago, we know that other people's have other customs and all the superficial relativity of different cultural mores.
These mores can seem to conflict, but over the time we realize they don't have to. Formal dress in one culture may not be the same as in another, and to show up in your own culture's formal dress at a formal event may have seems disrespectful. But there are solutions, because for one, we see the difference as really superficial, a bit of an illusion, and we adopt a relativists approach, at a place like the UN you can wear you own cultures formal wear. If you are a diplomat visting a foriegn culture, you might wear their formal wear, or, these days, they are likely to recognize the formal wear of your own culture.
So the first practices of relativism is to separate out incidental conflict from real conflict.
When you get to real conflict, like someone that professes that it's fine to steal, that it's the law of the jungle so to speak... then no moral argument is going to help anyway.
Whereas classic ethical systems have held they can make such an argument, it's moot. At that point reasoning is not the issue, protecting your property and stopping this person from theiving is the issue.
So that's my answer. The approach in practice is to separate out superficial conflict (e.g. garb) from real conflict (e.g. apologia for what we consider crime). At that point yes, we just choose sides. We just decide if we are in the frame of reference in which stealing is a crime, or we are not.
I am not surprised to find that those willing to call stealing a crime outnumber those that profess it's not.
Having said that as a demonstration, I have to point out, even criminals rarely argue it's right to steal, they just do it even though they admit it's wrong (if you catch them).
People don't actually want to abandon the shared frames involved, people don't really want to give up the idea of property, they don't really want their stuff stolen, it's very difficult to come up with a moral system that allows for what we consider uncivilized practices because the person professing such beliefs has to submit to them. To say it's fine to steal is to say it's fine to be stolen from.
People doing that do not rely on moral frameworks to justify it.
However, people wanting to perpetrate massive cultural crimes, like acts of genocide, do use moral frameworks, and relativism is totally unusable for that purpose.
Okay so let's see if I get this
incidental conflict is resolved by a sense of the diplomatic, as in seeking commonality that crosses cultural lines to achieve goals of shared interest.
So it is an awareness of what we have in common to work through differences... or coming to a shared standard to seek agreement.
Real conflict is I WILL as an expression of purely selfish motives without forethought to consequences.
And the en masse crimes, or as it were, wars use moral frameworks for unethical purpose.
I am dizzy now, or should I say dizzzier!
I am just trying to figure out how this applies to our very topical problem of terrorism, as a tribal force exerting its will, that uses a moral framework.... faith or dogma to define the act of revenge as justice. Or is it revenge as humilition.
Are you making a study of this at the university?
(Since we can rate now, I give you my first rating, for writing this stuff down. It would have taken me four hours to write that one paragraph!)
I'm only half stupid
But isn't relativism
at odds with (most) religious-based systems of ethics? It seems if you have what you believe to be a divine-issued set of moral codes, those would be incompatable with a belief that those moral codes might not apply to others.
That's only a partial caveat - even within religious groups you have those who are more fundamentalist and those who are willing to concede a bit of relativism. Incidentally, Kerry's infamous abortion statement fits here: whether something one personally considers wrong could be not-wrong for others, or at least rather one has the right to impose one's moral codes onto others. If you're anti-relativist, Kerry's comment seemed like base political pandering. If you're relativist, it was perfectly uncontroversial.
A corollary: atheists are naturally relativists (right?), since their universe lacks a defined moral center - an atheist who claims that something is "right" or "wrong" has to be specific in explaining why. This is one of the reasons they're distrusted and pretty roundly disliked.
I'm not a philosophy person, so feel free to knock me down. :)
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
as in one mans stem cell research
is another mans definition of genocide!
Relative to the number of children killed in the recent clash in Lebanon.
In my world there is no comparison.
I'm only half stupid
terrorism
It implies that whatever the moral qualities involves, one has to know their perspectives. If someone has a devout desire to kill and is not willing to relent except on your destruction, one still, or especially, would want to see things from their point of view.
We do tis all the time in lesser situations, and we do it in this case too. Bush and we all know the motivations. It has degenerated to a conflict that might not be resolved in a single generation.
