Moral Relativism. It may be right but it must be wrong.

@Fil Albuquerque,

Sure Fil, I accept that.

But when I say "That song is beautiful", you understand that it is my (personal) experience, rather than some universal truth of beauty. If you don't find the same song beautiful, you would never say that my expression of the songs beauty was factually wrong.

You and I see beauty in different things, I would never say that your concept of "beauty" is wrong in any absolute way.

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@maxdancona,

But the point is precisely that the concept is the same although objects and agents may change...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

I think I am ok with that. And my point is that morality is the same as beauty. The objects and agents change, and the perceptions change. No perception of morality is superior to any other perception of morality. No perception of beauty is superior to any other perception of beauty.

As long as your perception of what is beautiful doesn't cause you to discard other people's perception of beauty, then I am ok with it. It is when you think your understanding of what is beautiful is the only understanding and that everyone else's understanding is wrong that there is a problem.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

...the world is a extremely complex place let me just give you my crazy opinion on the subject:

I have this theory that beauty from person to person is seen through complementary genotypes for instance:

A person with very large hears will find someone with small hears beautiful if its needing correction in its own genotype...if looking for confirmation then it will keep finding large hears beautiful...

...now, although we already scientifically know that symmetry seams to be the trick of finding stuff beautiful such symmetry sometimes is not required a priori as the genotype correction will precisely aim to that very same symmetry in the children that may come out of the relation...

...so for someone with extremely long hears it may be the case someone with very small ones is beautiful...

...does that changes the concept overall ? No symmetry either a priori or a posteriori still is the central goal...

(note that by symmetry I'm not meaning linear symmetry, that accounts for the example on which confirmation rather then correction may be preferred, I am just avoiding complicating even further)

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@Fil Albuquerque,

In resume what I am intending to mean is that there is a Universal behind apparent Relativism...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Of course the previous example I provided is a washed down example of a far vaster almost infinitely complex array of processes...people don't "trade" just one thing for another when they get in love nor the weight or importance of all the trading bits is even...we should look at the example in the context of a statistical problem where many things are being traded and not all of them are good or equally important...in conclusion I reason when the result is positive people get to like each other... when the result is extremely positive, then perhaps they get a marriage for life...

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@maxdancona,

As a relativist, you would not say that "The right is defined by each person according to their beliefs"?

But you did say:
"Good is like beauty. Each person defines beauty for themselves (of course influenced by their upbringing and culture)."

Isn't that roughly the same thing?

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I wish absolute truth were objectively testable all the time. But unfortunately, that's not case.

You earlier suggested that whenever a thing is not objectively testable, that thing is relative. I already raised the issue of the Matrix. Whether we are in the Matrix or not - This is not testable. So what's your response to that? Are you saying then that whether or not we are in the Matrix is relative?

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@aristotelian,

Quote:

I already raised the issue of the Matrix. Whether we are in the Matrix or not - This is not testable.

It seems a bit funny to bring a rather hokey science fiction plot device into this discussion, but I will play.

Of course the matrix was objectively testable-- by leaving it. Morpheus absolutely provide objectively testable evidence to Neo which world was real. I certainly didn't have any question which of the two realities presented in this fictional movie was the correct one.

But this was clearly fiction. In the real world people don't wake up in goo capsule to be flushed into a cold post-apocalyptic reality.

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Absolute truth must be objectively testable because without the ability to objectively test a truth, there is no way to tell if your version of absolutely truth, or whether someone else's is. If you can't tell who in an objective way who is right or wrong (or if everyone just insists that they are right and everyone else is wrong) that the absolute truth is meaningless.

An unknowable absolute truth has no meaning.

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@maxdancona,

You are being intentionally disdainful but somewhat naive about a serious problem...whatever is ultimate reality how do you suggest we get out of it to have a 3 person perspective eh ?

To put it in the context of what we were talking about we look at functions resulting from interactions and not at the matrix of those functions...(1 degree "language")
(oh n please spare me the part on which you will say I don't know what you getting at, if not patience)

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@Fil Albuquerque,

That sounds a bit redundant, I don't think that someone can be unintentionally disdainful. But I am not being disdainful, I am trying to point out that the "serious problem" has no solution and is not really even a problem.

Any "reality" that can't be objectively measured is inaccessible (by definition). It can't matter.

I am not sure if things outside of our reach constitute a "serious problem".

