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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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 4:41 am For example,
Peter Holmes will insist 'what is fact' is what English speakers said it is so! no justifications of ground is necessary as if he is a God that can imposed his commands on everyone else.
Actually Peter version of what is fact is merely an improvised version of 'what is fact' from the defunct logical positivists ideology.

OTOH I take what is fact as that which is generally accepted, i.e.
  • A fact is something that is true. The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be demonstrated to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact
All you have to tell your audience is that according to you Miss World is a scientific experiment that results in authoritative facts about what is beauty. Then when Henry says that he likes big butts and on this he cannot lie, you can inform him that according to the Miss World FSK he is wrong, and pert little butts are the nice ones. After that he will know everything he needs to know about your definition of fact.
Peter Holmes
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Peter Holmes »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 8:49 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 4:41 am For example,
Peter Holmes will insist 'what is fact' is what English speakers said it is so! no justifications of ground is necessary as if he is a God that can imposed his commands on everyone else.
Actually Peter version of what is fact is merely an improvised version of 'what is fact' from the defunct logical positivists ideology.

OTOH I take what is fact as that which is generally accepted, i.e.
  • A fact is something that is true. The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be demonstrated to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact
All you have to tell your audience is that according to you Miss World is a scientific experiment that results in authoritative facts about what is beauty. Then when Henry says that he likes big butts and on this he cannot lie, you can inform him that according to the Miss World FSK he is wrong, and pert little butts are the nice ones. After that he will know everything he needs to know about your definition of fact.
And just to point out, VA has dishonestly left out the following sentence from the Wiki description of fact:

'Generally speaking, facts are independent of belief and of knowledge and opinion.'

Awks.
Belinda
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Belinda »

henry quirk wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 12:20 am
You are fantasizing about how social controls work. Guns, and preaching about unmarried sex don't work.
Mebbe so, B...no worse than you believin' pourin' more money into an amoral bureaucracy accomplishes diddly 'cept feedin' pigs at the trough.
How can a child raped by her father have defended herself with a gun?
A child, even a lil bitty one, can be taught to aim and shoot. Barrin' that, a kid can be taught how to jab a sharp pencil into an eye or throat when a bad man is makin' with the bad touch. Teachin', recognizin', encouragn' efficacy, especially among the young, is a good thing.
Yes, but the "amoral bureaucracy " is better than no bureau to regulate and police social control. The "amoral bureaucracy" is the same bureaucracy that trains children how to protect themselves against bad people.

I say bad people, but parents, teachers and priests are in special positions of trust, especially parents. It's true that a little child can be trained to fight back, and I'd support that initiative within reason, but adults including parents who rape children typically begin the abuse by making the child afraid to report the abuser to her mother, her teacher, or her peers. Some abused children even grow up in the belief that abuse by a parent is natural and desirable.

Parents are more special again. The child can't report the abuse to her mother who may depend on the abusive father for the financial support of all her children.The child's trust in parents is absolute, is implanted in the baby's brain from birth, and the family is the basic unit for the rearing of children.

Henry, your attachment to independence for the individual is okay to a degree but you overdo it.
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

Post by henry quirk »

B,
adults including parents who rape children typically begin the abuse by making the child afraid to report the abuser to her mother, her teacher, or her peers. Some abused children even grow up in the belief that abuse by a parent is natural and desirable.
The child can't report the abuse to her mother who may depend on the abusive father for the financial support of all her children.The child's trust in parents is absolute, is implanted in the baby's brain from birth, and the family is the basic unit for the rearing of children.
So what good is your bureaucracy, your social controls?
you overdo it.
No, the rest of you under-do it.
the "amoral bureaucracy " is better than no bureau to regulate and police social control.
As it does little beyond eatin' money: it's worse.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Peter Holmes wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 9:09 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 8:49 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 4:41 am For example,
Peter Holmes will insist 'what is fact' is what English speakers said it is so! no justifications of ground is necessary as if he is a God that can imposed his commands on everyone else.
Actually Peter version of what is fact is merely an improvised version of 'what is fact' from the defunct logical positivists ideology.

