Moral Relativity: Where moral values come from?

@maxdancona,

Age old question right? Are morals accumulated through culture or is there a higher being providing us with a compass? Either way it cannot be proven. Many great scientists believe in higher power...not a matter of absolutes right?!

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@Germlat,

I don't believe in a higher being (i.e. I don't believe in God).

If there is no higher being, do you still think it is still possible to have absolute morals?

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@maxdancona,

My personal convictions are of no interest ..the issue at hand is things cannot be proven one way or the other..

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

A big part of the reason that I am a moral relativist is because even moral absolutists can't agree on what the moral absolutes are.

Again, I'm sure the same was true of science once. They hadn't figured out the right theories yet, so they were stuck with a bunch of wrong theories. But they kept looking and eventually they found something that every reasonable person outside a philosophy seminar accepts as objective. I am optimistic that ethics will eventually become like that, but I may not live long enough to see it.

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@ossobuco,

Quote:

Re: Germlat (Post 5511905)
Diamonds are valuable objects, take immense labor to get, and when on the market, are considered for their hardness and beauty. On the labor, just look at some Sebastiano Salgado photographs. On the market, de Beers is rather famous for pushing all that up the wazoo. Then there is the whole wedding merchandising industry, diamonds being a big part of that.

I take them as valuable in themselves for their significant attributes, but that culture pumps that up royally.

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@Thomas,

That is an interesting hope. I have two responses.

1. Modern science starts with a process. We have defined a system of determining (or defining) what is right and wrong. We then accept whatever the process yields. We didn't start with anything close to our modern understanding of science (Aristotle for example was completely wrong and Galileo and Darwin and Einstein were completely unimaginable before the process led there).

If you want a similar thing to ethics, it would be a process that would likely end up with different results then you are expecting. It seems like you are starting the wrong way around. You have ideas about ethics before you have defined this process and you are expecting the process to validate (rather than form) your ideas.

Before the modern scientific process was shown to be so desirable for developing cures and weapons and flying machines what was known as 'science' was really just a another name for 'religion'. Without the process of experimentation there is no difference.

2. There are plenty of human endeavors that we understand as being culturally specific. Linguistics is an interesting example... actually I think linguistics is a very good analog to morality, there are human tendencies that are manifest in very different ways (and no one ever classifies a human language as being incorrect).

Then there is art and music and religion. All of these built on human traits, but are manifest in very different ways between different cultures. Again no one looks at the art or musical ideas of any culture and decides they are 'incorrect'.

I think math and science are unique in that we understand ideas as 'correct' or 'incorrect' across cultural boundaries.

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@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

I believe that empathy has a genetic basis in mammals . . . .

You mean (shudder) conscience?

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Quote:

What is moral relativism?

It’s the inability or unwillingness to make moral judgments about right and wrong, to be able to point to ultimate truth, believe in it and allow it to guide your life and behavior.

Quote:

Where does this kind of thinking lead in practical terms?

You can get arrested for expired tags on your car or truck but not for being in the country illegally.

You will need your parent’s signature to get an aspirin or go on a school field trip but not to get an abortion.
An 80-year-old nun traveling by air will be strip-searched by a TSA employee who is a Muslim woman in a burqa.
How do you deal with a $16 trillion debt problem? By borrowing more money.
Six-year-old boys can be suspended from school for playing cowboys and Indians with make-believe guns and bows.
Kids in school are suspended for sexually harassing classmates while they learn about how to perform “safe” sex without emotional or physical consequences.
The Supreme Court of the United States can rule that lower courts cannot display the Ten Commandments while justices sit under a display of the Ten Commandments.
Hard-working Americans are penalized with higher taxes and government intrusion, while unproductive and lazy Americans are rewarded with free cell phones, food stamps, subsidized housing and government checks.
Being self-sufficient is considered a threat to the government.

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Quote:

You are a pompous ass and morally bankrupt.

I think a person who would say this in their opening argument is a better candidate for being a pompous ass and morally bankrupt.

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@Jpsy,

Quote:

I think a person who would say this in their opening argument is a better candidate for being a pompous ass and morally bankrupt.

Apparently you have not read many of Maxs' posts. The arrogance he displays is lock step with every other loser scared to make any sort of decision about clearly immoral activities. And in that way cover their asses in the shroud of apathetic indecision. Join the club, almost everyone belongs.

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@coldjoint,

For the record, I started this thread because I was standing up to ColdJoint's immoral bigotry on another thread and Thomas questioned whether this was inconsistent with moral relativism.

Clearly I feel very strongly that immoral bigotry must be confronted.

What I love the most about ColdJoint is his continual unintentional irony.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

immoral bigotry

You are a moral relative kind of guy so how would you know what is immoral?

Or for the matter anything?

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@coldjoint,

Have you been reading this thread? Or, are you just here to flirt with me? You have been working out, haven't you?

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

Have you been reading this thread? Or, are you just here to flirt with me? You have been working out, haven't you?

Answer the question. how do you know what is immoral? You can't help being an asshole, you have already made that clear.

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@coldjoint,

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@maxdancona,

Answer the question Blowhole, please elaborate on the **** you have posted in this thread.

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@coldjoint,

There is three pages and a video that completely explain it to anyone with any intelligence. If you can't get it from what is already here, then you should just give it up.

Besides we both know that you are just here to flirt with me, Sweet Cheeks.

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@maxdancona,

You have explained nothing if you can't answer a simple question.

Get over yourself.

Not to mention you have not answered one question about Islam, and leave the thread when I ask one. Another big mouth with nothing to back it up but name calling and arrogant humorless comments.

Like I said a pompous and stupid blowhole.

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@neologist,

Quote:

rosborne979 wrote:
I believe that empathy has a genetic basis in mammals . . . .
You mean (shudder) conscience?

No, I believe he means empathy. We are all born (with maybe the rare exception of psychopaths) with the ability to empathize with other humans and even animals. If you were watching a video of an animal or person being beaten to death, you would cringe and be horrified because you are able to understand, and, in a way, feel what they are going through.

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Back in the 1960's, after many a young person took his first course in psychology, it was realized that much of one's obsessive nature about exactness of this or that reflected early potty training routines. Meaning, perfectionism in whatever was just anally fixated behavior, due to rigid toilet training.

Somehow, the intensity of this thread seems to reflect a certain anally fixated component, in my opinion. How many of the posters on this thread are habitually constipated? More fiber might allow for a greater acceptance of another person's moral code?

1 Reply

Moral Relativity: Where moral values come from?

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