moral relativism

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

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Peter Holmes
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Peter Holmes »

Suppose, in America, suddenly, magically, no one had a gun or rifle. Would everyone be and feel safer?

Like many countries, America could and should be so much better.
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

Post by henry quirk »

If Payton Gendron wanted a bazooka, found a supplier, met his price, and had his bazooka, he could then have taken that to the supermarket. Or if he wanted grenades or mortar rounds or a tank?
Yep.
The question then becomes in any particular community, state or nation what ought the laws be in regard to buying and selling these military grade weapons to private citizens?
There ought be not one bit of legislation prohibitin' ownership of any property (and if The State were like the dodo, there wouldn't be).
Ought some dictator or philosopher king be permitted to impose his or her own rendition of might makes right, or right makes might?
Nope.
Or, in a democracy, ought private citizens in "owning" themselves existentially and being predisposed to conflicting moral and political prejudices here, be able through elections to put into power politicians more in sync with their own subjective biases(?)
Nope.
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

Post by henry quirk »

I imagine that if private citizens exchanged bazooka rounds, rounds designed to actually penetrate tanks, a lot of folks might end up dead. Or if private citizens were able to buy and sell grenades and 50 caliber machine guns? Same thing. Lots and lots and lots and lots of dead people.
Let's go all out and give folks Davy Crockets: we could really rack up the totals, and irradiate at the same time.

A twofer.
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

Post by henry quirk »

America could and should be so much better.
Absolutely...though, I don't imagine our ideas of so much better jibe.
Peter Holmes
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Peter Holmes »

henry quirk wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 8:19 pm
America could and should be so much better.
Absolutely...though, I don't imagine our ideas of so much better jibe.
For sure.
Eodnhoj7
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

DPMartin wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 6:23 pm
Eodnhoj7 wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 12:28 am
DPMartin wrote: Fri May 06, 2022 3:43 pm
opposition is rebellion, or self defense, or anything of that nature, chaos is understood as no order at all.
Opposition is an absence of order as there is an absence of unity (unity is order).
don't be a putts, the word chaos is used to mean no order at all, instead of opposition which is used for a form of resistance, chaos can be with out opposition. actually opposition is a form of order.
Opposition is an absence of unity and unity is required for order.....
trokanmariel
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Re: moral relativism

Post by trokanmariel »

A moral relativist theme:

From the physics-philosophy reality, that technology people own computation as an aristocracy computer, the pendulum creator has deemed it a non-ironic supernatural, for the snap up of end to end hallway to be a non-sympathetic generator.

What is the end to end hallway, of snap up?
It is sunlight's blueprint. This means that sunlight has created the paradigm of sociology identity using the biology issue of walk from one end to another end to be a 2D version of the face to face parody of living story. Living story is not the presumption of face to face face-off (a Sean Archer/Nicholas Cage theme), however, due to the aforementioned double-possession, of computation as an aristocracy version, in which the double-possession can't be stopped due to one version of the possession being the personification of the computer, this has meant the sunlight rejection of sympathy to biology's (Peek-A-Boo's, Samantha Worzeil's, Mason Dertry's and Infinity's) inability to use the exposure of the end to end walk as a magic sociology value.

Gravitation to body glamour's citation inevitability, relative to written text revelation exposure (the citation identity consisting of emotional pinpoints of matter, that can presumably be a safe symmetry of anti-gravitation to following political dimension after bracket - a Time of Surface reference) may be a mockery of sunlight's philosophical tactic against the double-possession.

The bridging relief, of say internet to internet going for a walk meta juxtaposed with food being a safe creator of ideology-outer space, can be the direction computer's examination of loyalty to theme slot to slot, in Thomas Heath's mind.

Why do I say this?
Symmetry to weakness, for weakness' relief, can be a revelation of inverse to gravitation to body glamour's own ancient, in which the contemporary philosophy of such rivalry is the non-possession of protector of truth (Brad Pitt's Louis being the central user, of protector of truth analysis) weapon against quantity of daylight as a system for storytelling sex vindication over loyalty to all matter styles.

