Introspective on Morality

@El:

A different view of…

Universal Morality -

1)All morals may change due to internal conflict brought on by external stimuli.
2)I want to breathe.
3)I want to be nutritionally satisfied. NOTE: This may range from vitamin suppliments to food to sustain my needed(subjective) level of activity to gorged.
4)I want to get enough sleep to satisfy my body’s needs(subjective.)

I do not accept “Murder is wrong” as a valid moral stance. If you were going to murder my family, I WOULD MURDER YOU and IT IS STILL MURDER. It depends on what your definition of the word “is” is.

/30

don’t forget “5”

• i want to have sex and i have a biological need to reproduce -
  the inner voice of date-rapers everywhere.

Bossk: Ah, you pulled out Truth (with a capital “T”). I believe there is no Truth, only a few truths. These truths must be determined in each society and by each individual, and therefore truth is constantly changing. To say truth is static would be denying history.You may call me relativist scum, but I’ll never give in to absolutism.

I don’t think you scum. You might be a relativist, but that doesn’t mean you’re scum. Anyway, If Truth changes, it isn’t Truth. Truth is an absolute. You cannot escape absolutes. If I said that all truth was subjective and that there is no absolutes, I would be creating an absolute. Call it: “The Absolute of No Absolutes,” if you will. However, an absolute that is not an absolute is illogical.

Also, if there is no objective standard for right and wrong, should you stop me from stealing your car? Stealing, may, after all, be ethical for me, but by stoping me, you would be holding me to your standard, which would imply that you think your system of ethics is supirior to mine, and that my code of morality is somehow flawed. Now, I wouldn’t consider going out and stealing anyone’s car because I think that is stealing, but how would a relativist deal with that situation and still retain his “relativism?”

Think Hard Think Well

Jacob

ps: El Jefe, what do you mean when you say murder?

This directly ties into the abortion thread that we had going, and whether one group of people should be held to another person’s “beliefs.”

@Jacob_Duhm:

Anyway, If Truth changes, it isn’t Truth. Truth is an absolute. You cannot escape absolutes. If I said that all truth was subjective and that there is no absolutes, I would be creating an absolute. Call it: “The Absolute of No Absolutes,” if you will. However, an absolute that is not an absolute is illogical.

Binary logic is out-of-date :)
Truth can be both relative and absolute: Some parts can change (e.g. at the moment, the sun shines through the window next to me. It probably won’t do so at night, thus what is true at the moment need not be true later.) or be dependant on where you are: If i say “it now is day-time”, you sitting on a different continent have a high chance of taking that as a lie. At the moment, humankind (or part of it) is even discussing if our most fundamental constants of nature are slowly changing over long long time-scales. So even their value doesn’t need to be “fixed and true”.
Of course, some other things are absolute, most often these are purely logical issues or principles, often found in math: For example “The set of rational numbers forms a body in regard to addition and multiplication”.
This is true, no matter wether there is anything left in the universe that can actually think this thought, it then still would be true.

Also, if there is no objective standard for right and wrong, should you stop me from stealing your car? Stealing, may, after all, be ethical for me, but by stoping me, you would be holding me to your standard, which would imply that you think your system of ethics is supirior to mine, and that my code of morality is somehow flawed. Now, I wouldn’t consider going out and stealing anyone’s car because I think that is stealing, but how would a relativist deal with that situation and still retain his “relativism?”

You don’t like secular humanism, do you? Logic says: Don’t do to others what you don’t want have done to yourself, unless they have done it to you already. Look up the prisoners’ dilemma of game theory.
Even so: Reltaivism in the definition of truth has nothing to do with relativism in ones moral/ethical positions. You can define your own set of rules (and hope/ignore that they do/don’t collide too much with all the others’ sets) regardless of what you think is true. My truth of “there is no creator of the universe” does not at all have an influence of my decision “not to cross streets while the lights are red unless i am in a hurry and there are no children around”.

