Moral Relativity: Where moral values come from?

Human beings killing human beings is part of human nature. Almost every culture included the moral killing and many cultures have celebrated killing other human beings.

Killing is without question part of our biology. We write songs glorifying war. We erect statues to warriors. We have colleges to study war and art (from paintings to movies) to celebrate it. We enjoy violent sports to pass our time. If there is a global morality... killing is part of it.

Violence is very human. It is part of our biology.

Max, That is because we don't presently have a morality based on the common well being of our common biology, we have a bunch of asinine mythologies/religions that are always in conflict with each other. This is not to say the morality would be perfect, but, it is the sanest place to start.

Here is my practical example... please show me how this will work.

The White colonizing culture believes only monogamy is moral and child brides are immoral. The indigenous culture believes that polygamy is moral and preferable and that giving away adolescent girls is the best way to ensure the benefit of their "common biology".

The facts are

1) Most indigenous cultures have polygamy.
2) Many of the animal species closest to humans practice polygamy by nature.
3) There are good biological reasons that polygamy ensures the strength of genes and the welfare of communities (in humans and other animals).

We know what happened in history. In North America, in Australia and in other places White colonizers met the indigenous cultures and said "we are going to stamp out polygamy". The indigenous cultures said "No you aren't". Then the White colonizers stamped out these practices by force (with different degrees of success... polygamy is still practiced in aboriginal communities in Australia).

The only way to get to the "common morality" you are suggesting is by the dominant culture imposing their moral values by economic or military force. This has happened time and time again.

If an indigenous culture came to you to tell you, we don't accept monogamy and you must change your culture to accept the morality of polygamy, how would you react?

Global morality always means the dominant culture imposing its will on indigenous cultures. It is never the other way around.

Max, I get your point, its a mess, but, when we have a morality based upon a clear set of values that insure the well being of every individual. In the case of child brides. society must find it not to the best interest of the child, if the child is starving, and this is the only way it will servive, then obviously it is then life supporting, Better a bride, than dead.

That is the problems. We don't have a morality based on a clear set of global values. Each culture has its set of values. You are presumably an American. You won't agree with a Maasai tribesman on what the best interest of a child is. You may not even agree on what a child is. That is a fact that you are going to have to deal with.

Unless you are going to let the dominant culture impose its values on indigenous cultures... your goal for a common morality is fantasy.

Max, Perhaps your right, its assuming a rational perspective, but, even in theory it is the only reasonable starting place for a local or global peaceful world, not appealing to ZEUS, I don't say its going to happen.

In defence of Moral Realism: (First battery)

What makes science objective is that you setup up an experiment. Whether the results of the experiment is the correct answer whether you like that answer or not. Any fact in science is subject to a test, and you accept it. Science isn't about what is elegant, or what should be true, or what you think is good and right.

Science is what is measured to be true regardless of your own beliefs or preference. If you are going to apply the scientific standard to morality, then there will be moral truths that Westerners are are going to find troubling and distasteful.

If scientific moral tests say that slavery is moral, or rape, or genital mutilation.. then you would have to accept that fact whether you liked or not. If nothing about the truth offends you, then the truth it isn't objective.

What actually has is that the White colonizers have dictated morality to their own liking. That isn't objective.

Let's imagine Eastern Africans had developed guns and gone on a colonization rampage through the world (instead of Western Europeans). If this had happened, Albequerque's ideas about right and wrong would be quite different. His moral views are an accident of history.

In practice moral absolutism is indistinguishable from Western cultural supremacy.

Now lets scale it to a deeper level shall we?

From competition to cooperation, Moral realism at a more abstract level in Game theory and Nash Equilibriums:



Proto Moral Realism across different species:




Superorganism equilibrium in Society:

Mirror neurons empathy and sympathy. Arguably a reciprocity mechanism for complex tasking and evolved productive energy efficient societies:

I hope the battery of information posted above is enough for those who have the lobes to get it and relate across multiple disciplines. To other less fortunate souls floating around well au revoir!
(I am out for MSFS 2020 across Africa in a Jabiru 170D)

Whatever the morality, whether considered relative to local or not, is biologically determined, no matter what the culture, its history, its place on the planet, these system are human biological extensions. They are not all equally good for the life of the individual or his/her well being. So we need ask of any system of morality, of what does it relate to, if it relates to a fairy god we have already lost all rational ground. All meaning is biologically determined, it is biological consciousness that bestows that meaning/value/morality on a meaningless physical world. We can leave it to nuttsy holymen or just leave it to chance, that's pretty much what we have a present.

Speciation doesn't change much when it comes to fundamentals of whatever is we are debating, the eyes alone evolved in five different occasions by convergent evolution. Same goes for culture at large or regularities that Science detects be it Physics Chemistry or even Moral. Fractal repeating patterns can be seen all over the spectrum, you can go from crystals to tree branches to lungs... The same idea can apply to GENERAL and FUNDAMENTAL moral values. Cultural differences are true and tried "software" forms of adaptation that withstood the test of time through natural selection, be it of ideas, of language, of memes, as other conceptual tools developed along the millennia who didn't went extinct because they were useful and did forward the collective good in regards to specific environmental backgrounds, but most obviously none of it ever chewed at basic UNIVERSAL tenets of Morality without which NO SOCIETY could function or WORK in any conditions! It doesn't require much brain to understand this, experts on linguistic evolution which by the way structurally is the same no matter what language you speak or concepts that endure will tell you this much, but alas stupidity abounds profusely in the web as all omegas want a shot at alpha male...

Your idiot pal over there as usual confuses the surface wave role coaster of local legislation with the Ocean and totally misses the point because he is dumb. You are wasting your time talking with him. Move on!

This is an arbitrary standard. Who says the life of an individual is important for a system of morality? There is no objective reason that this should be true.

This is a very Western way of thinking. I don't accept it. There are perfectly consistent moral system in societies that flourish that put the strength of the community as a whole as more important than individuals.

When I was 18, I was obligated by law to go down to a local government building to register for the "selective service". This ritual was part of a coming of age process that made it perfectly clear that my society would sacrifice my individual life to defend a greater good.

At the time we were in the Cold War against the communists which most Americans believed was an existential threat. I believe that most Americans saw the act of sacrificing the lives of young men was a moral act.

I don't think that individual life is a moral absolute even in our own culture.

Max, The strength of the system is life supporting, it is your life support environment. It is just an expansion of the concept of self, you defend what substains you. This is not in contradiction of the concept life and its well being, as being biologically determined.

1. You are setting up an arbitrary standard. You just made that up for yourself. There is no reason that the rest of humanity would agree with you (in fact we don't).

2. Of course, if you are going to have system of morality that applies across the planet you are going to have to push arbitrary standards on indigenous people. That's the process of colonization. If this is where we are going, lets be honest about it.

3. There are lots of examples where self-sacrifice is called for in my understanding of morality (as a 21st century American). This contradicts your principle.

Are you seriously suggesting a moral system based primarily on self-preservation?

That goes against every religion that I am aware of.

Self preservation strategies often are more successfully through group cooperation, specially in small communities.

If you killed one of your own and were banished from the tribe the chances of your survival plummeted. But then again Game theory knows this, you don't.

Max, We are speculating on what is the logical reference/relational connection to the morality we wish to see as a model. Religions in general are irrational, and this is what most people relate their morality back to, it is a very shaky foundation, as when most of these religions were create human ignorance was all most total.