No need to apologize. When I started the thread I wasn't even sure that I could post past that day. So my main intent was to point out that interesting item to provoke discussion of some kind. Where it went, I didn't really care.
For myself, I thought it was ironic how these two guys were mirroring commentary thrown at me by more than a few self-professed "liberals" and "enlightened" people at EvC. Relativists seem to catch more hate these days than atheists or gays. I just got done watching a clip from Hirsi Ali cheering the end of multiculturalism, with all these supposed free thinkers supporting her. Diversity sucks? Man I can't seem to get a break on anything I believe!
So I wanted, if one would dare, an explanation of how exactly relativism leads to such catastrophic lack of freedom. It seems as ridiculous a claim as evolutionary theory or atheism leads to the holocaust.
I think you just gave a pretty good break down of the issue overall. Not all absolutists would necessarily be able, or desire, to impose an absolute, even if they feel one exists. Likewise relativists can feel passionate about their morality, even while recognizing its arbitrary nature, and might even try to impose it.
My only thought is that in general, I think the tendency is for one group to do more imposing than another. This is especially true when using the state as an instrument of moral guidance/enforcement.
I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I'd agree the founders of the Constitution had that problem in mind. I don't seem to get much support around here when I point out that majorities shift, which is why we don't grant powers to the state to meddle in personal affairs. It cannot solve all our problems, and can screw things up. You'd think going from Reagan, to Clinton, to Bush Jr would give some people pause in handing a "saviour of children" role to the state. Or at the very least blunt criticisms of my position as mere paranoia.
Yet I would still intervene if I saw someone attacking someone else on the street -- knowing that the attacker's moral sense that he's completely justified in his attack is no better or no worse than the victim's moral sense that the attack is unwarranted or my sense that this is wrong.
Agreed. I think detractors might go beyond the charge of apathy (which is what you set out), to also suggest a relativist might join in with the attacker if he felt that would be the bigger thrill.
I know Bush Jr began his presidency announcing how people should stop using a "if it feels good, do it" motto. I believe this was a stab at relativism in a sense, perhaps as he envisions it. If there is no real good, then what is one left with but vicarious thrills?
I would still not refrain from putting some restrictions on what can occur even in peoples' private homes, or from advocating universal standards of international justice and human rights.
Well maybe we have the material for an argument between us. I still have a very strong concept of a wall between morality and legality. The founders had the idea of a wall between church and state, and to them church was synonymous with morality.
While I agree that some restrictions will come into play (even in people's homes), I am not swayed by any moral arguments. To my mind it has to come down to protections of individual rights. Kind of like the walls of a person's home are not made of lead, when the issue is individual rights.
Of course this is where children become a big sticky issue. While they are individuals and so should have "equal" rights in theory, in practice they don't and never have. In reality someone has to shape their lives and concepts about the world. Someone has to make decisions for them. I feel that handing that control to the parents, rather than to the state, is the only real way to preserve individual rights. Harm might very well come from that, but then it is limited to the errors of two individuals on a single child (or set of children), rather than the majority over all children.
In an extension from this, while I am willing to fight for international rights, that stands for rights of nations within the international community, and not a standard of rights all nations must accept with respect to their own citizens.
Going for a universal code, moral or legal, which binds all citizens equally, just makes no sense to me. It appears to me a recipe for greater conflict as new groups rise to power to impose the new universal concept. That is of course a brief description of human civilization up till now, and I'd like to think we can learn a lesson from it. I think we will do better as a species when we can put in mechanisms (ideological or legal) to get the majority to relax and not take advantage of its power.
I think allowing for legal diversity among nations is a pressure release valve for the international community, just as allowing for cultural diversity is a pressure release valve for citizens within democratic-republic nations.
Humans have always been diverse and resist singular lifestyles. In fact, that is a characteristic of life itself. Always in change. Just as I don't think we should attempt to craft one single kind of spider to replace all spiderkind, we should not be trying to make one kind of human or human society. It'll be a mess in the end.
This is where legal relativism is most valuable, creating an atmosphere of tolerance. And within that, a nation will fight to protect its own way of doing things. It just won't clobber another into accepting the same (internal) legal system.
Of course my moral and legal theories ARE superior to everyone else's and should be imposed... right now!
Ok, I should note that this is likely my last post for a while. I just got some good news (I think) and so will be pretty busy from now on, like I thought I was going to be already (when unfortunately some things feel through). I can pop in from time to time. But that might be a bit... before I post anyway.
Glad to have made one of my last posts to you. Always a pleasure. Talk with you later (assuming I don't get more changes in plans and am back tomorrow).
Edited by Silent H, : brief history
h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard
™ Version 4.2