Our reality is based on the brain we evolved and the senses we have. We have expanded it quite a bit with our ability to abstract thought. But that's all we have, we live as humans and have a human experience occupying only the part of "reality" that is accessible to humans.

We have made some pretty cool (from my human perspective) advances in things that are objectively testable. This is the field of math and science where we are making prediction that we can then observe, and we are using science to make everything from flying machines to the internet. Sadly in the area of morality, we have no such mechanism to find anything objectively testable. So if there is a "absolute truth" in morality, it isn't accessible.

I don't see this as a problem. We are slightly advanced apes on a rather insignificant planet in the outer edge of a rather unimpressive galaxy. Why should things be any different?

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

That sounds a bit redundant, I don't think that someone can be unintentionally disdainful. But I am not being disdainful, I am trying to point out that the "serious problem" has no solution and is not really even a problem.

Any "reality" that can't be objectively measured is inaccessible (by definition). It can't matter.

I am not sure if things outside of our reach constitute a "serious problem".

Our reality is based on the brain we evolved and the senses we have. We have expanded it quite a bit with our ability to abstract thought. But that's all we have, we live as humans and have a human experience occupying only the part of "reality" that is accessible to humans.

We have made some pretty cool (from my human perspective) advances in things that are objectively testable. This is the field of math and science where we are making prediction that we can then observe, and we are using science to make everything from flying machines to the internet. Sadly in the area of morality, we have no such mechanism to find anything objectively testable. So if there is a "absolute truth" in morality, it isn't accessible.

I don't see this as a problem. We are slightly advanced apes on a rather insignificant planet in the outer edge of a rather unimpressive galaxy. Why should things be any different?

1 - I am sure you are familiar with the usage of figures of speech namely redundancy's which intentionally aim at re-enforcing a remark, so that bit over there was unneeded...what it was intending to counter is that while you could sound like being disdainful you might not intend to be disdainful, which was not the case...

2 - Now to what matters, you miss understood what constitutes a problem and its a very old one is to know whether one can access ultimate reality or not, naturally if we establish that we can't then the problem is solved...

3 - Your final stretch on the brain, testability, and science, is common knowledge and thus truly redundant to what I was talking about...

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I think I am ok with that. And my point is that morality is the same as beauty. The objects and agents change, and the perceptions change. No perception of morality is superior to any other perception of morality. No perception of beauty is superior to any other perception of beauty.

Then morality is just another form of esthetics. If that is indeed your position, then why bother distinguishing between the two? Why not just drop the notion of "morality" and call all of it "esthetics?"

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@maxdancona,

Let me rephrase my question. If I were to say "Max, you and I and everyone around you is in the Matrix," could you objectively show that I am wrong?

The Matrix is more than just a fictional story. It's a thought experiment conceived by a famous philosopher - I'm sure you know this.

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@aristotelian,

...I suspect he knows but since he wants to portray a respectable look he rather disdain at it...old technique...useful !

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@joefromchicago,

Morality and aesthetics are related. They aren't the same (or we wouldn't need two words) but they are certainly similar in that they evoke emotional responses based on our values and cultural upbringing.

The difference is that aesthetics relates to our feelings about beauty, ethics relates to our feelings about right behavior.

So yes, I would say the two are similar.

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@aristotelian,

aristotelian wrote:

Let me rephrase my question. If I were to say "Max, you and I and everyone around you is in the Matrix," could you objectively show that I am wrong?

Of course not without the ability to interact with the world outside the matrix. But then again, any world that I am unable to interact with is meaningless. By definition, it doesn't impact my life at all and it is not part of my reality.

What difference does it make?

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

They aren't the same (or we wouldn't need two words)

Why not? Lots of things that we have multiple words for are the same (or we wouldn't need thesauruses (thesauri?)).

Edit: I mean, maybe we'd still need them, but they'd have no entries, which is certainly unhelpful.

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@joefromchicago,

Of course I don't think they are identical, but when I witness a very ethical (or kind) act, I sometimes feel that it is in a sesne beautiful.

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@Thomas,

Well Thomas,

In my personal experience, these two words represent related but distinct concepts. In my behavior, or in my reaction to the behavior of people around me, I can certainly distinguish between times I am motivated by a sense of beauty, and times when I am motivated by a sense of morality.

I find each of these words valuable in different contexts. For example, I haven't ever seen a woman with a moral figure.

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Moral Relativism. It may be right but it must be wrong.

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