20-04-2005 05:28									#1
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It seems that pope Benedict said we are expiriencing a dictatorship of relativism.

Isn't relativism = tolerance?

So this guy wants less tolerance?

Or did I get something wrong? Please keep responses to under million words that philosophical debates get

	20-04-2005 05:32									#2
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quote: Originally posted by VetLegion So this guy wants less tolerance?

Probably.


He is the pope, afterall.

	20-04-2005 05:37									#3
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He's right. Relativism is increasingly the default position of many people.

	20-04-2005 05:37									#4
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quote: Originally posted by VetLegion So this guy wants less tolerance?

Yes. Less tolerance of those who do not adhere strictly to the absolute morality of the Lord.

	20-04-2005 05:40									#5
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But relativism doesn't yield tolerance either. Under moral relativism "tolerance" becomes just another one of the relative values.

Relativism only helps conservatives. How ironic.

	20-04-2005 05:51									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon He's right. Relativism is increasingly the default position of many people.

Is this bad?

I can't decide for myself, that's how relative I am

	20-04-2005 06:01									#7
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quote: Is this bad?

Only if force or rhetoric are better ways of persuading people than reason.

	20-04-2005 06:08									#8
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But religious conservatives have a very special meaning for relativism. They mean liberal society, not relativism per se.

Liberal society is not relativist: it holds to a version of the good whereby the best overall outcome is achieved by allowing people freedom to pursue their own vision of the good in limited ways (usually as long as they don't harm others).

The moral principle: "you may do as you like as long as you do not harm others" is adhered to by liberalism as firmly as any absolutist pronouncement of the church.

Hence there is nothing wrong in liberalism with compelling the intolerant to mind their own business.

What the religious don't like is that it virtually bans religious lawmaking, since most of the things that religious morality deals with are matters of private choice under liberalism.

Hence they fallaciously try to conflate liberalism with an "anything goes" philosophy.

They are helped in this task by many people in contemporary society who falsely regard liberalism as an "anything goes" philosophy.

	20-04-2005 06:46									#9
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Relativism is a postmodern dead-end.... it's no way to hold a society together.... and it's certainly not the creed of Liberals. Holding that all values are valid is one way of saying there are no values. Mind you, there is a correlation between relativism and market values... but it's more of a metaphorical relationship.

Good to see we have a potential reformer in the church

	20-04-2005 06:58									#10
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quote: What the religious don't like is that it virtually bans religious lawmaking, since most of the things that religious morality deals with are matters of private choice under liberalism.

Indeed. Liberals adhere to a pluralist principle of social organisation, which means they adhere to a certain level of religious and cultural relativism.... but this is symptomatic of their overriding ethical principles and values rather than a descent into the kind of pure relativism that conservatives rail against. Liberals have limits to tolerance as well... they're just a bit more... liberal

You'll probably find more relativists at a realpolitik convention than a liberal one... because it opens the door for the legitimacy of nothing but pure power.

	20-04-2005 07:00									#11
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Ratzinger (I’ve gotten used to calling him that, it will take a while before I can call him Pope Benedict XVI) intends to free us from the ‘dictatorship of relativism’ and replace it with the ‘dictatorship of absolutism’.

	20-04-2005 07:24									#12
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quote: You'll probably find more relativists at a realpolitik convention than a liberal one... because it opens the door for the legitimacy of nothing but pure power.

Yep.

It's also why religious people are at war with society. Liberalism cannot tolerate their intolerance on a conceptual level, although in practice we often manage to fudge it. With the way things are now it's my contention that it's suppression time.

They have to be told they are wrong, and that they have no rights that transcend liberalism.

	20-04-2005 08:55									#13
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quote: You'll probably find more relativists at a realpolitik convention than a liberal one... because it opens the door for the legitimacy of nothing but pure power.

I dunno... you'll find a lot of cultural relativists on college campuses, railing against the destruction of local cultures and practices, even if they, themselves, would hate to have that practice be a part of their own culture.

	20-04-2005 08:55									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon But religious conservatives have a very special meaning for relativism. They mean liberal society, not relativism per se. Liberal society is not relativist: it holds to a version of the good whereby the best overall outcome is achieved by allowing people freedom to pursue their own vision of the good in limited ways (usually as long as they don't harm others). The moral principle: "you may do as you like as long as you do not harm others" is adhered to by liberalism as firmly as any absolutist pronouncement of the church. Hence there is nothing wrong in liberalism with compelling the intolerant to mind their own business. What the religious don't like is that it virtually bans religious lawmaking, since most of the things that religious morality deals with are matters of private choice under liberalism. Hence they fallaciously try to conflate liberalism with an "anything goes" philosophy. They are helped in this task by many people in contemporary society who falsely regard liberalism as an "anything goes" philosophy.

	20-04-2005 09:03									#15
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I don't know anyone who believes all moral values are equal. I've never heard anyone advocate that idea either other then one far out poster here at poly. I think what he's rail against is everyone who doesn't agree with his values.

	20-04-2005 09:07									#16
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Well, of course silly. That was his job.

	20-04-2005 09:11									#17
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Then he should simply say that rather then trying to claim there are hordes of people trying to convince John Q Public to be a moral relativist.

This isn't about other people saying there are no values in the world. It's about people disagreeing upon which values are best. He's distorting what people are saying.

	20-04-2005 09:14									#18
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quote: I don't know anyone who believes all moral values are equal. I've never heard anyone advocate that idea either other then one far out poster here at poly.

