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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:20
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Yes, I think everyone who claims this moral code is bullshitting, as I described. It's a code for lawyers and lawyer types only. I don't really think playing devil's advocate is fair unless you proclaim it before you start.
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Firstly, we have established that it is not a moral code, merely an evaluation of the concept itself and (if you buy emotivism) a description of it. Lawyers and lawyer types? So if I told you its my opinion, I don't go around with a belief of right and wrong, what would you say (it is the case of course). Simply because you yourself cannot perceive someone being a relativist does not refute the notion, it just speaks volumes for your understanding of the subject at hand. And as for playing devils advocate, as far as this debate is concerned, ones personal disposition is irrelevant, I fail to see how playing devils advocate is unfair unless you are intent on using ad hominems.
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Same time, same person, same place, same issure, same context.
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Not necessarily.
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Drac, you don't understand what moral relativism is. Just because I cannot say that one moral system is better than another, objectively, doesn't mean that I cannot say that one moral system is better, subjectively. Are the Nazis wrong? Yes, using my basis of morality.
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Well put  . Objectively if you ask the question "were the Nazi's morally wrong" the answer would be 0. Just like if you ask a historian for his point of view regarding the morality of the Norman conquest, it would be 0.
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Moral Relativism states that ALL MORAL SYSTEMS ARE EQUALLY TRUE, objectively.
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No, it states that they are equally worthless, with a validity of 0 outside of context.
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Hence it inevitably leads to Moral Nihilism, because a moral rule that states killing people for fun is good, is just as valid as one that states you should not kill, according to relativism.
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A consequential argument does not defeat a deductive position  . You'll note that ethics and morality are not the same thing... you can deduce a definition of murder of example (ethics) and then morally say whether it is right or wrong. A society is not an unloaded context, there are subjective rules that require it to function, accordingly, relativism is a philosophical position used by people to refute absolutists, encourage tolerance of opinions in society etc and by certain enlightened individuals in their existential view of things. It's not a social concept like Marxism.
Loinburger and Ramo:
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Drachasor
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Originally posted by Whaleboy
No, since relativism does not, unlike your flawed assumption, say that all are equally correct, it says that the moral value is 0. It effectively limits morality to the descriptive individual. |
That's Moral Nihilism; there is no moral truth (not even relative truth).
-Drachasor
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:20
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No it's not wrong, but it's not part of my emotive state so my morality forbids it in most cases.
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Yes or no?
How can something be right, and yet your morality forbids it in most cases?
If I visit you, I shall remember this, and help myself to your stuff. 
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How so? Explain the mechanism for that.
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Disagreement on substance / preference claims.
Some things that to me are substance claims, may be preference to you, and vice versa.
Everyone has something that they will believe is right, or wrong, and it is intellectual suicide to say that you are a relativist.
That's why once you start down the road, you realise that even the statement that, "it is right to be tolerant of those who are different from you," is an absolute statement.
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:20
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Yes or no?
How can something be right, and yet your morality forbids it in most cases?
If I visit you, I shall remember this, and help myself to your stuff.
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 Feel free!! Just stay away from my stash of cheesestrings 
I cannot answer your question, since my argument precludes such simplistic dualisms as "yes" and "no".
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Everyone has something that they will believe is right, or wrong, and it is intellectual suicide to say that you are a relativist.
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Not particularly. The trouble here is that in the West there is no frame of reference considering that all relativists must succumb to elements of human nature. Or maybe not. Consider in the East, something analogous to the Buddhist state of enlightenment. This debate would go rather differently if it were being conducted in Tibet.
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That's why once you start down the road, you realise that even the statement that, "it is right to be tolerant of those who are different from you," is an absolute statement.
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And here was little old me thinking that you'd know better than the pull the relativist paradox on us.... ah well... I'll quote myself from another thread as I'm lazy
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He's trying to use the Relativist paradox to defeat you, not realising that it is defeated on two fronts, one of context and the other leading onto that of essense.
For example, when one says there is "no absolute truth", one is not making an absolute statement, since that would be absurd. All truth as you know it is human truth, experienced. Then, qualified by the subjective perspective of human observation. You cannot mount the argument without resorting to solipcism (that defeats the point anyway) that that human truth is absolute, whereas its quite easy to rattle off reams of arguments to the contrary.
English is troublesome to use here because it is an absolutist language, very much like German. If I could speak French properly my life would be so much easier, but what I am fundamentally saying is that the defeat of the relativist paradox is accomplished by relativism recognising it's own subjectivity. The only implications there are for the nature of the debate in critical terms, and those implications I'm more than happy to advocate (art not war).
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:20
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Whaleboy, if you cut an anchor at night, then the ship will be cast adrift, and will float wherever the currents direct, even if it crashes against the shore.
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In which case, it is being true to the waters at the time and not upsetting it by some psychological attachment to a particular spot on the seabed.
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An anchor on the other hand, in a rising tide, just lets out a longer length of chain.
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But in a storm? 
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Having an anchor keeps you steady when buffeted by outside forces.
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But can't really let the ship go anywhere. If you want to have your debate as a d1ck size contest or an attempt at converting the heathens, then psychological attachment to your opinions is probably a good idea. If you regard the debate as an art, a joust, and your own opinions as, to steal from Shakespeare, "trifles, light as air", then a psychological attachment to your ideas becomes as embarrasing to yourself as that of "believers" is to the rest of us!
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:20
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"...because they are endowed by their Creator, certain unalienable rights..."
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Oh jeez not this crap again 
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Good, so all we have to do now is agree that you believe in the concept of truth. Obviously you do.
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I do?
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If you mean 'never' then I would say you are lying. If you mean 'sometimes' then I could believe that.
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Well I'm human and i'm not always true to my working intellect as it were, as opposed to my hypothetical intellect, but my working intellect as as relativistic as my hypothetical.
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No. I can't perceive that someone can believe that they do not believe. Of course not, because there is nothing wrong with my perceptions or understanding.
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No there isn't, nor did I say there was, but the problem with human perception, even that which is functioning perfectly is that sometimes we cannot perceive certain things and thus assume they cannot be the case. I can assure you that they are but you do not know me, how can you verify that? I certainly cannot unless we speak 1-on-1 however, for the purposes of this debate, I doubt that will be necessary, considering your point is a strawman and does not refute the argument, which, levelled against you, was hypothetical and yet still stands.
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20-10-2004 23:25
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