All matter styles: what are they?
One thing's for certain: the relativity angle (a Kurt Angle reference) can't be a universal spread, to all the matter styles (a Trish Stratus overcome of Kurt Angle, due to her body glamour heritage), because of the proof that definitive data exposure storytelling has used the same themes of pattern, namely gravitation to body glamour, left-wing transcendence, writing to page is from sex, daylight as mediator of body glamour and left-wing transcendence to name a few.

Using the list, just created, it is upon one to refer to the new rivalry, between sequence to block logistics by the aristocracy of meta, and the classic theme of spirituality to limitation (an Alan Jonah-Godzilla 2 reference) relative to text details (for example; I can't give any).

Again, I said using the list; to move on

Symmetry to weakness - a Terry Howletrax ethos. Terry is/was supposed to be a deity force, but, over the past two years has been a sideline as mystery. She lives in an estate, which is secluded, and is able to be a relief from tension of symmetry of understanding relative to gravitation to body glamour and left-wing transcendence's arc with daylight. Moreover, the aforementioned relief from tension is an obvious irony, due to her ethos of tension implementation.

I referred before to Time of Surface, who is the real Puppet Master from Ghost in the Shell (1995); doing so, invited the inevitable mathematics as philosophy matter of mockery, because of the non-relation between name and citation-as-location means.
However: the term (my edit, by Lia Haddock from Limetown)/name Time of Surface, of its Time construction, spoke to me the clock as pendulum meta of Terry's reality. Essentially, the name as citation-as-location means machine was able to repeat the histories of past machines, all keeping up with the quantity of daylight abuse for storytelling sex vindication.

Is it possible:
My private humour awareness, of holding deities to scrutiny over computation generation consisting of difference despite the obviousness of the symmetry (this means that text on a computer system, or the text on a BBC program looks identical); could it be a logic of activation relative to name as citation-as-location means activation (for Triple H and Stephanie Mcmahon)?

I would've wanted to finish this arc with Terry's assessment, however, I'll venture instead into 2003's The Recruit, starring Colin Farrell;

The mathematics story, of unification through resistance; along the condition, of weather of the universe being a metaphor for the internal perception machine, of exposure inviting the parody of free all over, the unification between this and my and Farrell's 2003 edition (of course, I have to here give reference to the usual problem of celebrity citation parody), isn't to obstruct, the following analysis:

Rather than 2003 Farrell's negative-inevitability, locating my inevitability-positive, his The Recruit persona can locate me via the war: hidden fun, via conflated imagery, versus name as citation-as-location means Frankenweenie




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DPMartin
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Re: moral relativism

Post by DPMartin »

Eodnhoj7 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 11:49 pm
DPMartin wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 6:23 pm
Eodnhoj7 wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 12:28 am

Opposition is an absence of order as there is an absence of unity (unity is order).
don't be a putts, the word chaos is used to mean no order at all, instead of opposition which is used for a form of resistance, chaos can be with out opposition. actually opposition is a form of order.
Opposition is an absence of unity and unity is required for order.....
the sun's gravity and the earths momentum are not united are they. they are at opposition, hence a form of order.
Eodnhoj7
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

DPMartin wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 6:36 pm
Eodnhoj7 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 11:49 pm
DPMartin wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 6:23 pm

don't be a putts, the word chaos is used to mean no order at all, instead of opposition which is used for a form of resistance, chaos can be with out opposition. actually opposition is a form of order.
Opposition is an absence of unity and unity is required for order.....
the sun's gravity and the earths momentum are not united are they. they are at opposition, hence a form of order.
They are not unified as one thing thus are not a single phenomenon. In pointing to order we point to a single thing: the underlying order of multiple parts; this underlying order of multiple parts is a single event which connects being as one.
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

Post by iambiguous »

David Brooks in the NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/opin ... -wars.html

A commentary on the "one of us" vs. "one of them" morality mentality:

'I’m a fan of FiveThirtyEight, a website that looks at policy issues from a data-heavy perspective, but everyone publishes a clunker once in a while. In February, FiveThirtyEight ran a piece called “Why Democrats Keep Losing Culture Wars.” The core assertion was that Republicans prevail because a lot of Americans are ignorant about issues like abortion and school curriculum, and they believe the lies the right feeds them. The essay had a very heavy “deplorables are idiots” vibe.

