A question for people who believe in Moral Absolutes

No. The alternative is that moral truths transcend culture.
Mostly match? How so?
Do most people in my culture act in ways to reduce the harm to non-human animals? I reached the moral conclusion to be vegan absent cultural norms. Don't equate your conformity with my moral philosophy. That is an insult to both of us.

As simply as establishing the degree of success, having more or less success, again its about productivity and being productive friendly in terms of further degrees of complexity with the least amount of resources and energy spent...being here although important is not enough of a statement...there is a chain of dominance which must be natural and not imposed, or better said that imposes itself naturally. But that would leads us to debate the roots of true power and what is central to norms...the nature of Law...a great deal of people hates the idea of conforming to natural law...you seam one of those people...I might be wrong.

Are we returning to the personal sentiments thing again Max?
I am not going to participate in discussion, if you continue to take things personally, or make them personal.
This is a philosophy discussion.
Not a discussion of who is or is not more virtuous.

Now we are debating my intentions?

Matt,

This is really simple. Somethings I think the goal of philosophy is to make the logical illogical and the simple complicated.

If I drop a ball, it falls. Human beings all around the world in every culture have dropped objects and seen them fall. We all see the same thing, we all understand it the same way. This is what I call objectively testable.

When Galileo claimed that a heavier object and a lighter object dropped from a tall height some people didn't believe him. So he did it. Anyone who has tried it has seen the same thing and reached the same conclusion. This is objectively testable.

When Galileo put two lenses in a tube and observed the moons of Jupiter, he caused a stir (actually it was the philosophers who squawked and refused to accept what could be objectively seen). But anyone who did the same thing observed the same thing. Once they looked culture didn't matter.

And again science has had success in actually doing things. Philosophy didn't take us to the moon.

I am an American. When I am in a relationship I view my partner as my equal. I never force her to have sex with me. I never beat her.

This is my moral value, but it isn't objectively testable. There is no experiment I can do to tell me that I should respect the women I am with. This is a subjective belief. Unlike an objective science observation, other people have different views. There is no experiment you can do to judge between them.

The difference is clear. In science you can do an experiment and you can observe. Anyone who does the same experiment or makes the same observation will see the same thing. That is what objective means.

You keep on rather mocking saying that there is "moral telescope" that I could look through if I wasn't so dense.

Galileo described in detail how to make his real telescope. Anybody could follow his instructions and anyone who did would get the same results.

So please, if your telescope isn't imaginary, tell me how it is constructed and what results I should expect? That's what Galileo did and that's what any scientist does.

What moral truth transcends your culture?

That the most productive systems of social organization dominate or extinguish the least productive ones. Civilization and progress is proof of it.That is enough of a Universal for me and enough of a justification for Law itself. The only justification the Law has is that it works, and the better it works the longer it stays.

Sure, but this often has violated my moral standards. We extinguished the Native Americans... something that I think was profoundly immoral.

No. Perhaps you are thinking of someone else on this thread.
I do think that you are unduly reluctant to recognize that science is paradigm dependent, but that is something that was only popularly recognized 50 years ago. You make it clear that you don't like "philosophy" so I have been completely willing to meet you on the ground of science.

Why by your reasoning should that be profoundly immoral. European immigrants to the Americas acted within the standards of their cultures. Native Americans acted in accordance to each of their corresponding cultures. By what standard are you implying that one culture should act toward another culture?
If moral standards are culture dependent, what sense does it make to judge inter-cultural activity?
Is there a meta-cultural morality which you are now applying?

That's false, Matt, but you've shown yourself to be one that doesn't much like facts. The European immigrants lied and cheated, repeatedly, broke treaty after treaty and then when that was met with protest slaughtered Native Americans.

Quote:





It's just an opinion, double standards have always been Homo sapiens' hallmark.

Matt's was a lie. He pulled the same stunt when he mistakenly took part in a discussion on language.

Oh dear! Is JTT still buzzing about?

JT, write up a 500 word essay regarding the linkage between Noam Chomsky's and Steven Pinker's linguistic theories, then I might consider taking you off ignore.

The sentence above is a prescription followed by a description.

There is nothing fundamental in their counter...the fact that when dominance is established is very easy to shortcut the end result and jump a few steps and thus act immorally doesn't change the argument that dominance must be established in the first place...what they are doing is small peaking the general underlying principle...I am off...I was expecting that sort of approach sooner or later...

When I say "I think it was profoundly immoral" I am clearly using my personal moral standards as the standard. I am speaking to you, someone who is part of my culture and likely has the same moral code that I do. It makes sense to appeal to moral standards that are part of our current societal context and that we likely share.

There is nothing contradictory with making moral judgments from within a specific societal context. My quote was clearly subjective, but if I just had said our killing of the Native American was wrong it should always be understood that this implies a moral code.

Incidentally, many people of the time didn't feel bad about what we were doing at that time to the Native Americans. You see, philosophers of the time invented this thing called "Manifest Destiny" which made expansion our duty whatever the cost. The role of philosophers in this instance was to smooth away any moral hesitancy so that the theft of land (something I now believe was immoral) could go forward. Ironically "Manifest Destiny" implies a set of moral absolutes and judges Native American culture as inferior to American culture.

But the point is, I speak from my point of view. Whenever I can I try to appeal to what I understand is you point of view. I have a much easier time speaking to you about these things then I would speaking to people of another time or culture.

Very well asked, Max.

Reminds me that most people who finally are able to make direct contact with their god...find that the god expects of them exactly what they expected the god to expect of them...that the god is offended by exactly the things they expected to offend it...and is pleased by exactly the things they expected it to like.

Taking Relativism to its extreme in any field you choose to do so would always conduct you to total inertia, and yet looking at nature one can easily see the world keeps moving on...

As I see it there are only two reasonable motives that can rightfully justify Action...

1 - The legitimacy of a more complex set or system that try's to encompass another smaller set.
2 - The Legitimacy of any set or system to defend itself so long it lacks knowledge or the capacity to recognize a bigger set.

Not sure what you were trying to say here, but I tend to be suspicious of statements that contain the word "always."

In any case, I see no connection between your comment here and the post to which you referenced.