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Author Topic:   A critique of moral relativism
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 10 of 219 (411116)
07-18-2007 11:59 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Hyroglyphx
07-18-2007 7:14 PM


Re: Answering Jazzns from another thread
Did it ever occur to though that by doing so, you are supplanting one absolute in the stead of another, and inadvertently end up in the same place?
Perhaps it is an absolute and perhaps is not. It is unclear. I feel we can use it in this circumstance because we have evidence that it has been tried and worked in others.
Consent is not (necessarily) some mystical pillar of some larger absolute framework. It just simply is evidently useful for structuring successful societies.
The real take home point of my last few tries expressing that idea is that notion of evidence. It may very well be that the very evidence is manifest because of an absolute, but that would have to be demonstrated not just claimed.
As well, I have given you numerous instances where, whether consent exists or not, doesn't remove the moral issue.
As much as I would like to keep the discussion in general terms, I think it is important to address your examples since you have raised them more than once now.
I think the main issues with the case of sleeping with your step-mother would have to do with additional external conditions that are pertinent to THIS circumstances that are not necessarily so with regards to a comparison between different types of sexuality. One that comes to mind immediately would be the simple condition that your step-mother, in order to even be called your step-mother, would have had to agreed to a social contract with your father and would be in breech of that social contract if she slept with you.
Just adding in that ONE external condition, we can conclude that it is at least immoral for her to sleep with you. Other conditions that are seemingly obvious would apply to reach the conclusion that it is also wrong for you to sleep with her. We can enumerate them, but it is sufficient for the purposes of this argument to say that they exist.
Then is it objective by default?
Sure. Why not? If two people are operating from the same external conditions, why could they not both come to the same objective moral conclusion? The issue I think with moral relativism is simply that not everyone operates with the same conditions. In society, we remedy this possible conflict in situations that are relevant to a stable society by penning common conditions into law.
Is murder right or wrong?
You don't need the conditions in order to answer it. And when you reply, should I expect an absolute answer, or a relative one?
Murder has built into it all the conditions you need. From Merriam-Webster:
1. the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought
So yes. Murder is objectively and relativistically wrong. The problem is complicated as it depends on your condition that "crime", "unlawful", and "malice" are wrong. Those MIGHT be absolute in the sense that consent is. But it sill means that murder is relative to those.
Like I said. There very well may be some absolute out there and we may be touching on pieces of it. I think the point to consider is that the absolutes are probably far more basic principles rather than higher level constructs such as "homosexuality is always wrong".
Would you agree that it must have come to be outside of ourselves in order for it to be absolute?
I have my opinion, but I don't think that the question can really be answered objectively. It may be that they are simply inherent properties of our universe akin to the laws of nature.
Well, I believe we have found it. But if you've read what I've recently written, I have no way of proving it. So in this way, we are in agreement.
That is okay with me! I have no problem with someone claiming that they have personally found what they believe to be the absolute morality. I just happen to think that it is highly debatable that it comes from the Bible, or any religion for that matter.
Why can't I question homosexuality on the same moral grounds as beastiality, if its all just relative anyway?
It is all relative but you seem to continually forget that it is relative to "something". You also seem to think that consent is a good thing to fill in as that "something". I just still don't understand the problem of why you seem to continually retreat to outlining the morality without the conditions. Even when those conditions are explicitly a part of BEING a relative moral BY DEFINITION! You cannot have a relative morality without external conditions or else it could not be "relative" TO anything. It just doesn't make any sense.
Why must someone object to that, positing that animal sexuality and human sexuality are two totally different things, but then turn around and cite scientific sources that show that homosexuality exists naturally in the wild?
You are very obviously conflating two different arguments. There is the argument that homosexuality is immoral and there is another argument that homosexuality is unnatural.
It is easy to point to homosexuality in nature to rebut the claim that it is unnatural (we are talking same-species action here). The point where consent is brought into the picture is when you drag up the canard that the morality can't be defined between human-on-animal and human-on-human sex. They are two separate criticisms of homosexuality.
How can someone supplant my position, while foisting the other as a brilliant response, when it inexorably contradicts itself?
I don't see the contradiction because I don't see how the issues are the same. We seem to have had some success taking a step back and looking at some of our terminology here but I think that in order to get your point across you are going to have to phrase it in a different way.
Regardless if it is absolute or derived from evidence like I suggest, we accept consent as a good principle to start with. Do you agree?
Based on that, there is a vivid distinction between homosexuality and bestiality.
Let me try to say it in one more way to try to drive home the point.
Yes, IF you do not consider consent or some other seemingly relevant condition, there is NO justification for differentiating between the two. But nowhere in practical life do we ever ACTUALLY do this. Remember, this all bubbles back up to the claim that homosexuality is immoral. We have real life reasons for dismissing the comparison to bestiality as long as you accept consent. If you happen to believe that consent itself is absolute then I am not going to argue with you about that because I don't think it is a very contentious point. The only thing that matters is that you believe consent is a principle worth honoring however you come to that conclusion.
You cannot both claim that consent is worth honoring in principle (regardless of a relative versus absolute source) and also hold true to the argument that there is no basis for differentiating homosexuality and bestiality.
That is why your comparison is continually being challenged.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by Hyroglyphx, posted 07-18-2007 7:14 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 163 of 219 (413124)
07-27-2007 6:12 PM
Reply to: Message 161 by Hyroglyphx
07-27-2007 3:36 PM


Re: morality is unimportant anyway.
We've been over this multiple times. If laws were not derived by a moral framework, then laws would be completely arbitrary.
Did you replay to my last post in the exchange we are having? I don't recall that you did or else I would have seen an email about it but I discussed a considerable objection to this very idea of yours.
What seems to be pretty obvious is that the basis for our morals/laws are on the foundation of concepts based on evidence. That is where your claim to 'arbitrary' goes right out the window. It is very easy to test to see if arbitrary morals work, when they don't we abandon them in favor of ones that do.
The only thing that is absolute about the morals of any given society is that they have changed over time as you move through the generations. They change based on practicalities and culture shifts that the next generation reveals. If anything, this is the largest piece of evidence against an elucidated absolute standard that you could possibly have.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 161 by Hyroglyphx, posted 07-27-2007 3:36 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
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