'Nate Hochman, writing in the conservative National Review, recognized a hanging curve when he saw one and he walloped the piece. He noted that “all the ‘experts’ that the FiveThirtyEight writers cite in their piece are invested in believing that the progressive worldview is the objective one, and that any deviations from it are the result of irrational or insidious impulses in the electorate.”

'He added: “All this is a perfect example of why the left’s cultural aggression is alienating to so many voters. Progressive elites are plagued by an inability to understand the nature and function of social issues in American life as anything other than a battle between the forces of truth and justice on one side and those of ignorance and bigotry on the other.”'


And, come on, let's be honest: there is an equal and opposite rendition of this from the conservative end of the political spectrum. As though in castigating the liberals for expecting citizens to be "politically correct" about moral/value voter issues, the conservatives don't have their own "my way or the highway" mentality.

'But over the last few decades, as Republicans have been using cultural issues to rally support more and more, Democrats have understood what’s going on less and less. Many progressives have developed an inability to see how good and wise people could be on the other side, a lazy tendency to assume that anybody who’s not a social progressive must be a racist or a misogynist, a tendency to think the culture wars are merely a distraction Republican politicians kick up to divert attention from the real issues, like economics — as if the moral health of society was some trivial sideshow.

Even worse, many progressives have been blind to their own cultural power. Liberals dominate the elite cultural institutions — the universities, much of the mainstream news media, entertainment, many of the big nonprofits — and many do not seem to understand how infuriatingly condescending it looks when they describe their opponents as rubes and bigots.'


Of course, here things do get tricky for some. After all, anyone here who doesn't believe that America mass-produces "rubes and bigots" by the boatloads [along with boatloads more addicted to pop culture, mindless consumption and social media bullshit] isn't paying attention.

Well, of course, if "I" do say so myself. And while liberals may dominate in regard to "cultural institutions", let's not forget that in the news department talk radio along with Fox News are truly powerful forces for spreading the MAGA mentality across the land.

'The fact is the culture wars are not a struggle between the enlightened few and the ignorant and bigoted masses. They are a tension between two legitimate moral traditions. Democrats will never prevail on social issues unless they understand the nature of the struggle.'

Conflicting goods! At the intersection of identity, value judgments and political economy. And the part those like Brooks steer clear of: crony capitalism, the deep state owned and operated by Wall Street and K Street.

'In the hurly-burly of everyday life, very few of us think about systemic moral philosophies. But deep down we are formed by moral ecologies we are raised within or choose, systems of thought and feeling that go back centuries. We may think we are making up our own minds about things, but usually our judgments and moral sentiments are shaped by these long moral traditions.'

Dasein! Rooted in historical and cultural contexts that do indeed go back centuries.

Brooks then goes on in his "essay" to explore all of this rather...academically?

You decide.
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

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Recognizing Moral Identity as a Cultural Construct
Fanli Jia and Tobias Krettenauer at Frontiers In Psychology website
In his article “The new synthesis in moral psychology,” Haidt (2007) expands Shweder’s theory by proposing the Moral Foundations Model. In opposition to rational theories of moral reasoning, he argues that morality is a quick, automatic process that has formed over human evolution. According to Haidt, the five moral foundations are harm, fairness, ingroup, authority, and purity.
That's the thing you can always count on when human morality is examined and then explained "theoretically": models.

And, sure, in many respects they do make sense. We all experience emotions after all; and we all interact with others in which "harm, fairness, ingroup, authority, and purity" can become factors. But who is harming whom given what set of circumstances? Whose prescriptions and proscriptions prevail regarding fairness? Who is in the group and who is out? Does the authority revolve around might makes right, right makes might or democracy and the rule of law? What constitutes purity in a world bursting at the seams with moral conflagrations.

