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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Whaleboy
quote:
That's Moral Nihilism; there is no moral truth (not even relative truth). |
Yet I am allowing for relative (subjective) truth to the individual. Ask me the question "Was the holocaust morally wrong" and I say:
"Of myself and subjective, the truth is that it was wrong, but objectively, not of myself, it was morally 0." |
And you have to say "no, it wasn't wrong (nor right)" or you are being a hypocrit. You can say you don't approve of it, you can say you personally don't like it, but you can't say it was morally wrong.
Moral Relativism implies Moral Nihilism (and vice versa). That means that there are no moral truths, and you "feeling" differently is a feeling, perhaps a desire, but it is not true. You subjectively have a sense of what ought to be right and what ought to be wrong, but according to Moral Relativism those feelings are false for there is nothing right and there is nothing wrong. All actions have equal moral worth. Moral Relativism might try to start with it in the subjective, but it implies an objective truth (if you accept the premise).
You can see you feel like it wasn't right, but that you know that it wasn't wrong or right. There is no "subjective truth" here, the truth is that you feel it was wrong, but that you know it wasn't wrong (or right), because your acceptance of Moral Relativism tells you that all of your feelings about moral truth are in fact incorrect, and if you hold on to them you are holding on to fantasies. There is nothing wrong, there is nothing right, there are only actions. That's where Moral Relativism leads.
-Drachasor
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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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quote:
And you have to say "no, it wasn't wrong (nor right)" or you are being a hypocrit. You can say you don't approve of it, you can say you personally don't like it, but you can't say it was morally wrong.
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That's simplistic "duotonic" thinking. I give you 2+2, the obvious answer is 4, a number to which you attach moral value. I give you 2+3 and you still say four. It's a poor analogy since it is deductive but I believe it adequately shows what I mean by context. It is not hypocritical to suppose two different answers in different contexts, or a moral value in one, and a moral value of 0 in another where there is nothing to judge otherwise. Never forget of course that hypocrisy only occurs if one contradicts oneself in context.
If I may say so, the "hypocrite" strawman is always used by either those who feel they are losing the debate (once their big guns have been exhausted) or those with little understanding of relativism. I suspect you are the latter so I would recommend that you go back and read the posts in this grotesquely large thread, paying specific attention to my use of the word "context", as well as emotivism, objectivism, subjectivism, Hume's is-ought gap, as well as studying the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions, since you're argument seems to be demonstrating a lack of knowledge of those too... whether or not you are aware of that or are well read in those fields is another matter, I'm simply going on what I am reading.
quote:
All actions have equal moral worth. Moral Relativism might try to start with it in the subjective, but it implies an objective truth (if you accept the premise).
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Not at all... read what I said earlier regarding my refutation of the relativist paradox. Moral relativism implies no objective truth since it is simply making a statement about the conditions of subjectives... as such it is itself descriptive and not prescriptive. Your key error is your strawman that relativism implies "all actions have equal moral worth". They do not. Relativism implies that they have no moral worth.
The best way I can illustrate that difference is thus... if I give you a briefcase with one million pounds in it, you're going to be a rather happy chap. That is, if I give you it in the UK. If I plant you on an unpopulated desert island on your own with no hope of rescue until long afer your bones are dust, and then give you a briefcase with one million pounds, what have I just given you? A lump of card, leather and 50'000 pieces of paper with £20 written on them. Worthless. That all moral statements objectively has an equal moral value is just a consequence of the fact that they are worthless. It is rather like dividing 0 by an integer. As to the objective truth of that statement, read my post regarding the relativist paradox.
quote:
because your acceptance of Moral Relativism tells you that all of your feelings about moral truth are in fact incorrect,
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Again you strawman. Moral relativism tells me that in a context I am not in, my moral views are worthless. Relativism allows for subjectivism, which by definition allows for my truth, internal to me as a system... just as 4 is true to 2+2.
quote:
There is nothing wrong, there is nothing right, there are only actions. That's where Moral Relativism leads.
