A question for people who believe in Moral Absolutes

@MattDavis,

Quote:

I feel that you have a strong affinity for scientific reasoning. I feel that Kohlberg offers a scientific explanation.

You are wrong about this. The definition I have given for "Scientitic" is objectively testable.

I like Kohlberg. But there is nothing in his work that is objectively testable.

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@maxdancona,

Do you find the actions of person's such as Schindler or Ghandi explicable?
How do they fit into the view of socially relative morality?

1 Reply

@MattDavis,

MattDavis wrote:

Do you find the actions of person's such as Schindler or Ghandi explicable?
How do they fit into the view of socially relative morality?

They fit in with the view of socially relative morality the same as they fit in with absolute morality.

My personal sense of morality praises Schindler's act of saving his workers. A personal sense of morality is sufficient to admire an act of bravery.

On the other hand I am not a big fan of Ghandi.

He political skill was admirable. He was effective at shaming the British government largely because he was a product of Western culture. His education came from England and his ideas of non-violence came from a US writer.

I don't respect his sometimes goofy ideas, odd behavior and personal failings, Ultimately Gandhi failed miserably. After independence India and Pakistan broke along ethnic lines in a brutal bloodbath. The hostility continues today.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Do you really want to make the argument that science and religion are on equal footing?

Not really, just that moral relativism and factual relativism make an approximately equal amount of sense --- or nonsense, whichever the case may be. (I personally believe the latter.)

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

In the great variety of human languages no one is saying that there are better languages or worse languages.

You may want to get in touch with our fellow A2K member Sozobe. She is a Deaf woman who has very strong opinions about American Sign Language being a much better language than Signed English. (ASL is the native language of America's Deaf community; Signed English is a transliteration of spoken English into hand gestures.) And not only does Sozobe have strong opinions about the matter, she can tell you exactly why her judgment is true.

To be sure, maybe Sozobe is wrong. (I think she isn't though --- her opinion seems to be almost universally shared among people who master both languages and are hence qualified to judge.) But even in the unlikely event that she is, in fact, wrong, the mere existence of people like her refutes your claim that "no one is saying that".

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@Thomas,

You keep ignoring the key point.

Scientific fact is objectively testable.
Religion and morality are not objectively testable.

That is a key distinction.

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@Thomas,

That is a weak argument Thomas. An organic language like ASL against a transliteration like Signed English?

Anyway I doubt Sozobe would claim that ASL represents any absolute correct language compared to Spanish sign language or French sign language or any spoken language for that matter.

You are erecting strawmen.

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The test for a 'moral absolute' could well be whether an 'exception' can be found. My guess is mostly an 'exception' can be found.

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@igm,

igm wrote:

The test for a 'moral absolute' could well be whether an 'exception' can be found. My guess is that mostly an 'exception' can be found.

There may be uncountable variations for every possible action therefore it is unlikely one could know 'for certain' that there wasn't an 'exception' for every potential candidate put forward as a 'moral absolute'.

Conclusion: one may never be able to know if a proposed 'moral absolute' is in fact a 'moral absolute'.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

Quote:
Re: Frank Apisa (Post 5266834)
Frank Apisa wrote:
If you can...give me an example so that I can consider it.

Before I get to the example, let me make a point about English usage. People say often use phrases like, "the moral principle x" or "this is the moral thing to do in this situation". By saying that they imply, at a minimum, the statements "the principle x, which I wish everyone adhered to", and "this is what I wish everyone would do in this situation", respectively. So far, there is no deep philosophical insight involved. It's just an observation about everyday usage of the adjective "moral".

The philosophical insight is that we can take the definition implied in common usage and use it as an empirical test. And that's what brings us to the example you ask for.

For instance, suppose I was to say, "the moral thing to do about waiting lines is to cut right in front". You disagree. Would you and I just be having a subjective difference in taste then? No. You would be right. And what's more, you could refute me as follows. First you'd ask, "Why would you be cutting in line?" I'd answer: "to get ahead and save time." (That would make "getting ahead and saving time" my maxim in Kantian terminology.) And now you could say, "But Thomas, if everybody was to cut in line, nobody would get ahead or save time. Your stated maxim self-destructs when everybody follows it. Therefore, cutting in front of other people in line isn't the moral thing to do, at least not for this reason. You're wrong, Thomas". And indeed, your moral judgement would be objectively right, and mine would be objectively wrong.

Does that make the point clearer?

SHORT ANSWER: No!

I appreciate this attempt at an example.