My belief is that to stop terrorism we have to free the terrorist's children. If you get terrorism in free states, then you have your judicial systems.
relativity from physics is the source metaphor
religion's "tolerance" does equate to assigning some validity if just in the form of a "live and let live" mentality. There are plenty of tricks to still deny validity on higher spiritual levels but frankly I'm fine with material validity, no violence, as being the key to social situation.
I think that atheist ought to be relativists, and I think it's easier to convince them of relativism, because of science.
I should say on the mainstream philosophy angle that my view of relativism is not really drawn from a philosophical analysis. My idea of it is drawn as a metaphor from how relativity works in physical sciences, both Galilean and General Relativity. There is no priveledged point of view that is completely right above all others.
Velocity Relativity involves the fact that in space (or anywhere actually, but it's more clear in space where things are simple), and you may know this, but I'm using it as a metaphor... in space two bodies moving at each other at 100mph A and B make up a system where the facts of the matter depend on where you are.
If you are on B, then A is travelling at you at 100 mph. It doesn't just "seem" that way, it IS that way.
If you are on A, the B is travelling at you at 100 mph. This is not an illusion, there is not really any third objective point of view that says what you were "really" moving.
However, there is a relationship between the two realities.
They both think they are moving at the same relative speeds, because it's a characteristic of their relationship, which is a frame of reference that includes their interactions.
This is how I see our political reality. We have to coexist with people unimaginably different, we have to find the relationships between our opposite readings, match which is which, because the real solution requires more than one point of view, it requires mapping a web of relationships.
Relationships
This is why I feel so strongly that relationships, like the verbal relationships on this site, really do matter; perhaps the quality of the relationships matters more than the validity of the "facts" presented by each side. It is important that we be able to share and appreciate other points of view (we do not have to agree with them) to continue to have a pluralistic democracy. Insistence on only one point of view, no matter whose POV it is, endangers democracy.
Somehow we've gotten to the point where just listening to or exploring the ramifications of other POVs is seen as weak or indecisive. I think in prior times it was called prudent.
The physics-based explanation is really helpful, too, in explaining the reality of relativism.
Nice post.
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
relativism
I am an agnostic and I do not draw my morality from religion. However I am an objectivist in that I believe in objective moral and ethical good regardless of whatever moral/ethical systems exist and are being followed around the world. In that sense I come closest to the system of morality proposed by Ayn Rand. Here is a little exerpt from her essay titled "The Cult of Moral Grayness"
She further goes on to discuss morality and the fact that it only deals with issues open to man's choice (free will).
Another very important quote from that essay, that is one of my guiding principles is:
So to reiterate my own view is that Moral Good and Evil exist irrespective of what we believe is good or evil, or what some culture believes is good or evil. Just like the universal facts are absolute so is morality. The fact that our understanding of what the universal truths and laws is ever changing does not mean that those universal truths and laws are actually changing. It's just that we lack anything close to full knowledge of the matter. Same with Morality, though in that field we definitely do not need as many facts and research to come to right conclusions. All we need are the rational faculties of our own minds. Consensus on the issues have led to deep moral abyss before (Communism, Fascism, various despotisms) and taking everyone's view into consideration will not necessarily lead to the best ethical or moral result. In fact it usually will not.
The rational result of individual thought of what is truly moral can be found in reading the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Our founders did not have to delve into the ethical thought of the world's cultures but instead created something completely new that made rational sense as best for individual freedom of a Free country. They clearly knew what was Good and what was Evil and led us to the side of the Good.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
This:
This isn't really true. The founders created very little that was completely new -- what they did (and they did it brilliantly) was put together a hodgepodge of the products of "ethical thought of the world's cultures", and created a new synthesis of those ideas. But they struggled mightily with ethical considerations throughout the entire process, and after -- and we're still struggling with some of those same ethical issues to this day.
A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man -- e e cummings
they defined
the new morality that has not existed prior to the combined form of the new United States. Sure, they appear to have taken elements from other ethical models, but only because other cultures had parts of what is truly and objectively Good. Other cultures simply did not get it fully like our founders did.