OTOH I take what is fact as that which is generally accepted, i.e.
  • A fact is something that is true. The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be demonstrated to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact
All you have to tell your audience is that according to you Miss World is a scientific experiment that results in authoritative facts about what is beauty. Then when Henry says that he likes big butts and on this he cannot lie, you can inform him that according to the Miss World FSK he is wrong, and pert little butts are the nice ones. After that he will know everything he needs to know about your definition of fact.
And just to point out, VA has dishonestly left out the following sentence from the Wiki description of fact:

'Generally speaking, facts are independent of belief and of knowledge and opinion.'

Awks.
Oh dear. Is it perchance difficult to find useable resources of this sort that describe fact, fiction, beliefs, errors and lies as all exactly the same thing but simply judged on a sliding scale of "credibility"?
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Sculptor
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Sculptor »

Morality has always been relative.
And thankfully so, since degrees of mitigation and context are all so important with sentencing and judgements.
Even outside the court people who are capable of understanding the person involved in the moral transgression provides for better outcomes for all.
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Advocate »

[quote=FlashDangerpants post_id=572323 time=1652356761 user_id=11800]
[quote="Peter Holmes" post_id=572276 time=1652342954 user_id=15099]
[quote=FlashDangerpants post_id=572274 time=1652341742 user_id=11800]

All you have to tell your audience is that according to you Miss World is a scientific experiment that results in authoritative facts about what is beauty. Then when Henry says that he likes big butts and on this he cannot lie, you can inform him that according to the Miss World FSK he is wrong, and pert little butts are the nice ones. After that he will know everything he needs to know about your definition of fact.
[/quote]
And just to point out, VA has dishonestly left out the following sentence from the Wiki description of fact:

'Generally speaking, facts are independent of belief and of knowledge and opinion.'

Awks.
[/quote]
Oh dear. Is it perchance difficult to find useable resources of this sort that describe fact, fiction, beliefs, errors and lies as all exactly the same thing but simply judged on a sliding scale of "credibility"?
[/quote]

Nope. Fact is, in fact, the polar end of a scale and cannot be said to be the same for any practical purpose as less validated beliefs, like errors, or ideas that are not beliefs at all, like fiction.
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

Post by henry quirk »

Henry says that he likes big butts
I do.
29BE29AC-19EB-4F25-BFDA-79662A19D065.jpeg
29BE29AC-19EB-4F25-BFDA-79662A19D065.jpeg (58.37 KiB) Viewed 782 times
I really do.
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

Post by iambiguous »

SpheresOfBalance wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 12:31 am
Of course morality is relative. It's up to each individual to speak for themselves. But the real point here, in the quoted text from American Scientific, is that no one is to say what is or is not permissible when it comes to deciding what's good or bad for ones own body.
Well, it depends on how you construe moral relativism. Some might argue that morality is in the vicinity of being objective but only given a particular historical and cultural and community/interpersonal context. They are right objectively from their side, we are right objectively from our side.

That's how some view "democracy and the rule of law". Given an issue like abortion both sides insist that their point of view is the most rational, but they are willing to leave it up to elections. They are convinced that since their point of view is the most reasonable, it's only a matter of convincing a majority of citizens to vote them in.

But what if [sans God] there is no "most rational" argument in regard to abortion? What if value judgments here revolve subjectively around my own assumptions...that, regarding the "self" in the is/ought world, "I" as an existential fabrication rooted historically and culturally and experientially in dasein?