One of the flaws I see is that in order for it to have validity you must first make a case that there is something "immoral" about "nobody getting ahead or saving time"...or in fact, that there is something "immoral" about not appreciating the possible cost of one's actions on "others." In other words you would have to establish that there is something outside moral behavior to "not have anybody save time and get ahead"...and that "my getting ahead at the expense of others...even though if everyone did it nobody would get ahead" is outside moral behavior.

That can be arrived at subjectively...but I fail to see how it can be arrived at objectively...which is an essential to making the morality instance one of an absolute morality example.

There's are other flaws that I see, but allow me to present this one for your consideration...and comment. (I came back to this thread just a moment ago...and I've only skimmed the other comments.)

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Scientific fact is objectively testable.

Says who? Plenty of sociologists and cognitive psychologists say that reality is a social construction. They are as right as moral relativists who say that morality is a social construction.

maxdancona wrote:

Religion and morality are not objectively testable.

That is a key distinction.

It would be if there really was a categorical difference. But there isn't.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

You are erecting strawmen.

No, I am merely addressing your arguments as you put them forward. If you think I'm arguing against strawmen, you may want to try putting forward non-strawman arguments.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

One of the flaws I see is that in order for it to have validity you must first make a case that there is something "immoral" about "nobody getting ahead or saving time".

"Nobody getting ahead of saving time" isn't immoral per se. It only contradicts the purpose of cutting in line, which is to save time and get ahead. It is this contradiction between maxim and reality that prevents cutting-in-line from being universally-followable, and thereby prevents it from being moral.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Quote:

Quote:
Re: Frank Apisa (Post 5267430)
Frank Apisa wrote:
One of the flaws I see is that in order for it to have validity you must first make a case that there is something "immoral" about "nobody getting ahead or saving time".

"Nobody getting ahead of saving time" isn't immoral per se. It only contradicts the purpose of cutting in line, which is to save time and get ahead. It is this contradiction between maxim and reality that prevents cutting-in-line from being generally-followable, and thereby prevents it from being moral.

Thomas...we are looking for a specific moral absolute.

What are you doing here?

What is the "moral absolute" in your original posting?

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I think people being prepared to make a violent physical assault on some joker from Bavaria trying to cut in line accounts for the phenomenon quite nicely.

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@Setanta,

That's the perfect way to sum it all up. Thanks, Setanta! Smile

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

You are wrong about this. The definition I have given for "Scientitic" is objectively testable.
I like Kohlberg. But there is nothing in his work that is objectively testable.[

Thanks Max.
I am a little perplexed as to why your definition of science is not the same as the definition used by social scientists? I seems to me that, for you all morality is a social construct, and yet you deny the method of study used by scientists who study such constructs and societies.
You accept paradigmatic science to construct your understanding of societies and their function, then deny paradigmatic sciences validity once morality becomes involved.
I'm just a little unclear about where this line you have drawn is, and if it is there how is the line not arbitrary?

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Quote:

They fit in with the view of socially relative morality the same as they fit in with absolute morality.
My personal sense of morality praises Schindler's act of saving his workers. A personal sense of morality is sufficient to admire an act of bravery.

This is an explanation in terms of your "personal sense of morality" what is your explanation in terms of a social definition of morality?

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@MattDavis,

I feel like I keep saying the same thing over and over again because you and Thomas keep ignoring my key point.

The difference is objectively testable. I don't consider much of what is considered social science in the same category as "hard" science. However there are claims from social sciences that are objectively testable, and such claims are scientific by my definition.

A claim about morality such as "Americans don't accept cannibalism" is objectively testable. You can set up a a survey or observe Americans behavior. Anyone objective observer from any culture doing such a study would reach the same conclusion, that Americans don't accept cannibalism (point out the rare outliers that are met with disgust by everyone you are just being difficult).

A claim such as "cannibalism is wrong" is not objectively testable. There is no objective test you can even propose to determine whether cannibalism is wrong or not.

That is the reason I reject the idea that any absolute morality is valid. It is not objectively testable meaning that anyone who has an opinion is just as correct as anyone else.

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@maxdancona,

Then a scientific paradigm is testable.
Simply provide evidence that does not fit the paradigm.
So for instance provide ethical behavior that is not accounted for in Kohlberg's model, which was built using the framework of social science.

Better yet, provide a framework that is more coherent than Kohlberg's in explaining moral behaviors.
This was the opening you were given with Schindler.

1 Reply

A question for people who believe in Moral Absolutes

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