Of course it was not easy, but they certainly did not make any apologies for the moral certainty of what they proposed.
Morally certain indeed.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
But to continue your metaphor,
remember that not all motion is relative. The speed of light is constant in a vaccuum, regardless of whether you're 'stationary' (in relation to the source), traveling towards the source, or traveling away from the source.
I bring this up because I largely agree with you, but I'm not sure how this can be sold to those who do believe in a higer power. A higher power means that there is something above us, which, while it doesn't necessarily mean that morals become codified, does imply a hierarchy of values - superior v. inferior.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Oh, I love Rand
It's not every day you get to read someone who was equally horrible at philosophy, language, and fiction. She's the perfect hat trick of awfulness.
Um, no. You can identify green without ever having seen blue and yellow.
On the scale of morality, "gray" is used not to designate something between black and white, but a mixture of the two - a mixture that is, by definition, irreducable to black and white.
She's creating a strawman out of grayness without understanding what grayness really means.
Example: Have you ever seen the movie Election? Perfect moral conundrum there: the teacher knows that his student has cheated to win the student council elections, but doesn't have the proof to stop her. Furthermore, he knows that she's won the election by a single vote, and that may be due to her cheating. Does he scrap that vote and lie for the greater good?
There isn't a "good" alternative and "bad" alternative. There is gray 1, which is allowing a cheater to win (bad) while upholding the purity of the process (good) or gray 2, which is breaking the rules (bad) in order to offset another break in the rules (good). We call these alternatives "gray" because both contain good and evil, inextricably - but the complexities of real life are usually beyond Rand's ken:
Again assuming that every situation will give one an option which is purely white. The question in the above situation is "which choice yields the better dividends in terms of good/evil?" but either way you're going to have to chose part of what you know to be evil. That's life.
The ancient Greeks understood this. Their epics, plays, and histories are dramas of moral dilemma - gray 1 v. gray 2, and there's no weaseling out of the choice. Drop the Rand and go back to the Aeschylus. You'll get a lot more to chew on.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
You do know.....
.... that there was a rather bitter fight about the whole 'Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness' thing, right?
And that John Locke was the one that wrote about man's inalienable right to 'Life, Liberty, and Property' well before Jefferson wrote that bit?
And that Jefferson took Locke's idea and substituted 'The Pursuit of Happiness' for 'Property' because he thought the right to own property was granted by the authority of the state, and not inalienable?
Even the founders were standing on the shoulders of giants. And they comprimised quite a bit to produce what they did -- and fought about it. I think your view of the moral clarity and certitude of the founding fathers may be a little Pollyanna-ish, Ender.
A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man -- e e cummings
Ayn and Us: My two cents, for what it's worth
This is why democracy has been and still is viewed by some as a radical and dangerous form of government. I don't believe the founders hid from this fact. Instead, they felt that despite the sizable risks of error in this system, the benefits outweighed the perceived ethical/moral benefits of tyranny. In other words, they accepted a certain amount of sloppiness and potential for misuse in exchange for giving the individual a voice in his government.
Preventing the individual from deciding on a unethical/immoral course of action was of great concern and they developed checks and balances to impede that. The electoral college, the state election of senators, the need for super-majorities in critical situations are all examples of their desire to thwart the (possibly immoral and unethical) will of the mob.
I think I have to disagree with you on this. Most of the founders' class were educated in a time when knowledge of Greek and Roman philosophy was part of the standard curricula. The first half of the eighteenth century was very neoclassical in thought as well as art. They would be very familiar with the various forms of government that had been tried in the past and able to argue the pros and cons of each form. They did not have to delve; they had already internalized it as part of their education. The world's prior cultural experiences were a part of their own thought processes and paradigms. They used rationalism and knowledge to develop a system that kept the best and minimized the worst.
I don't have cites as I'm working off of internalized knowledge too ;) but I believe most of this came from the Federalist Papers.
I've not read Rand (well, not more than the first chapter, anyway) but I was under the impression that she focused more on the individual and how the individual should operate, not on how governments should operate.
