Moral Relativism

[tonyrey]

*It was an atheist, Ernest Nagel, who pointed out that life is valuable because it is **a source of opportunities. ***

Because it is objective. You can hardly say opportunities for development, discovery, adventure and creativity are subjective.

If you say those opportunities are subjective because they are related to persons then science is also subjective!

 

[jonfawkes]

Because it is objective. You can hardly say opportunities for development, discovery, adventure and creativity are subjective.

Why not? They are relative to the individual, we all don’t lead the same life.

 

[tonyrey]

Why not? They are relative to the individual, we all don’t lead the same life.

The fact that they are relative to the individual doesn’t mean they are subjective. Lots of things are relative to a chair but that doesn’t make them subjective!

Relative <> subjective

 

[jonfawkes]

The fact that they are relative to the individual doesn’t mean they are subjective. Lots of things are relative to a chair but that doesn’t make them subjective!

Relative <> subjective

Sure they are - if you have an opportunity, you can take it or not, you can see it as an opportunity or as a problem - it is subjective, relative to the individual.

 

[tonyrey]

*The fact that they are relative to the individual doesn’t mean they are subjective. Lots of things are relative to a chair but that doesn’t make them subjective!

A person who doesn’t recognise the basic opportunities offered by life must be insane! Do you regard life as a problem?

It certainly doesn’t follow that everything is relative to the individual - in the sense of being subjective.

 

[grannymh]

Thanks for both giving proofs you’re relativists at heart.

Can’t speak for John, but as you know, I have often said that I have a both-and-and outlook. This comes from studying my direct ancestors Adam and Eve.

Moral relativism is a reference to a philosophy or method. Being a “relativist at heart” reflects the reality of human nature which intimately unites the material and spiritual worlds. What we eat is relative to what is materially available. We can be relatively thin in comparison to our neighbor. On many anatomical levels, I can be a relativist.

But on the philosophical level, morality as a principle is really non-material until one’s actions impact the material/spiritual human. As a principle, morality is part of the requirements for humans to remain in the friendship of God, our Creator. As a principle, morality can be a description of Adam’s necessary free submission to God.
In plain language, morality implies obedience to God’s rules. In plain language, immoral actions damages humans and relationships between humans.
Adam’s Original Sin damaged (not destroyed) human nature and the relationship between humans and God.

In a stretch of my imagination, Adam could be considered the founder of moral relativism because he allowed his own personal feelings and desires to cloud the objective responsibilities (morals) of his relationship to our Creator. Essentially, he let his trust in the objective reality of God die in his heart. He deemed that it was his own best interest to disobey God’s Command. In that sin, Adam preferred his own preferences and by that act scorned our Creator. This is what continues to happen with moral relativism.

Blessings,
granny

Isaiah 55: 6-9

 

[inocente]

Already the confusion sown in the minds of your morally impoverished tribe by your whimsical god becomes apparent. Firstly you kill something purely because you respect it, then you don’t kill what you respect. The contrariness of killing what you respect and killing what you don’t respect, but respecting it if it can kill should show you the error of making enemies as decreed by your capricious god. It would seem that your god has failed to show you a way of thinking which can overcome your passions, which undoubtedly change as does the wind.

Numbers 31 NIV:

*The LORD said to Moses, “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”

… “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the LORD in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the LORD’s people. Now kill all the boys . *And kill every woman who has slept with a man , but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man .

 

[inocente]

But on the philosophical level, morality as a principle is really non-material until one’s actions impact the material/spiritual human. As a principle, morality is part of the requirements for humans to remain in the friendship of God, our Creator. As a principle, morality can be a description of Adam’s necessary free submission to God.
In plain language, morality implies obedience to God’s rules. In plain language, immoral actions damages humans and relationships between humans.
Adam’s Original Sin damaged (not destroyed) human nature and the relationship between humans and God.

Agreed up to a point (which is unusual for you and me ). But “obedience to God’s rules” implies (a) the Genesis author accurately portrays a real event here, (b) God has well defined rules, and (c) they are accurately described in the OT or elsewhere. But then drat, Paul negates some as not applying to Christians and double drat doesn’t say precisely which.

