What the Hell is Moral Relativism?

AmateurScientist said:
Inherent in the criticism of "moral relativism" is the contrasting notion of moral absolutes. Indeed, Christian fundamentalists and others often use the term "absolute" to refer to the Word of God. Thus, God's laws are absolutes. His proscriptions against certain behaviors are not to be examined in context. They mean what they say. Murder is always wrong. Adultery is always wrong.
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And the only reason murder and adultery are wrong, in such a view, is because of God's personal dislike of them. If God changed his mind and announced to the faithful tomorrow "Hey! Murder all your children!" that would be the new absolute moral value and the right thing to do. Actions have no moral value in themselves, it's just how God feels about them that assigns them moral value.
 
TragicMonkey said:
And the only reason murder and adultery are wrong, in such a view, is because of God's personal dislike of them. If God changed his mind and announced to the faithful tomorrow "Hey! Murder all your children!" that would be the new absolute moral value and the right thing to do. Actions have no moral value in themselves, it's just how God feels about them that assigns them moral value.
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I'd say ancient views of morality were a bit more complex than that, interestingly. Many as I understand it thought of being "moral" as being a personal attribute, much like we would say someone is "smart", and it didn't have as much to do with the consequences of your actions. Rather, it was more about acting in a way that was appropriate for a human being, derived from being created in God's image. So God's commands were thought of as being a bit more profound than his whims, and as we can see in Job for instance, they thought of being moral as important in more senses than whether it resulted in God rewarding/punishing you.
 
TubbaBlubba said:
I'd say ancient views of morality were a bit more complex than that, interestingly. Many as I understand it thought of being "moral" as being a personal attribute, much like we would say someone is "smart", and it didn't have as much to do with the consequences of your actions. Rather, it was more about acting in a way that was appropriate for a human being, derived from being created in God's image. So God's commands were thought of as being a bit more profound than his whims, and as we can see in Job for instance, they thought of being moral as important in more senses than whether it resulted in God rewarding/punishing you.
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Abraham was going to murder Isaac because God told him to. A truly moral person would have defied God for giving an immoral command.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Abraham was going to murder Isaac because God told him to. A truly moral person would have defied God for giving an immoral command.
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Well, it is an interesting and later hotly debated story (Gen 15:4 - 6):
4 Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” 5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring[d] be.”

6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
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15:6 in particular. Abraham believed (trusted) the lord, and this was a righteous thing to do. But did mere belief justify him, or was it the implicit willingness to carry out God's commands that did? This was a really big deal for Luther in his discussion of Paul and James.

Personally I think the point of the story, and what makes it powerful, is precisely that sacrificing your child is such an abhorrent thing to do. But Abraham trusted God's promise to him so much that he was willing to carry his commands out, in perfect belief that this was for the best. So it wasn't moral because God commanded it per se, but because Abraham had faith in the ultimate righteousness of God's commands.
 
marplots said:
It's not just about religion though, it's about thinking there is an objective, discoverable right and wrong. Someone can be a moral absolutist and hold that science can answer moral questions, so long as they think there are unique answers to be had.
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Can you cite any moral absolute?
 
TubbaBlubba said:
Well, it is an interesting and later hotly debated story (Gen 15:4 - 6):

15:6 in particular. Abraham believed (trusted) the lord, and this was a righteous thing to do. But did mere belief justify him, or was it the implicit willingness to carry out God's commands that did? This was a really big deal for Luther in his discussion of Paul and James.

Personally I think the point of the story, and what makes it powerful, is precisely that sacrificing your child is such an abhorrent thing to do. But Abraham trusted God's promise to him so much that he was willing to carry his commands out, in perfect belief that this was for the best. So it wasn't moral because God commanded it per se, but because Abraham had faith in the ultimate righteousness of God's commands.
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By that standard Hitler was right to do the Holocaust because it was such an abhorrent thing to do.
 
Loss Leader said:
Why is it necessarily moral to not kill one's children?
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They won't be there when you get old, besides you took all the time and effort to raise them, should have drowned them at birth.

According to god there's nothing wrong with killing kids that are disobedient or mock old men.
 
AmateurScientist said:
If I didn't make this clear, the term "moral relativism" is pejorative. It was created by Christian apologists as a criticism of what they see as secular values. They believe morals cannot exist without God. Therefore, to them, persons who attempt to define morality outside of a Biblical construct are engaged in moral relativism. ...
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That explains this gross misstatement about evolution:
Evolution and moral relativism go hand-in-hand, for evolution teaches that life is accidental, without meaning or purpose. Therefore, anything you do is OK, because it ultimately doesn't matter.
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:rolleyes:
 
Loss Leader said:
Why is it necessarily moral to not kill one's children?
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Because morality is guided by an emotional drive that evolved biologically in our brains.