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
Hardly
THey were quite willing to consider that many men were, in fact equal to precisely 3/5ths of others.
Are you sure?
I believe in objective moral and ethical good
So when you argue that yes, collateral damage will happen in war, you don't think it is reasonable that the collateral damage's family will reasonably consider the attack to be evil even while you consider it to be good? You think that a moral person would eventually get over the fact that you blew their family up based on bad intel rather than consider your act evil?
Because if you believe that that person can be moral when blaming the bomber at the same time that you accept the bombing as an unfortunate necessity then you have accepted relativism.
Yes, Rand
Just the bits that Ender quoted are like this philisophical traffic accident. You want to look away. You KNOW that it is going to scar your psyche, but you just can't.
Exactly....
Or if you support the use of torture in some situations and not others.... that's moral relativism as well.
A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man -- e e cummings
I'll get back into
this discussion on Sunday :) Gotta run to my friend's birthday party.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
I expect a tautology
Something along the lines of 'good people do good things.'
It is the reason that fundamentalists see nothing wrong with trying to force their religion on others. Sure, other religions have tried that too and they are evil, but they are forcing FALSE religions on others. Forcing the one true religion is a GOOD thing.
We are torturing people for freedom and democracy and it is therefore absolutely good (not like those other torturers for non-freedom, how dare we even make the comparison!).
AKA IOKIYAR.
A couple of points
First off, if everyone believed in your relativism, it would become a universal, which would contradict your entire argument. Ok, enough of the paradox games for now.
Second, I think your version of relativism verges on utilitarianism
when you say
It seems you are missing why they do not want to have their stuff stolen. I think, though I could be wrong if you wish to expand on your point, that you are implying that they would not be happy losing their property. If that is the case, then your relativism is mixed with other ethical theories. In the very least, there is a bit of abstract Christian/golden rule* moralism going on here; a ‘do unto other what you want done to you’-type reasoning.
Third, I was wondering if you find any rules/laws/conventions that you think are universal? I tend to refer to myself as a relativist also (for different reasons than you--mainly I don’t think there is such a concept as 'Truth' or absolutes as such, which I don’t take great pleasure in, but it still seems to be the case [or the only truth that exists is that there are no absolute truths—more paradox!]), but I do believe that there are a few constants that I think make societies more functional and just (if that is the goal of a society). I’ve read one of the main arguments against total (or absolute) relativism is that most societies, if not all, condemn corruption/abuse of power by leaders, partiality in judging disputes, and (the big one) incest. What do you think of some constants (or frames of reference as you put it) in all societies? This does not mena that societies have discovered 'Truth,' just that they have come to the same conclusions.
*As a side note: The golden rule can be shown false if you take into consideration the masochist. The masochist wants pain and beatings; therefore it is fair for him/her to beat you also according to the golden rule. Maybe they should downgrade it to the bronze rule.
We are all mediators, translators. - Derrida
http://signicide.blogspot.com/
Golden Rule paradox with S&M
Another interesting paradox:
A masochist can't "do unto others as he would have them do unto him" because that would make him...
... a sadist.
Conversely, the sadist would have the same conundrum. To do unto others as he would have them do unto him would require him to "submit" to someone else.... instantly turning from a sadist to a masochist.
S&M is incompatible with the golden rule.
It is therefore un-Christian and will henceforth be banned by our GOP overlords.
....especially Katherine Harris.
But man, she looks like she's been beaten with the ugly stick already.
Anyway..... Can a person be a sadist AND a masochist at the same time?
If so,
1. would they beat themselves and then ask for more?
2. What would the "safe word" be and how would it work?
3. Theoretically, the beatings would never end, because both halves of his personality would be doing exactly what the other half most desired. He theoretically would continuously ask for the punishment and also continuously dish it out. In effect, beating himself to death.
Sorry, it's late and I'm getting a little loopy. ;-)
I survived the Bush Administration
A higher power.....
can be ascribed to the laws of nature or the laws of physics.