Not finding a number of absolute imperatives that others want me to adhere to, nor being able to adhere in conscience, nor any evidence inside or outside scripture that societies are anything but relativist in their histories, I still conclude God’s ways are not our ways.

Now where’s that apple I was just eating?

 

[grannymh]

Agreed up to a point (which is unusual for you and me ). But “obedience to God’s rules” implies (a) the Genesis author accurately portrays a real event here, (b) God has well defined rules, and (c) they are accurately described in the OT or elsewhere. But then drat, Paul negates some as not applying to Christians and double drat doesn’t say precisely which.

Not finding a number of absolute imperatives that others want me to adhere to, nor being able to adhere in conscience, nor any evidence inside or outside scripture that societies are anything but relativist in their histories, I still conclude God’s ways are not our ways.

Now where’s that apple I was just eating?

Do you mean that apple that I just finished off? Where is that smilie for yum, yum?
As long as I am enjoying your apple, I will twist your reply to suit my tastes.

In real life, obedience to God’s rules does not necessarily mean reading the first three chapters of Genesis. The proof is in the pudding which sometimes can be really yucky, not at all like your delicious apple. By the way, I did notice that you were the kind of generous person who would give away the shirt off his back. Only you gave away the best apple off your best tree in your garden which, unfortunately, is infested with snakes.

Because I recognize our human nature to be spirit/matter, it is possible for us to determine

1. that we are unique and 2. our uniqueness, shared by all humans, is worthy of profound respect.

As I wind my way through an orchard of posts, I am recognizing that morality is a set of principles based on relationships. Those of us who search beyond the material world to the spiritual one will include our relationship to God along with our relationships with other humans. We learn the moral principles of relationships sometimes by instinct such as love and sometimes by experience that might does not automatically make right. Sometimes our experience of love leads us to spirituality…

Personally, I wouldn’t rely on the Genesis author to accurately portray the real events surrounding the real Adam. I would, however, rely on the Catholic Church to teach the truth of Adam and the truth behind his choice of the wrong apple.

From my experience, it doesn’t seem likely that God changed from His gardening clothes into His business suit, sat down at His desk, wrote out precise rules, and e-mailed them to the authors of the Old Testament. As for Paul, he finally got everything straight after falling off his horse and hitting the ground with his head and his pride. Maybe Paul had a senior moment regarding how mixed up future humans could get. Nonetheless, when one considers the whole of his teachings, he is on target.

To me, God set the standards, knowing that applications could vary but could not completely destroy the standards. One of the standards would be that the human person is worthy of profound respect.

While God’s ways are not often what we want, check out Isaiah 55; 1.

Blessings,
granny

*Isaiah: 55: 3 *

 

[jonfawkes]

Numbers 31 NIV:

*The LORD said to Moses, “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”

… “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the LORD in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the LORD’s people. Now kill all the boys . *And kill every woman who has slept with a man , but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man .

This god likes heads too

[BIBLEDRB]4 Kings 10:7[/BIBLEDRB]

[BIBLEDRB]1 Kings 17:57[/BIBLEDRB]

[BIBLEDRB]2 Kings 4:7 [/BIBLEDRB]

[BIBLEDRB]2 Kings 20:22[/BIBLEDRB]

[BIBLEDRB]Judges 7:25[/BIBLEDRB]

 

[jonfawkes]

A person who doesn’t recognise the basic opportunities offered by life must be insane! Do you regard life as a problem?

It certainly doesn’t follow that everything is relative to the individual - in the sense of being subjective.

From the comfort of my nice suburban middle class home behind my laptop computer, with the health of myself and family, no I don’t see a problem.

Maybe if I was in slums of Calcutta, or Mogadishu or Darfur or Rwanda etc I might have a different view.

 

[jonfawkes]

While God’s ways are not often what we want, check out Isaiah 55; 1.