@F_alk:

@Jacob_Duhm:

Anyway, If Truth changes, it isn’t Truth. Truth is an absolute. You cannot escape absolutes. If I said that all truth was subjective and that there is no absolutes, I would be creating an absolute. Call it: “The Absolute of No Absolutes,” if you will. However, an absolute that is not an absolute is illogical.

Binary logic is out-of-date :)
Truth can be both relative and absolute: Some parts can change (e.g. at the moment, the sun shines through the window next to me. It probably won’t do so at night, thus what is true at the moment need not be true later.) or be dependant on where you are: If i say “it now is day-time”, you sitting on a different continent have a high chance of taking that as a lie.

or, realizing your position in the world, and having half a brain i have an even higher chance of realizing that your part of the world was facing the sun at that moment. How does this relate? Just as a sideline - some people’s truths are relative to their position in time and space (and their own ideology determined from their life’s circumstance). I think that many Christians have come a long way in interpreting the Truth (I am the way, the truth and the life . . . ) as it may apply to other people differently to others than to themselves. This is not to say that there are no absolutes in Christian truth, however (the resurrection of Christ, for example, the existance of sin . . . ) much as some of us Christian somewhat-relativists might wish to suggest otherwise in broadening its appeal to relativist scum.

Also, if there is no objective standard for right and wrong, should you stop me from stealing your car? Stealing, may, after all, be ethical for me, but by stoping me, you would be holding me to your standard, which would imply that you think your system of ethics is supirior to mine, and that my code of morality is somehow flawed. Now, I wouldn’t consider going out and stealing anyone’s car because I think that is stealing, but how would a relativist deal with that situation and still retain his “relativism?”

You don’t like secular humanism, do you? Logic says: Don’t do to others what you don’t want have done to yourself, unless they have done it to you already. Look up the prisoners’ dilemma of game theory.
Even so: Reltaivism in the definition of truth has nothing to do with relativism in ones moral/ethical positions. You can define your own set of rules (and hope/ignore that they do/don’t collide too much with all the others’ sets) regardless of what you think is true. My truth of “there is no creator of the universe” does not at all have an influence of my decision “not to cross streets while the lights are red unless i am in a hurry and there are no children around”.

“God is good, but don’t dance in a rowboat” might be the Christian version of this.
and the “no children around” is a nice touch. This mitigates my decision only if i am truly in a non-hurry.

But why doesn’t Relativism in the definition of Truth have nothing to do with Relativism in ethics? Please expand.

I don’t see “The sun shines on my side of the planet but not your’s” as a relativistic. The movement of the sun is an absolute of itself. It is impossible for the sun to shine directly on 100% of the earth, an absolute.

Do I like Secular Humanism? To be honest, not really. I have studied it, as well as Cosmic Humanism and I don’t think it is possible to live consistantly with either of those two worldviews. I’d go into this more, I think we’re getting off the topic of morality, so without further ado, I return to Ethics:

No one answered my question about me stealing a relativist’s car. Could someone give me an answer?
Jacob

ps: The ultimate question of Morality is this: What if you are wrong and you die?

@Jacob_Duhm:

But why doesn’t Relativism in the definition of Truth have nothing to do with Relativism in ethics? Please expand.

Because ethics is not about thruth. Telling the truth can be ethical, as it is actions (on the very basis, you can add thoughts/opinions to this) that are either ethical or not. The truth or any other logical/philosophical concept on the other hand, well…. is freedom ethical? Or is beauty ethical?
IMHO you mix things were you are not allowed to. I assume that you use an untold, thus to me unknown defintion of either truth or ethics to connect them.

I don’t see “The sun shines on my side of the planet but not your’s” as a relativistic. The movement of the sun is an absolute of itself. It is impossible for the sun to shine directly on 100% of the earth, an absolute.

Please quote me correctly. I said “it now is day-time”. That is a statement that either is true or false. You might have noticed, that the validity of that statement is dependant on both location and time. Hence, it is an example of not absolute truth, hence truth is not always absloute.