Who's that?

Many posters on these boards (well, many being like 10, abouts) have articulated the idea that all moral values are inherantly equal. That doesn't preclude each individual from structuring moral values according to his own whims... the moral relativist just realizes that the hierachy is based on personal preference and not any absolute fact.

And stuff.

	20-04-2005 09:53									#19
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Pure relativism is essentially an abstract concept. In real life, people who reject the need for and the validity of a governing communitarian principle are sociopathic.

	20-04-2005 10:00									#20
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quote: Pure relativism is essentially an abstract concept.

Which is what most people who argue against relativists on this board don't understand. Even after it is pointed out that relativists may have their own beliefs on which morality is better, as long as they realize that, in the abstract, no moral principal is inherantly better than any other.

Sometimes I wonder about those who argue against relativists and think it is an "AH HA" moment when one says he, personally, prefers one form of morality to another... even after the explaination that that is based mostly on society and environmental reason.

	20-04-2005 10:02									#21
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quote: I don't know anyone who believes all moral values are equal. I've never heard anyone advocate that idea either other then one far out poster here at poly. I think what he's rail against is everyone who doesn't agree with his values.

I do, and I have created a fictional religion (Rather, my spiritual beliefs combined with fiction) based on this.


Moral relativism can still be considered a truth without having to be believed in, you know. Even if moral relativism is true (Which I believe is so), that doesn't prevent people from being intolerant, or force people to become tolerant. Indeed my own beliefs say that you should be what you are, rather than try to accept everyone's own beliefs.

Thus it is a compromise between relativism and absolutism. A cop out? Maybe, but I believe that moral corruption is a far worse sin than straying from moral absolutism (the normal definition of sin)

	20-04-2005 10:42									#22
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WTF does a 'dictatorship' of relativism look like?

The terrible oppression of not being able to oppress and indoctrinate?

Cry me a river.

I think that crying about a 'Dictatorship' from someone who should know better just caused thousands of reasonable people around the world to phone up their 'gives a ****' repairman and tell him to get off his ass.

	20-04-2005 12:47									#23
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A relativist society, in reality, would certainly be predisposed to dictatorship.

Liberal Democratic societies are democratic not merely because they are tolerant of diverse cultures, classes, individuals and religions, but because they enshrine the rights and responsibilities of these elements constitutionally (in the UK we can assume tradition, convention and the body of law to be a constitution). The constitution thus constitutes a non-relative value that protects the relativity of other values, provided they don't conflict with the values constitutionally enshrined. Thus final power and authority rest in the constitution as an arbiter, or a gold standard. So to say that liberal-democratic societies are relativistic is misguided.

A relativistic society, in the absence of an overriding principle or constitution, would resemble Thraymachus' conception of justice; being that justice is the "will of the strongest". Relativism does not prevent intolerance, it lends heart to naked power, which practically becomes the sole determinant of value. We could argue of course, that this principle exists regardless of whether we take on a relativist point of view... which I guess is a tragic conundrum.

	20-04-2005 13:46									#24
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Wouldn't moral relativism result in a form of anarchism considering that it means that each persons morality is valid?

	20-04-2005 16:01									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Seeker WTF does a 'dictatorship' of relativism look like?

Like the Catholic Church deliberately shielding fugitives from justice after WWII- and setting them up with retirement homes in French monasteries.

Or concealing the crimes of child-sex abusers from the civil authorities, and worse- allowing them to move from one parish to another and continue to molest children.


And hiding those wanted in connection with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Rwanda and Burundi.

Because of course, Holy Mother Church knows best- paedophilia and genocide and torture are all relative, when the perpetrators are members of the Croatian Ustasha, Vichy Regime, Nazi Party or Rwandan priests and nuns.

	20-04-2005 17:58									#26
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quote: A relativistic society, in the absence of an overriding principle or constitution, would resemble Thraymachus' conception of justice; being that justice is the "will of the strongest".

Except for the fact that the "will of the strongest" is how things work in non relativistic societies today... or do you think that minorities have any power beyond what the power brokers have granted them so they don't 'rock the boat'?

	20-04-2005 18:30									#27
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Hm, so would you say we live in relativistic societies? I agree with Dracon insofar that even "open" societies have certain general, non-relativistic principles in form of a constitution or something similar.

	20-04-2005 18:33									#28
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quote: Originally posted by BeBro Hm, so would you say we live in relativistic societies? I agree with Dracon insofar that even "open" societies have certain general, non-relativistic principles in form of a constitution or something similar.

No. That's my point. Even in these non-relativist societies the will of the stronger wins out. For all the talk about principles... power wins. Absolute morality, btw, has been the greater perpetuater of the will of the stronger. After all, who writes the absolute morality?

Though plenty of societies realize some of this and have moved more relativistically over the last century.

	20-04-2005 18:35									#29
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Relativism maybe one of the few negatives of postmodernism. But compared to the children of modernism (nazism, islamic fudnamentalism, free markets) it's not such a big negative..

	20-04-2005 19:13									#30
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui Except for the fact that the "will of the strongest" is how things work in non relativistic societies today... or do you think that minorities have any power beyond what the power brokers have granted them so they don't 'rock the boat'?

I refer to this:

quote: We could argue of course, that this principle exists regardless of whether we take on a relativist point of view... which I guess is a tragic conundrum.

Tragic in that we have to choose between beautiful illusion and naked reality.