How about

[BIBLEDRB]Isaiah 45:7 [/BIBLEDRB]

 

[tonyrey]

A person who doesn’t recognise the basic opportunities offered by life must be insane! Do you regard life as a problem?

It is not life that is the problem but the way many human beings ruin it for others by causing unnecessary misery and suffering for animals as well as persons.

The fact remains that life is normally a source of opportunities which do not exist only in the mind of individuals.

 

[jonfawkes]

It is not life that is the problem but the way many human beings ruin it for others by causing unnecessary misery and suffering for animals as well as persons.

The fact remains that life is normally a source of opportunities which do not exist only in the mind of individuals.

So what about New Orleans, Indian Ocean tsunami, Haiti, Mount Vesuvius and other natural disasters. I don’t remember any person taking credit for those disasters and hardships. They are usually referred to as “acts of god”

***Normally ***by who’s standards - you wouldn’t be relatively projecting your carefree western lifestyle on the rest of the world would you?

 

[inocente]

As I wind my way through an orchard of posts, I am recognizing that morality is a set of principles based on relationships. Those of us who search beyond the material world to the spiritual one will include our relationship to God along with our relationships with other humans. We learn the moral principles of relationships sometimes by instinct such as love and sometimes by experience that might does not automatically make right. Sometimes our experience of love leads us to spirituality…

This is the nub of the matter – how we see our relationship with God, and in turn how we see God, and these are deeply held beliefs that neither of us can necessarily expect to put into words.

For me, absolutists manage to get just a few things wrong, such as.

1. The morality of the Bronze Age OT books is definitively different from later books and from our morality today, yet many Christians selective ignore that plain fact.
2. The universe is the way it is whether we like it or not. So for example Rom 2:15:

They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.

While absolutists seem to read what isn’t written:
*
They show that the law is written on their hearts, period.*

1. Christ revealed a means to deepen our relationships with God and each other, not a set of formulae.
2. The holy books from other religions can also teach us, and also should not be read selectively. All history shows a journey, and absolutists appear to think we somehow reached the destination in 2011 (or more likely, whenever they reached the age of majority ).

No doubt absolutists can point to their own assurances, but ultimately this is about how we see our world and our God so it’s unlikely we’ll change each others’ minds.

We’ll just have to agree to disagree, which of course is relative.

 

[grannymh]

This is the nub of the matter – how we see our relationship with God, and in turn how we see God, and these are deeply held beliefs that neither of us can necessarily expect to put into words.

Can the basic concept of relationship and the myriad of productive and non-productive applications be the basis of human morality?

Is there a basic concept of relativism in human nature? We do look at our own talents relative to the talents of animals, relative to some human standard, relative to time, etc.

As for moral relativism, I see it as based on the wrong foundation. Does this mean that one has to put all the basic concepts of relativity on proper foundations?

I have been seeing “morals” as principles that arise from our spiritual skills in contrast to our anatomical operations such as eating and breathing.

By the way, I need to go back to your post on the “chair”. I was going to dispute your comments. But now, I am in agreement with you because humans come from one source, two sole parents.

Blessings,
granny

The quest for truth is worthy of the adventures of the journey.

 

[grannymh]

Interesting you chose a chair for your example. There are so many different kinds of chair, from highchair to deckchair, with so little in common that we can only define the general concept “chair” by using an abstraction relating to our (and similar ) species. It suggests morality falls into the exact same category - there are as many moralities as there are different kinds of chair.

My first purchase for this tiny condo near my kids was a chair and a separate footrest or stool which fit my body and my reading needs with emphasis on “my”. Did you think I had some great philosophical constructs in my head?

As it turned out, while I was playing with the idea of chair, the only image which came into my mind was a wooden chair for a dining room table. I had to work to change that chair into something which would demonstrate the difference between objective and subjective thinking and reasoning.

Your comment –
“There are so many different kinds of chair, from highchair to deckchair, with so little in common that we can only define the general concept “chair” by using an abstraction relating to our (and similar ) species.”
– does provide another important aspect. It is easy to use the abstraction of function to identify a chair.