What you did in your first post was wrong reasoning. To correct you:
You can make a claim.
Any proof that this claim is wrong makes it wrong.
Now important:
A proof that a claim is wrong does NOT make the opposite right.

Example:
All human beings are females.
Wrong, i am male.
Therefore, all human beings are male……

See what i mean, you went:
truth is relative
If truth is relative the above is an absolute truth, hence the above is worng.
So you conclude that truth must be absolute.

Wrong logic.

Do I like Secular Humanism? To be honest, not really. I have studied it, as well as Cosmic Humanism and I don’t think it is possible to live consistantly with either of those two worldviews. I’d go into this more, I think we’re getting off the topic of morality, so without further ado, I return to Ethics:

Why is humanism not about moral and ethics?

No one answered my question about me stealing a relativist’s car. Could someone give me an answer?

By my subjective standard i would try to beat you up.
Why does a relativist standard not allow me to think my set of rules is superior to yours at that given instant?

ps: The ultimate question of Morality is this: What if you are wrong and you die?

That is a question of christian morality. I will be reborn, or more probably rot as no human being has a soul……

Why does this happen so often…
Jacob, you are from the US, am i correct?
Did it ever cross your mind, that you are in a minority with your christian belief, and no matter how much you believe it to be right, that the majority will utterly misunderstand you all the time when you keep using words in “christian-only” context?

@Jacob_Duhm:

If Truth changes, it isn’t Truth. Truth is an absolute. You cannot escape absolutes. If I said that all truth was subjective and that there is no absolutes, I would be creating an absolute. Call it: “The Absolute of No Absolutes,” if you will. However, an absolute that is not an absolute is illogical.

Ah, you’re using Truth, I’m talking about truths (notice capitalization difference). You’re right about Truth not changing, but I’m saying there is no absolute Truth. One of my truths is that truths can change, it’s not an absolute.
@Jacob_Duhm:

Also, if there is no objective standard for right and wrong, should you stop me from stealing your car? Stealing, may, after all, be ethical for me, but by stoping me, you would be holding me to your standard, which would imply that you think your system of ethics is supirior to mine, and that my code of morality is somehow flawed. Now, I wouldn’t consider going out and stealing anyone’s car because I think that is stealing, but how would a relativist deal with that situation and still retain his “relativism?”

You’re forgetting that we live in a society. A society doesn’t fuction too well without rules, so the truths that a majority of the population seems to share becomes law. Law is, I suppose, the closest you can get to a societal “Truth.” As a relativist I would naturally think that the person who stole my car was wrong, becuase according to my values he would be. Being a relativist just means that I cannot believe that there is an absolute Truth of any sort, the universe just doesn’t work that way.

On the topic of morality…

I recently read a articale in an old Scientific American (Magazine). It was about a group of researchers that followed a group of boys growing up. They gave them various tests and things like that about how they would deal with situations and why they did what they did. what they found-

the reserchers think there are six levels of morality:

-I didn’t do it beacause-

1. I don’t want to get the punishment
2. I want to get the reward

3. I want people to like me

4. It is agansit the law

5. I have a social contract (or somthing like that)
6. Its just wrong!

the first group is mainly ages 0-10

the second is teenagers (kinda figers)

the third is 20+

only a little percentage reached the 5th level and no one reached the 6th

thats all, just somthing interesting I read

@cystic:

don’t forget “5”

• i want to have sex and i have a biological need to reproduce -
  the inner voice of date-rapers everywhere.

Well, I didn’t want to distract anyone from my main point…

…What was I saying?

Anyway, you see how quickly absolutes and universals aren’t so absoversal anymore.

GZ,
Scientific American-Morals, any idea how long ago? I have to look that up.

well…

I’m in Bulgaria right now (till september)

and the magizine is in canada, so I can’t tell you, But I think it was from the middle+ of the 90’s