Needless to say the "model" comes up short over and again when the world of words that constitutes a theoretical assessment meets, among other things, daily newspaper headlines.
In an attempt to determine which moral foundation people endorse, several researchers tested the Moral Foundation Model cross-culturally. One study used a cross-cultural sample, which included participants from Eastern cultures (South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia) and participants from Western cultures (US, UK, Canada, and Western Europe). Haidt found that Eastern participants showed stronger concerns about ingroup and purity compared to Western participants and that Eastern participants were also slightly more concerned about authority.
And on and on.

Different cultures, different renditions of the model. Gasp! Some of the differences small, some large. And, no doubt, historically, changing over time. I merely embody just how far this can go when you think yourself into believing that moral foundations themselves are ultimately just agreements that different communities make in regard to "rules of behavior". And that the factors involved in differentiating one community from another go on and on and on in turn.

Far, far too many for philosophers or ethicists to anchor to any particular deontological path...except theoretically. Or by way of championing this transcending font or that transcending font.

After all, look at all of the many conflicting ones championed here.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

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Recognizing Moral Identity as a Cultural Construct
Fanli Jia and Tobias Krettenauer at Frontiers In Psychology website
Moral Identity and Cultural Inclusiveness

Recent research in moral psychology has suggested that one can obtain a fuller understanding of moral action by considering the role of the self in morality, which is often termed “moral identity.” Hardy and Carlo explain that moral identity refers to “the degree to which being a moral person is important to an individual’s identity”. In other words, if individuals feel that moral values such as being honest, compassionate, fair, and generous are central for defining their personal identity, they have a strong moral identity.
Okay, you're a Marxist, a fascist, an anarchist, a Libertarian, a Christian, a nihilist, a Buddhist, a Hindu. And as such you believe that "being a moral person is important to an individual’s identity". You embrace being "honest, compassionate, fair, and generous".

But only in a community that embraces your own religious, ideological or philosophy values. Only in regard to those who are "one of us".

What then?

Welcome to the real world, right?

There's morality in a general sense and morality as it is actually pursued and practiced in a world teeming with conflicting moral and political narratives. Moral action, sure. Practice what you preach. But how exactly do individuals come to preach what they do? You know my trajectory here, what's yours?
While research in this area continues to convince people that moral identity, in Western societies, plays an important part in moral functioning, links between moral identity and non-Western culture remain unclear. For example, Hertz and Krettenauer conducted a meta-analysis to examine the relationship between moral identity and moral action. Their study included 111 articles from a variety of academic journals. In general, they found a positive correlation between moral identity and moral behavior. However, effect sizes varied in those studies. The effect size was much lower in non-Western cultures than in Western cultures. The authors suggest that the low effect size might be due to different conceptualizations of moral identity between cultures or due to the lack of validity of the current moral identity measures in non-Western cultures. These results call the field’s attention to the issue of ‘cultural uniqueness’ and, thus, they stress an urgent need to assess moral identity in non-Western societies as well as Western ones in order to obtain less biased results.
Yes, it seems apparent that different cultures around the world not only subscribe to different moral narratives and political agendas, but subscribe to different understandings of what it means to identity yourself as a moral person.

And, sure, "less biased" results are what should be aimed for in reacting to that which distinguishes a more or less "Western moral identity" from a "non-Western moral identity".

But my challenge remains the same: How are your moral convictions not rooted existentially in the life that you lived, in the culture that you were raised in, in the political prejudices you came to embody as a result of that?

East or West, my points don't go away.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

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Recognizing Moral Identity as a Cultural Construct
Fanli Jia and Tobias Krettenauer at Frontiers In Psychology website
In his book “Identity and The Life Cycle,” Erikson considers the way in which we study identity development. He proposes that, in addition to considering ego and personal identity, we should also incorporate cultural context. This is because while ego and personal identity are intrapersonal context areas that lead us to consider personal characteristics and sense of self, adding the cultural context helps us to expand our understanding by encouraging us to consider categories such as native language, country of origin, and racial background.
Here of course there are those who readily acknowledge that historical and cultural and personal experiences play an important role in the creation of a moral narrative, but that philosophers and ethicists, among others, can take this into account and still devise something in the way of a deontological assessment enabling us to pin down the optimal behaviors. Whether in regard to prescriptions or proscriptions.