Observations do show a variety of moralities. These moralities do change like reupholstering a chair or adding a small cushion to a wooden one. While their function and purpose can be twisted or expanded, these moralities are known because of their impact on human lives.

There is an intellectual evaluation or judgment involved with morality which only exists in the human species. This means that at some point, a unique species appeared. This species would have to arise from two sole progenitors so that the present uniqueness of morals could be maintained. These sole progenitors would have to be human instantaneously without any contribution from other forms of life.

What is the present uniqueness of morals? It is that in spite of all the different interpretations, good and bad, the object of morality is the unique human being with the unique unified nature of spirit and matter. Even though some rightly say that humans should practice morality toward animals, the human person is the object which acts toward animals and the reverse is impossible.

Please note that I am slowly putting together why the human person is peerless among all species and why the unique human nature had to come from two parents.
The idea of connecting human morality to the history of the world is nothing new to me. Nonetheless, connecting human morality to the need for a totally distinct species is a new avenue of research.

Blessings,
granny

Human life is sacred.

 

[jonfawkes]

Is there a basic concept of relativism in human nature? We do look at our own talents relative to the talents of animals, relative to some human standard, relative to time, etc.

I’m not sure where this fits in but I’d answer yes to this. We are always comparing ourselves relative to the world we inhabit. There is the outside world and us.

If you look at hunting, it is a basically a study of how we differ from other animals and how we can overcome or exploit the differences. I would say that hunter / gatherer is intrinsic to our human nature.

 

[grannymh]

I’m not sure where this fits in but I’d answer yes to this. We are always comparing ourselves relative to the world we inhabit. There is the outside world and us.

If you look at hunting, it is a basically a study of how we differ from other animals and how we can overcome or exploit the differences. I would say that hunter / gatherer is intrinsic to our human nature.

I like to throw in thoughts…which is why different uses of the word relativism fits in.
I appreciate the way you worded your reply–it makes sense, including that hunter/gatherer is intrinsic to our human nature.

Granted that there is a basic concept of relativism in our human nature, then why is moral relativism not the complete answer to living a moral life? This whole thread is full of examples of inappropriate decisions based on moral relativism. This says to me that the method of making decisions regarding human beings is a root problem.

Since I consider human nature as being gifted with the ability to reason both subjectively and objectively, I keep going back to the concept that human morality has to be initially based on the objective truths about human nature.

Profoundly respecting human nature means respecting human life per se.

Blessings,
granny

The human person is worthy of profound respect.

 

[jonfawkes]

Granted that there is a basic concept of relativism in our human nature, then why is moral relativism not the complete answer to living a moral life? This whole thread is full of examples of inappropriate decisions based on moral relativism. This says to me that the method of making decisions regarding human beings is a root problem.

I don’t agree that relativism has been shown not to be the complete answer because I don’t think there is a complete answer. We are always evaluating and reevaluating ourselves and our situation. Our technology changes, cultures clash and/ or merge. We are in a constant state of flux. We reassess our position in relation to the situation and times. We need the ability to adapt or we may be working against our best interests.

Since I consider human nature as being gifted with the ability to reason both subjectively and objectively, I keep going back to the concept that human morality has to be initially based on the objective truths about human nature.

Profoundly respecting human nature means respecting human life per se.

Blessings,
granny

The human person is worthy of profound respect.

Maybe I’m just quibbling over semantics here but -

I’m not sure how you differentiate between subjective and objective reasoning. I just see reasoning as the process. The facts being reasoned are subjective or objective. I don’t think it is possible for a person to reason “objectively” since we all bring preconceptions/ world view/ prejudices to the process.

Seeing human life as valuable is a subjective statement coming from a human. I don’t see it as much different from … Say I’m Irish and I say “The Irish are the greatest people ever to walk the Earth” someone would rightly say “well you’re just saying that because you’re Irish” I can still claim it’s an objective fact but it is subjective. Erin Go Braugh

The inherent truth of our intrinsic value as humans is a subjective statement from a human.