Moral Relativists Should Tolerate Moral Realism

[Veritas Aequitas]

Take the case of empathy which is one very critical element of morality.

I don't think that empathy has anything to do with morality.

We need to define morality-proper.
I define morality & ethics as the management and modulation of evil to enable its related good.
Thus the focus is to cultivate and develop moral competence that flow naturally and spontaneously rather than having to make moral judgments.

I am not incline towards morality that is focused on right and wrong, because what is right/wrong is too loose and subjective.

The critical element of morality is judgement about what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong. This is applied to actions, happenings, events. Once you do something that is judged morally good, it doesn't matter if you did it with or without empathy. Even if science finds neurons of empathy, actually empathy can be radically criticised as a fundamental source of hypocrisy, because it causes selective choices that are deeply unjust. In the world of empathy those who are more successful in causing feelings of empathy get more help and resources, compared to those who are less clever in the art of raising empathy.

True at times, one may have to make moral judgments but relying on judgment is not effective morality.
It is likely, for critical issues, when one comes up with a decision, it could be too late.
The ultimate for morality is to enable one to be in a natural state of being naturally and spontaneously moral.

If for now, judgments may be necessary, the objective should be focused on preventing the dilemma from arising in the future that require a moral judgment to made.

Empathy is just one element of morality and it has its pros and cons [e.g. in blind empathy], so we need to deal with it with knowledge of its limitations.
How empathy works as a pro within morality is, the potential consequences of any evil acts are triggered in the evil doers and as such deter the evil doer from committing the act because he will suffer the same pain as his victim.
Surely in this case empathy [with awareness of its cons] is a good thing, it is not the most effective as compared to preventing the roots causes of immorality from arising.

The essence of the question, as I said, is that nothing is scientifically good or bad, moral or immoral. On the contrary, science can destroy any concept of morality because it can reveal how morality is actually one of the many clever mechanisms of competition among living beings. Since competition is connected with self imposition, you are liable to be accused of trying to impose your culture, your framework, yourself, the moment you try to exploit science to find a ground to what is completely subjective, completely belonging to your personal subjective ideas.

It has already happened in history that, whenever science has been used to justify moral choices, it has been used to oppress people: we can think, for example, of the ancient idea that women have not soul, the idea of human races, some of them inferior to other ones. I can't recall any historical fact where science has been able to support morality. It can be used to deny the supposed scientific foundations of racist theories, but, once you have demolished them, you cannot go on doing the opposite, which is, using science to found a morality, otherwise you are going back again to make exactly the same mistake made by racists.

Even, for example, when science says that human races do not exist, or that there is no scientific ground to establish who has a soul and who doesn't, just because the idea of soul itself has nothing to do with science, this cannot and shouldn't be used positively to build a morality.

Science is able to destroy, to deny wrong theories, but it is completely unable to give the fundamental motivational ground for anything humanly positive. The fundamentals of science is Maths. The moment you try to say that 2+2=4 is morally good, you are trying to build your dictatorship.
You cannot even say that 2+2=4 is good and 2+2=5 is bad. Mathematically they are just true or false, but being true or false has nothing to do with being mathematically good or bad. It is us humans who establish that a non working machine based on 2+2=5 is not good. Scientifically it is just a non working machine, that scientifically has nothing worse than a working one.

As understood science is double-sided sword, so we need to make intelligent and wise use of science for optimal gains to the well-being of the individual[s] and humanity.
The plus side of science is, with its advance knowledge[s] science [IT and AI] can facilitate to expedite the unfoldment the inherent moral potential and competence of the individual in the future [not now] to the extent that the moral state of each individual is natural and spontaneous where there is no need for moral judgments [if there is, a minimum].

Note it took 10,000[?] years since slavery first emerged to reach its current state where all sovereign nations has made chattel slavery illegal. We can infer there is some elements of moral progress in this moral element.
Instead of waiting for next 200, 500 or 1000 years, science, IT and AI could shorten the time by 10x.

[Angelo Cannata]

I define morality & ethics as the management and modulation of evil to enable its related good.

How do you determine what is evil and what is good?

[Sculptor]

Moral Relativists are the same thing as Moral realists.

It those that claim objectivity that have lost contact with reality.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I define morality & ethics as the management and modulation of evil to enable its related good.

How do you determine what is evil and what is good?

I only define what is evil and its related evil acts.
Thus I will have to come up with a complete list of what is defined as evil with its varying degree of evil_ness.