Unless you think it's the alternative, magical morality pixie dust? ;)
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Because morality is guided by an emotional drive that evolved biologically in our brains.

Unless you think it's the alternative, magical morality pixie dust? ;)
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So, then, what we call morality is actually a set of vague biological drives to propagate. I have no problem with this. However, it does make a lot of "immoral" things moral. Adultery and war both evolved to keep one's gene's alive.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Because morality is guided by an emotional drive that evolved biologically in our brains.
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That may be correct, but it's not very explanatory. I could say the same thing about musicality, or, if I were a believer, use it to say, "God made us this way, to appreciate His laws."
 
Loss Leader said:
So, then, what we call morality is actually a set of vague biological drives to propagate. I have no problem with this. However, it does make a lot of "immoral" things moral. Adultery and war both evolved to keep one's gene's alive.
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The sense of fairness and the sense of right and wrong are not vague. They result in a collective range of morality with a cultural overlay when you look at whole populations. That doesn't make moral thinking vague.

And explaining evolution as only the survival of the fittest is no longer adequate for understanding evolution.

We can observe morally-based decisions and behaviors in non-human primates and even in some other animal species. We can observe the effect specific kinds of brain damage has on moral behavior and thinking. We can observe moral behaviors in children when they reach a certain age unrelated to learning. For example a five yr old is reluctant to break a moral rule like not hitting a puppy when told to break that rule, while they have no problem being told to break an arbitrary rule like not eating in the classroom.

As for evolution and adultery, I'm not sure how you are arguing adultery keeps one's genes alive. Monogamy has evolved in many species. Why would you assume men propagating more offspring means those offspring will survive if there is not sense of responsibility to raise those kids? And why wouldn't evolving to value a permanent life partner or at least serial monogamy be beneficial? STDs are another reason monogamy might be preferable from a survival of the fittest POV.

I don't understand your argument about war either. We obviously have them. I think there's a point where we ought to be able to, as a species, survive without war. Again, there are some complex mechanisms involved in evolution, so the evolution of the morality of war and of moving away from war is going to be very difficult to explain as simple easily understood morality mechanisms.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
As for evolution and adultery, I'm not sure how you are arguing adultery keeps one's genes alive.
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Infidelity among females appears to be biologically driven. Women have a vested interest in mating with the strongest males but in pair-bonding with the most caring. This is observed in our primate relatives and seems to hold true for humans.


I don't understand your argument about war either. We obviously have them. I think there's a point where we ought to be able to, as a species, survive without war.
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I think to an extent you are deciding what you think is moral and then trying to retcon evolution into it. A strong distrust of strangers, a favoritism for family, and a desire to kill anyone or anything who competes for resources is deeply encoded into our genes. If morality is whatever is evolutionarily advantageous, that includes (for humans) a strong desire to kill.
 
Loss Leader said:
Infidelity among females appears to be biologically driven. Women have a vested interest in mating with the strongest males but in pair-bonding with the most caring. This is observed in our primate relatives and seems to hold true for humans.
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So given adultery is common, what's the contradiction? Society has an interest in marriage contracts, actual morality re adultery differs and there is individual variation. I don't see any biological contradiction if you keep natural complexity in mind.


Loss Leader said:
I think to an extent you are deciding what you think is moral and then trying to retcon evolution into it. A strong distrust of strangers, a favoritism for family, and a desire to kill anyone or anything who competes for resources is deeply encoded into our genes. If morality is whatever is evolutionarily advantageous, that includes (for humans) a strong desire to kill.
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No, no, no, no. In research on animal moral decisions and behaviors, they are described and observed, there's no value attached to those observations.

First off, looking across a broad section of species one sees all sorts behaviors regarding killing. There's no evidence a strong desire to kill is always advantageous in evolution.

Start with what we observe: the majority of humans have an inhibition against killing other humans. To claim something else offers an evolutionary advantage ignores what is observed.

And I don't agree with the degree gene encoding for favoring the family as you describe it. Yes, it is observed and can sometimes result in extreme behavior like genocide. But not always. Genocide is hardly the norm. And I wouldn't say racism was the norm but I'd be willing to change that view if I saw evidence it was. Just because there is a cultural overlay doesn't mean there isn't a natural core of morality built into the brain the same way other emotions are.
 
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