Suppose they begin to grasp that being "fractured and fragmented" is not an unreasonable perspective. Moral and political value judgments as merely subjective prejudices in a No God world where the conflagrations pummeling us in newspaper headlines can never be wholly resolved.
Iwannaplato
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Iwannaplato »

Sculptor wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 1:03 pm Morality has always been relative.
And thankfully so, since degrees of mitigation and context are all so important with sentencing and judgements.
Even outside the court people who are capable of understanding the person involved in the moral transgression provides for better outcomes for all.
So, it is objectively good to have context allow for mitigation? These better outcomes are objective measures?
How do we prove to those who think those are not better outcomes that they are objectively incorrect?
Peter Holmes
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Peter Holmes »

Iwannaplato wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 11:14 pm
Sculptor wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 1:03 pm Morality has always been relative.
And thankfully so, since degrees of mitigation and context are all so important with sentencing and judgements.
Even outside the court people who are capable of understanding the person involved in the moral transgression provides for better outcomes for all.
So, it is objectively good to have context allow for mitigation? These better outcomes are objective measures?
How do we prove to those who think those are not better outcomes that they are objectively incorrect?
Quite. And I think it worth repeating and emphasising: the alternative to moral objectivism is not necessarily deontological moral relativism. Moral subjectivism doesn't mean 'anything goes, and that's okay' - moral nihilism or anarchy. There's no contradiction between these claims:

There are no moral facts. X is morally wrong.

And what that means is that a moral assertion stands alone, rationally explicable by reference to other moral claims and goals, but never entailed by any factual assertion. The usually silent qualifier preceding a moral assertion is 'In my/our/everyone's opinion...'
Iwannaplato
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Iwannaplato »

Peter Holmes wrote: Fri May 13, 2022 6:12 am Quite. And I think it worth repeating and emphasising: the alternative to moral objectivism is not necessarily deontological moral relativism. Moral subjectivism doesn't mean 'anything goes, and that's okay' - moral nihilism or anarchy. There's no contradiction between these claims:
Yes, any group can come up with guidelines, goal for interaction, norms just like they do with games and sports. It's not moral to restrict most soccer/football players from using their hands. Only now we are doing it with a broader base of behaviors and not limited to matches and practices. And ironically, I am not so far from Veritas as it might seem. I do hope our tendencies will play a strong role in making those rules.
There are no moral facts. X is morally wrong
Well, I hope that kind of wording is avoided. I think we've talked about that a bit. I think there are few out there who will not take such statements as objective claims, rather than referring to developed norms or agreed upon norms. I can imagine further down the line leaving out, as you suggest below, the implicitly understood caveat. But that's tactics not ontology. And of course that is my preference.
And what that means is that a moral assertion stands alone, rationally explicable by reference to other moral claims and goals, but never entailed by any factual assertion. The usually silent qualifier preceding a moral assertion is 'In my/our/everyone's opinion...'
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Peter Holmes wrote: Fri May 13, 2022 6:12 am
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 11:14 pm
Sculptor wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 1:03 pm Morality has always been relative.
And thankfully so, since degrees of mitigation and context are all so important with sentencing and judgements.
Even outside the court people who are capable of understanding the person involved in the moral transgression provides for better outcomes for all.
So, it is objectively good to have context allow for mitigation? These better outcomes are objective measures?
How do we prove to those who think those are not better outcomes that they are objectively incorrect?
Quite. And I think it worth repeating and emphasising: the alternative to moral objectivism is not necessarily deontological moral relativism. Moral subjectivism doesn't mean 'anything goes, and that's okay' - moral nihilism or anarchy. There's no contradiction between these claims:

There are no moral facts. X is morally wrong.

And what that means is that a moral assertion stands alone, rationally explicable by reference to other moral claims and goals, but never entailed by any factual assertion. The usually silent qualifier preceding a moral assertion is 'In my/our/everyone's opinion...'
The fundamental difference between a world where morality is discovered as natural fact versus one where it is manufactured out of shared human wants is that under one description every moral dispute should be fixable by reference to a set of kown truths of some sort. In the other there is no easy fix, you have to put in some work to persuade people.

A difficulty visible on this forum is that there is a tendency to hugely overestimate the significance of these debates. Over and over again you see people discussing things here with the assumption that if they are wrong then the world cannot exist as it is. With morality that seems to mean that if my moral facts aren't really really really true then we no longer need words for right and wrong because everything is chaotic randomness and we live in the purge.