For example killing of humans by humans is evil with high degree of evil_ness.
If we can reduce that to zero [theoretically] then whatever the related good will naturally manifest.
It is impossible to achieve zero but with zero as an ideal guide, we will strive to achieve progressively towards the impossible ideal.
The progress toward zero will be achieve with a corresponding improvement in the moral competence within the brain of the individual[s].

[Veritas Aequitas]

Moral Relativists are the same thing as Moral realists.

It those that claim objectivity that have lost contact with reality.

What are you doing shouting in the middle of a large wheat field?

This is a philosophy forum, show your arguments.

[Angelo Cannata]

...killing of humans by humans is evil...

Why?

[Sculptor]

Moral Relativists are the same thing as Moral realists.

It those that claim objectivity that have lost contact with reality.

What are you doing shouting in the middle of a large wheat field?

This is a philosophy forum, show your arguments.

Everyone who contributes here knows exactly what I mean except you.
You might want to think that over.

By your own measure, you are objectively wrong on this issue, and are outside the norm.

[Sculptor]

...killing of humans by humans is evil...

Why?

Good question, which he will never answer.

[Veritas Aequitas]

...killing of humans by humans is evil...

Why?

I defined evil = an adjective in relation to any act and belief that is negative [net] to the well-being [survival, flourishing] of the individual[s] and that of humanity.

Killing is the most extreme evil act.

see:
The Concept of Evil
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concept-evil/
ref: in the narrow sense.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Moral Relativists are the same thing as Moral realists.

It those that claim objectivity that have lost contact with reality.

What are you doing shouting in the middle of a large wheat field?

This is a philosophy forum, show your arguments.

Everyone who contributes here knows exactly what I mean except you.
You might want to think that over.

Don't give silly excuses 'everyone who .."
You are only insulting your own intelligence with it.

By your own measure, you are objectively wrong on this issue, and are outside the norm.

Argument?

Moral relativism is the view that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint (for instance, that of a culture or a historical period) and that no standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others.
It has often been associated with other claims about morality: notably,
the thesis that different cultures often exhibit radically different moral values;
the denial that there are universal moral values shared by every human society; and
the insistence that we should refrain from passing moral judgments on beliefs and practices characteristic of cultures other than our own.

The moral realist contends that there are moral facts, so moral realism is a thesis in ontology, the study of what is. The ontological category “moral facts” includes both the descriptive moral judgment that is allegedly true of an individual, such as, “Sam is morally good,” and the descriptive moral judgment that is allegedly true for all individuals such as, “Lying for personal gain is wrong.”
- IEP

Here's AI's [wR] views;

No, a Moral Relativist and a Moral Realist hold opposing views on the nature of morality. Here's why:

Moral Relativist: Believes there are no objective moral truths. Morality is relative to a particular culture or society. What's right or wrong depends on that specific context.

Moral Realist: Believes there are objective moral truths that exist independent of culture. There are right and wrong actions that hold true universally, regardless of location or belief system.

These two viewpoints directly contradict each other. A moral relativist wouldn't subscribe to the idea of universal moral truths that a moral realist believes in.

[Angelo Cannata]

I defined evil = an adjective in relation to any act and belief that is negative [net] to the well-being [survival, flourishing] of the individual[s] and that of humanity.

Killing is the most extreme evil act.

see:
The Concept of Evil
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concept-evil/
ref: in the narrow sense.

Your definition of evil is strucured as a negation of a positive thing, so it is based on the definition of a positive thing. This moves my questions towards the positive things that you mentioned: well-being, survival, flourishing of the individuals and of humanity. I see that you want find in science a fundament to morality. So the question becomes this one: how can you find in science a motivation why humans should survive, enjoy well-being and flourish? We know, for example, that, scientifically, a lot of animals are extinct, others do not enjoy well-being and do not flourish. It doesn't seem to me that we can find any scientific reason why this should not happen. For example, science tells us a lot about dinosaurs and their extinction, but it seems to me that science doesn't say absolutely anything about the idea that the extinction of dinosaurs is a bad thing.
I think that the essential point is that science is a discipline of descriptions and not at all of prescriptions. I can't recall absolutely anything scientific that tells us how something "should be".
It might be useful to consider that, scientifically, 2+2=5 is not something wrong, but something that works differently from how we humans want it to work. A computer that doesn't work, strictly speaking, has nothing "wrong" or "bad" in it. It is just a computer that works differently from how we want it to work. If we remove the presence of a subject who has will, intentions, expectations how things should work, there is no way to define anything as good or bad or evil. There is no "should" in pure objectivity, because in pure objectivity there is nobody with expectations. It is impossible to find expectations in a world of objectivity without subjects. Objectivity is science, is maths, and I don't think that one day we will discover that, for example, number 5 is good and number 4 is evil. We can find this in numerology, so, it looks like the moment you want to find in science a foundation for morality, what you are doing essentially is numerology, which is, expecting to find existential meanings in pure numbers.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I defined evil = an adjective in relation to any act and belief that is negative [net] to the well-being [survival, flourishing] of the individual[s] and that of humanity.