Just don't ask them to bring their "theoretical constructs" out into the truly vast and the truly varied worlds that we as individuals might find ourselves born and raised in. In other words, to pin down the optimal behaviors "for all practical purposes".

Instead, the focus remains on the "concept of identity".
Erikson’s concept of identity aims to establish a social-cultural approach that encompasses all elements of the self, which includes the most internal ego conflicts to the individual’s embeddedness in a cultural context. This organization reflects Erikson’s view that lifespan development occurs at the interface of self and culture.

As a result, identity represents a coherent picture that one shows to both oneself and to the outside world. Thus, moral identity research should not only focus on individual levels, but on a cultural level as well. To what extent moral identity is a function of interacting in a specific culture is a major question that has only recently been raised in moral identity research.
Common sense, right? You're born and raised in a particular culture and that culture is crammed into your brain over years and years. Many carry it with them all the way to the grave. But what intrigues me most about concepts like the "interface of self and culture" is when they are taken out into the world and examined given particular contexts. The interface of self and culture in, say, the abortion wars...or regarding the spate of mass shootings here in America. The "self", the "culture" and guns.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

Post by henry quirk »

Cleaning out my drafts folder I found this...

-----
It's always your taproot -- philosophy of life -- isn't it?
Yep. It works for anyone and everyone who tries it. It's the ethic you claimed you were lookin' for.

Of course, it's clear you weren't lookin' for an ethic, but just an excuse.

Bubba, you're the sittin' at a crossroads a'fear'd to choose, resentful cuz other folks can and do.

I gave you an ethic and the factual undergirdin' for that ethic. It hobbles you in only one way: it asks that you recognize your life, liberty, and property are yours and the life, liberty, and property of the other guy are his and that neither of you have any claim on the other's life, liberty, and property.

Practically: it means don't murder, don't slave, don't rape, don't steal.

You reject it cuz such an ethic allows me to own a bazooka and doesn't allow Marty to kill her baby solely cuz he's inconvenient.

You refuse to examine the ethic or its undergirdin' (sumthin' I'm up for) preferrin' instead to analyze me (sumthin' I won't participate in).

The ethic and its undergirdin' are not me: there's no need to probe me to understand them.
-----

...apparently I had a notion for a post, but -- for whatever reason -- I didn't finish.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

henry quirk wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 2:18 am Cleaning out my drafts folder I found this...

-----
It's always your taproot -- philosophy of life -- isn't it?
Yep. It works for anyone and everyone who tries it. It's the ethic you claimed you were lookin' for.

Of course, it's clear you weren't lookin' for an ethic, but just an excuse.

Bubba, you're the sittin' at a crossroads a'fear'd to choose, resentful cuz other folks can and do.

I gave you an ethic and the factual undergirdin' for that ethic. It hobbles you in only one way: it asks that you recognize your life, liberty, and property are yours and the life, liberty, and property of the other guy are his and that neither of you have any claim on the other's life, liberty, and property.

Practically: it means don't murder, don't slave, don't rape, don't steal.

You reject it cuz such an ethic allows me to own a bazooka and doesn't allow Marty to kill her baby solely cuz he's inconvenient.

You refuse to examine the ethic or its undergirdin' (sumthin' I'm up for) preferrin' instead to analyze me (sumthin' I won't participate in).

The ethic and its undergirdin' are not me: there's no need to probe me to understand them.
-----

...apparently I had a notion for a post, but -- for whatever reason -- I didn't finish.
Your is moral intuitionism at present.

In Principle: morally it means don't murder, don't slave, don't rape, don't steal, PERIOD!!
Practically: at present, kill if one has to because the majority are more beasts than being human.
Hopefully: in the future [next 100 years] majority will be morally competent [scientifically driven] such that there will be no circumstances that will trigger killing of humans, except very rare 1-in-a billion events.
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