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As far as the birds and the big guy upstairs is concerned, correct. As far as you or I, as conscious beings capable of judgement and emotion, that is not the case. It just means the morality is not transferable... in the sense that we cannot communicate the "feeling" of the colour red, as opposed to its properties which we can. The epistemological equivalent of moral relativism I suppose in some respects would be representative realism, which should help to clarify matters.
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Imran Siddiqui
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The Potterverse
Jan 1970
time: 00:20
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quote:
Moral Relativism implies Moral Nihilism (and vice versa). |
Not true. Moral Nihilism is a form of Moral Relativism (and not vice-versa). Moral Relativists believe each morality is equally value objectively (which is totally different from our subjective views). Moral Nihilists believe that each morality has no value. HOWEVER, not every Moral Relativist believes that morality has no value. A Moral Relativist can say that morality is important (for example in holding together a society), but the morality of one society is no better intrinsicly than that of another society.
Just because there is no absolute truth doesn't mean that all morality is false. Like loin said, you are falling into two tone thinking. It is more complex than that. Like the ice cream example, saying that vanilla is not absolutely the best flavor (even though your taste buds say so) does not mean that you think vanilla ice cream has no value.
I'd put it more on a 1-10 scale. There are some who think that their moral truth is absolutely correct and all else are ridiculous, therefore they have a 10 for theirs and 1 for everyone else. There are those more tolerant, who think their morality is the best, but that others have a point and a basis for their beliefs which would mean their morality is 7 and everyone else's is 4, 3, 2, etc.
Moral relativists believe everyone is at 5 (for example), while Moral nihilists believe everyone is at 0.
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Drachasor
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Everything can be put into a binary logic system.
One either believes there is such a thing as absolute moral value, or one does not. Belief in that can mean many things, but at the core the person believes there is at least one thing for which absolute moral value exists.
On the other hand, Relativists do not believe anything has an absolute moral value. They claim that all things are "equally valid." That one moral view is no better than another.
However, by proposing that one moral view is not better than another, one is necessarily led to the conclusion that there is no moral value, objectively speaking, and any sense of moral value is, in fact, illusionary. Heck, is basically the the core of relativism. You might *dislike* a particular moral view, but you cannot say yours is better in any objective sense because the two are "just as good" according to relativism.
If every moral system is "just as good" *because* there is no objective morality. Moral Nihilism simply is saying that because there is no objective morality, it is pure foolishness to believe in morality.
Subjective, in its core, means that it only exists in your mind. Your feelings and the like are subjective, your dislike a moral system, as a Moral Relativist, is inherently subjective. All objective sense tells you that there is no basis for morality, all objective, all rational sense tells you that any moral beliefs you have are, in rational terms, illusionary, fictional, baseless.
This is not like ice cream, for moral systems are supposed to tell you how you ought to act; ice cream and food does not. Moral Relativism must inherntly lead one to knowing that there is no rational basis for any moral system, that all are equal, that imposing your morality on someone else is no more rational than imposing the food you like to eat on someone else.
And, to be more accurate and precise than I have been, Moral Relativism and Moral Nihilism lead one to the conclusion that there is no such thing as true moral acts. Nothing can be assigned a moral value at all; there is no moral value of "0" anything else. Sure, subjectively you can assign a value, but that's the same as saying 2+5=4, it might be your "subjective" evaluation, but it is incorrect. As is any Moral Relativist or Nihilist that assigns moral value to anything, at worst they are lying, at best they are engaging in self-deception.*
That and the nebulous pandering of every moral system having "equal value" is probably the worst thing about this bankrupt philosophy. Where it goes wrong is assuming that a code of ethics is merely a list or guideline of behavior when the terms "good" and "bad" inherently imply at least the vague outlines of a goal to that behavior (vague, yes, but enough for some basic moral truths).
-Drachasor
*Hypocrisy is argueable. I would also note that I don't consider hypocrisy too great a wrong, but it is still wrong.
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21-10-2004 02:17
As for your numbers, I'd have said out of 1-10, the moral relativist would be exactly been 0 and infinity 
but hey I'll stop splitting hairs 
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