Killing is the most extreme evil act.

see:
The Concept of Evil
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concept-evil/
ref: in the narrow sense.

Your definition of evil is strucured as a negation of a positive thing, so it is based on the definition of a positive thing. This moves my questions towards the positive things that you mentioned: well-being, survival, flourishing of the individuals and of humanity. I see that you want find in science a fundament to morality. So the question becomes this one: how can you find in science a motivation why humans should survive, enjoy well-being and flourish? We know, for example, that, scientifically, a lot of animals are extinct, others do not enjoy well-being and do not flourish. It doesn't seem to me that we can find any scientific reason why this should not happen. For example, science tells us a lot about dinosaurs and their extinction, but it seems to me that science doesn't say absolutely anything about the idea that the extinction of dinosaurs is a bad thing.
I think that the essential point is that science is a discipline of descriptions and not at all of prescriptions. I can't recall absolutely anything scientific that tells us how something "should be".
It might be useful to consider that, scientifically, 2+2=5 is not something wrong, but something that works differently from how we humans want it to work. A computer that doesn't work, strictly speaking, has nothing "wrong" or "bad" in it. It is just a computer that works differently from how we want it to work. If we remove the presence of a subject who has will, intentions, expectations how things should work, there is no way to define anything as good or bad or evil. There is no "should" in pure objectivity, because in pure objectivity there is nobody with expectations. It is impossible to find expectations in a world of objectivity without subjects. Objectivity is science, is maths, and I don't think that one day we will discover that, for example, number 5 is good and number 4 is evil. We can find this in numerology, so, it looks like the moment you want to find in science a foundation for morality, what you are doing essentially is numerology, which is, expecting to find existential meanings in pure numbers.

Science is based on induction on empirical evidence.

Teleology in biology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology_in_biology
this is still contentious.

However, it can be inferred from existing evidence,
the teleology of all living things is the drive of the will-to-survive to survival as long as possible till the inevitable, thus the preservation of the species.

That species has gone extinct does not obviate the above drive and purposes. It just that those species that were extinct were not successful with the inherent will-to-live which still exist in all living things at present. Note the success of various bacteria and viruses since they emerged from early evolution.

This is the scientific basis of "a motivation why humans should survive, enjoy well-being and flourish" till the inevitable.

There is no "should" in pure objectivity, because in pure objectivity there is nobody with expectations. It is impossible to find expectations in a world of objectivity without subjects. Objectivity is science, is maths, and I don't think that one day we will discover that, for example, number 5 is good and number 4 is evil. We can find this in numerology, so, it looks like the moment you want to find in science a foundation for morality, what you are doing essentially is numerology, which is, expecting to find existential meanings in pure numbers.

I have never claimed for absolute pure objectivity.
I have mentioned in our previous discussion, whatever is objectivity is contingent upon an embodied human-based FSRC, i.e. objectivity is intersubjectivity.

What is 'evil' is based on a human-based evil FSRC, so there is not pure absolute evilness.
But what we come up with on an intersubjective basis, we can use to promote moral progress based on some ideal moral standards.

[Angelo Cannata]

the teleology of all living things is the drive of the will-to-survive to survival as long as possible till the inevitable, thus the preservation of the species.

That species has gone extinct does not obviate the above drive and purposes. It just that those species that were extinct were not successful with the inherent will-to-live which still exist in all living things at present. Note the success of various bacteria and viruses since they emerged from early evolution.

This is the scientific basis of "a motivation why humans should survive, enjoy well-being and flourish" till the inevitable.

According to this criterion, all wars that have been fought in the world are moral; moreover, even Hitler’s extermination of Hebrews is moral.