Some science teachers I have known have been awed by the beauty of the universe and its interwoven elements where birth and death are less about "superior inferior" but just a constant in the continium of being.
So aethiests too can have thier higher power.
I'm only half stupid
I did not say they
created all the parts, but they sure built the entirely new whole that never existed out of these many parts. There has never been created a country like the US, that was based on all those principles.
I disagree about them standing on the shoulders of giants. Their accomplishments speak for themselves in the most moral and powerful nation that has ever existed.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
I don't think so
Without any frame of reference you certainly cannot start identifying the middle ground. Without knowing what is right and wrong you cannot suddenly claim that something is neither. Her point is valid while yours seems to be an unrelated diversion.
The statement that a mixture of black and white somehow is irreduceable to its base components is silly and makes no sense. Being that I know a bit about the making ink, I know that by definition you are wrong about reducing colors to their base components. But please explain how that is wrong in reality?
I am not claiming that there is always pure good and pure bad, but if there is you have an obligation to pick what is good.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
it is relative
it's constant RELATIVE to you, no matter what speed you go with respect to other bodies, and it's constant with respect to them.
It's a higher order relativity, truly surreal.
If I'm going half the speed of light relative to you, a beam of light still travels at the speed of light for both of us, indeed the very same speed of light. That's relative as well.
To make the spatial mathematic work out, time itself runs at a different speed... so motion is still relative.
If one wants to have a higher power, that's still fine, it just has to take this odd web of relative relationships into account.
relativism
There are no true universals, but there are "approximate universals"... of course, traditionally that is an oxymoron... but I use the term because what you have are facts that are deduceable on widely shared frames of reference, some of which may be involuntary. E.g. we all share a frame of reference as mamals, there are genetic and other aspects that unite that frame of reference.
One can draw arguments for cooperation from the frame of reference of mankinds ultimate familial relationships, such truths work as social universals, provide access to universal arguments against murder.
My point about the stealing and the golden rule-esque thinking is merely that if someone opts out of some shared frames, denies them or honestly does not share them, there is a point at which conflict is the result... the debate will be decided by force.
So it goes with any criminal that truly believes they have a moral system that allows their criminal act. At that point we use the force of police to arrest them. If the criminals outnumber us, we are stuck with that, and so we can see that with many historical and present injustices... we may marshal arguments that take a thousand years to convince, but in the meanwhile we will simply struggle.
But I'm not surprised that people willing to claim robbery or murder are morally right find themselves eventually in the minority, because our shared frames of reference really do argue, I think, for shared interests and ultimately maximizing cooperation and minimizing accepting pure conflict for our resolution. Over time we've learned there are fewer and fewer situations where that sort of conflict is beneficial.
The end state is much like that with petty crime, it still goes on, but not because people think there is a moral justification, they do the crime believing it to be wrong but willing to do wrong.
That's a workable solution because policing the minority of criminals becomes possible.
Crimes everyone agrees on are much more difficult.
As for your paradox... I believe the solution comes in discussing the real definition of "universal"... your thought experiment example of "everyone adopting my view" falls apart, for example, on several points, the first of which comes from the definition of "everyone"... if that's all people, we have practical reason to doubt that agreement could happen, but if it did, what of other simians? How do we even know people really agree, what is a sufficient expression of agreement? Relativity enters into all these questions, and there is no way to get the cart before the horse.
A more general answer is that by defining relative on the epistemological basis of skepticism which you and I seem to share. No truth is absolute, all truths are approximate. So we have things that are functionally like universals because they are aproximations, that is, they pointedly ignore the approximate error because they involve calculations that produce practical results... and I suppose relativity itself is such a principle. It is like a universal, it focusses on relationships and denies our ability to judge a thing-in-itself directly... at not time adding all the relationships together does one actually judge the thing in itself, but it creates an approximation which triangulates to converge TOWARD a statement of a thing in itself... e.g. a person with many bad relationships to other people, say, as slave holder, rapist, embezzler, liar, can be approximately considered bad-in-itself because as a survival decision the error is negligible compared to the risk of considering that person trustworthy.