When they do free will, they don't treat it as a competition between different ways of describing the world as it is and as we experience it, they get all religious and assume that their enemy thinks everyone is a robot made of 3 lumps of meat bolted to a frame and sent rolling down an infinite hill.

This shit infests all debate here. Veritas for instance seems to think it is absolutely vital to discover the source of moral fact, he's accused me of some brand of evil for not proposing my own mechanism for doing that and I assume he accused you of the same. This absolutist notion that if there are not facts of the matter then we must imediately manufacture facts of the matter rather than just dealing with what is actually there will servi him badly.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Peter Holmes wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 9:09 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 8:49 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 4:41 am For example,
Peter Holmes will insist 'what is fact' is what English speakers said it is so! no justifications of ground is necessary as if he is a God that can imposed his commands on everyone else.
Actually Peter version of what is fact is merely an improvised version of 'what is fact' from the defunct logical positivists ideology.

OTOH I take what is fact as that which is generally accepted, i.e.
  • A fact is something that is true. The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be demonstrated to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact
All you have to tell your audience is that according to you Miss World is a scientific experiment that results in authoritative facts about what is beauty. Then when Henry says that he likes big butts and on this he cannot lie, you can inform him that according to the Miss World FSK he is wrong, and pert little butts are the nice ones. After that he will know everything he needs to know about your definition of fact.
And just to point out, VA has dishonestly left out the following sentence from the Wiki description of fact:

'Generally speaking, facts are independent of belief and of knowledge and opinion.'

Awks.
In trying to catch that I am deceptive, you are only making a fool of yourself [as usual] in neglecting not to read my post or strawman me, despite I have already made the point a "thousands" times.

Read my post again,
viewtopic.php?p=572240#p572240
I wrote;
  • Other facts must thus be conditioned to their specific FSK, thus,
    • For example,
      "This sentence contains words." accurately describes a linguistic fact, and
      "The sun is a star" accurately describes an astronomical fact.
      Further,
      "Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States" and "Abraham Lincoln was assassinated" both accurately describe historical facts.
      -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact
    The above two facts are conditioned the specific astronomical and historical respectively.
    • Generally speaking, facts are independent of belief and of knowledge and opinion.
      ibid
    Facts that are conditioned upon a specific FSK is independent of the belief, knowledge and opinions of those individuals in the FSK and external parties.
    But those facts conditioned upon a specific FSK which must be constructed by humans cannot be ultimately independent of any human conditions.
I have presented the above point "thousands" of times.

I remind you again,
there are no standalone absolute facts by themselves.

All facts are imperatively conditioned upon a specific FSK, i.e.
"This sentence contains words." accurately describes a linguistic fact, and
"The sun is a star" accurately describes an astronomical fact.
"Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States" and "Abraham Lincoln was assassinated" both accurately describe historical facts & also political facts.

When is the penny going to drop for you to make the necessary qualifications of your own FSK whenever you claim 'what is fact'?
Belinda
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Belinda »

henry quirk wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 11:31 am B,
adults including parents who rape children typically begin the abuse by making the child afraid to report the abuser to her mother, her teacher, or her peers. Some abused children even grow up in the belief that abuse by a parent is natural and desirable.
The child can't report the abuse to her mother who may depend on the abusive father for the financial support of all her children.The child's trust in parents is absolute, is implanted in the baby's brain from birth, and the family is the basic unit for the rearing of children.
So what good is your bureaucracy, your social controls?
you overdo it.
No, the rest of you under-do it.
the "amoral bureaucracy " is better than no bureau to regulate and police social control.
As it does little beyond eatin' money: it's worse.
In that case do what you say you believe and get a better government.
Actually I thought again about my opinion on social controls and I wonder if your method of minimal or no control wouldn't be better than those of Hitler, the Mafia, or Putin.
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