Let me explain why.

You are saying that the biological mechanisms that drive living beings to survive show a teleology, which in turn is the basis for morality.

Now, according to science, all things that happen in animals are in accordance with the survival mechanisms that have made them possible to exist till now. If a behaviour works against the biological survival of a species, there are a few possibilities: either the species goes towards extinction, or the species adapts its DNA to correct those wrong behaviours, or those individuals with those behaviours slowly disappear from inside that species. Whatever happens among these possibilities is moral, because it is driven by the natural teleological mechanisms of survival, well-being, flourishing. This means that whatever happens among animals is moral, simply because it is determined by its natural mechanisms. Even the speed and the ways how these things happen determine the teleological morality. If a lion kills a gazelle to eat, this is perfectly moral, nobody is surprised by this. If a lion kills another lion, this is part of the natural mechanisms as well, nobody is surprised seeing a lion killing another lion in a TV documentary.
For the same reason, nobody should be surprised seeing in a TV documentary an animal named Hitler killing other animals named Hebrews.

[Veritas Aequitas]

the teleology of all living things is the drive of the will-to-survive to survival as long as possible till the inevitable, thus the preservation of the species.

That species has gone extinct does not obviate the above drive and purposes. It just that those species that were extinct were not successful with the inherent will-to-live which still exist in all living things at present. Note the success of various bacteria and viruses since they emerged from early evolution.

This is the scientific basis of "a motivation why humans should survive, enjoy well-being and flourish" till the inevitable.

According to this criterion, all wars that have been fought in the world are moral; moreover, even Hitler’s extermination of Hebrews is moral.

Let me explain why.

You are saying that the biological mechanisms that drive living beings to survive show a teleology, which in turn is the basis for morality.

Now, according to science, all things that happen in animals are in accordance with the survival mechanisms that have made them possible to exist till now. If a behaviour works against the biological survival of a species, there are a few possibilities: either the species goes towards extinction, or the species adapts its DNA to correct those wrong behaviours, or those individuals with those behaviours slowly disappear from inside that species.
Whatever happens among these possibilities is moral, because it is driven by the natural teleological mechanisms of survival, well-being, flourishing.
This means that whatever happens among animals is moral, simply because it is determined by its natural mechanisms.
Even the speed and the ways how these things happen determine the teleological morality. If a lion kills a gazelle to eat, this is perfectly moral, nobody is surprised by this. If a lion kills another lion, this is part of the natural mechanisms as well, nobody is surprised seeing a lion killing another lion in a TV documentary.
For the same reason, nobody should be surprised seeing in a TV documentary an animal named Hitler killing other animals named Hebrews.

You got lost somewhere.

I stated here;
viewtopic.php?p=702548#p702548

VA: For example killing of humans by humans is evil with high degree of evil_ness.
If we can reduce that to zero [theoretically] then whatever the related good will naturally manifest.
It is impossible to achieve zero but with zero as an ideal guide, we will strive to achieve progressively towards the impossible ideal.
The progress toward zero will be achieve with a corresponding improvement in the moral competence within the brain of the individual[s].

Thus you have misinterpreted my point wrongly when you think;

[AC] "According to this criterion, all wars that have been fought in the world are moral; moreover, even Hitler’s extermination of Hebrews is moral."

Hitler killing of Jews contra my point morality mean no killing of humans.

I believe your slip up is here:
This means that whatever happens among animals is moral, simply because it is determined by its natural mechanisms.

Note in my definition of morality, it is only applicable to humans and never to animals [we have to treat animals humanely] but not necessary morally, else we cannot kill animals for food. So don't bring in animals as example.

Re the above, with humans,
it cannot mean that whatever happens among humans is moral.
I have a specific definition of what is morality within human; moral is not 'whatever happens among animals'.

I suggest you reread my point ignoring "moral is not whatever happens among animals'.

My point;
This is the scientific basis of "a motivation why humans should survive, enjoy well-being and flourish till the inevitable" as the basis of morality; with the critical moral fact [among others] that no human ought to kill humans as a guide.

This is why I find it weird you conclude that 'the killing of Jews by Hitler' is part of my morality principles.

[Angelo Cannata]

in my definition of morality, it is only applicable to humans and never to animals

What is a scientific definition of the difference between humans and animals that makes a difference about morality? Or, in a scientific perspective, why does morality apply to humans only?