Relativism: the Challenge

[Bradski]

Not quite, the point of aesthetics is to determine why something is objectively beautiful and something else is objectively ugly. This requires an assessment of the artist’s ability, not just the feelings of the person looking at his art.

Are you saying that something can be objectively described as beautiful?

I will only say that “X is good” in utilitarianism is a claim of the latter type, because it is defined in terms of something that is true or false.

I understand your meaning - it* is* either True or False. But true or false surely as defined by the majority. Therefore relative. I think that Benson suggested that slavery wasn’t ‘good’ because of its inherent nature despite it’s utility (now there’s an ugly way to use the word), but if keeping one man in slavery meant that literally everyone else would be happy, then whether it would be a good thing would depend on who you asked. Despite the fact that it would be just the one man who would say it was bad.

 

[Oreoracle]

I understand your meaning - it* is* either True or False. But true or false surely as defined by the majority. Therefore relative.

This is true, but I still feel that it misses the “spirit” of utilitarianism. Happiness is taken to be what is good. Happiness exists in degrees and inevitably people’s preferences conflict, thus the goal of utilitarianism is to maximize happiness. There are, I think, several arguments one could use to show that supporting something like slavery would be detrimental to happiness in the long-run even if it initially had the majority’s support.

There is no a priori appeal being made to the majority in utilitarianism. It’s just a consequence of the nature of happiness and people’s preferences that moral issues sometimes devolve into majority rule. So I think the spirit of the philosophy is to maximize something that’s objective, but unfortunately it’s difficult to maximize the object in question.

 

[Bradski]

You seem to believe in objective beauty. What is your position on, say, the artwork “White on White”? It is literally a painting of a piece of white paper on a white desk. Many people believe this to be beautiful and that other much more elaborate works are inferior. What say you?

There’s nothing like wandering around the local Museum of Contemporary Art to challenge one’s notion of what constitutes art.

In our local MOCA I was checking out a German exhibition a few years back and across the way in one of the rooms I was in, I saw what I thought was a trompe l’oeil - the artist had painted something to make it look as if I could see what was behind the wall. I wandered over to check it out, then realised it was a hole in the wall.

Feeling pretty stupid, I thought it might have been cut to access some services. But then when I got to the hole, there was a card adjacent to it similar to the ones next to all the pieces, giving details of the artist and some notes on what he was exhibiting. And it turned out that his artwork was cutting that hole in the wall.

 

[laircy]

In the case of the room temperature, the objective truth would simply be that the room is 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Objective truths describe the way the world is, while subjective truths describe an individual’s feelings or thoughts about it. A “warm” or “cool” value is subjective because it is in relation to the person’s perception.

 

[inocente]

Relativism: the Challenge

As per the case that Elton Trueblood poses in his book The Philosophy of Religion, explaining the difference between relativism and objectivism can be approached this way.

It’s worth being clear on definitions:

Descriptive moral relativism says it is a matter of fact that moral values vary by culture and tradition. This is obviously true. For example it is a fact that polygamy is permitted in some cultures and not in others.

Moral objectivism claims that it is a matter of fact that certain moral values are always true, irrespective of culture or tradition. For example it would claim that polygamy is always wrong (or always right) for all cultures everywhere.

Metaethical moral relativism denies moral objectivism. For example it claims there is no factual basis for stating that polygamy is always wrong or always right.

The problem with objectivism and metaethical relativism is proving which is universally true. Polygamy might be wrong according to the bible but not according to another holy book or tradition. To use your analogy, there is no universally agreed temperature scale, although perhaps there could be.

The secular world has made a pragmatic compromise, by accepting relativism in the nitty gritty but agreeing a number of high level principles as if they are objectively true in, for instance, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I understand your meaning - it* is* either True or False. But true or false surely as defined by the majority. Therefore relative. I think that Benson suggested that slavery wasn’t ‘good’ because of its inherent nature despite it’s utility (now there’s an ugly way to use the word), but if keeping one man in slavery meant that literally everyone else would be happy, then whether it would be a good thing would depend on who you asked. Despite the fact that it would be just the one man who would say it was bad.

It’s worth mentioning many – probably most – versions of utilitarianism aren’t like Oreo’s version. They consider happiness in itself, and pretty much ignore people’s preferences, unless those preferences tend toward happiness (or pleasure, or a multitude of goods). So they wouldn’t plausibly be relativistic in any way at all.

 

[Flagstone]

The temperature is objectively the same in both cases. But if you jack the temperature up to 90 degrees, you will both exit the room promptly.

Don’t be so sure. It’ll be in the 90’s and muggy and some crazy news anchor will talk about how “nice” the weather is. Of course, they’re sitting in an air-conditioned studio.

 

[Oreoracle]

There’s nothing like wandering around the local Museum of Contemporary Art to challenge one’s notion of what constitutes art.

In our local MOCA I was checking out a German exhibition a few years back and across the way in one of the rooms I was in, I saw what I thought was a trompe l’oeil - the artist had painted something to make it look as if I could see what was behind the wall. I wandered over to check it out, then realised it was a hole in the wall.

Feeling pretty stupid, I thought it might have been cut to access some services. But then when I got to the hole, there was a card adjacent to it similar to the ones next to all the pieces, giving details of the artist and some notes on what he was exhibiting. And it turned out that his artwork was cutting that hole in the wall.

Haha. This reminds me of an artwork that supposedly ushered in much of the ridiculous art of the modern era. The artist literally just had a urinal attached to a wall and called it art. Genius.

It’s worth mentioning many – probably most – versions of utilitarianism aren’t like Oreo’s version. They consider happiness in itself, and pretty much ignore people’s preferences, unless those preferences tend toward happiness (or pleasure, or a multitude of goods). So they wouldn’t plausibly be relativistic in any way at all.

This isn’t exactly my view. Preference utilitarianism defines happiness to be preference satisfaction. So it does of course consider happiness in itself.

As for whether it considers preferences that tend to happiness, humans are complicated. We have preferences of differing strengths, and some of them even conflict at the individual level. (Look at the average woman for a case of conflicting preferences within a single individual. ) So utilitarianism attempts to take all of that into account. It isn’t naively assumed that just because someone says they want something, the best thing to do is to bend over backwards and give it to them.

As a practical example, most utilitiarians as well as myself wouldn’t grant someone’s wish to commit suicide unless perhaps they were terminally ill. People who survive suicide attempts are usually thankful for it later. The philosophy doesn’t blindly appease whims; it is concerned more with long-term happiness.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

This isn’t exactly my view. Preference utilitarianism defines happiness to be preference satisfaction. So it does of course consider happiness in itself.

This is a bit like saying that, under “my botanical system”, eggs are a kind of fruit, so I am justified in talking about an omelette as a type of fruit salad.

The idea that our conventional idea of happiness is bound up with preference satisfaction is such a hard sell that I think preference utilitarians should admit they are being revisionists about the term “happiness”. Their revisions may be beneficial, but they are certainly revisions.

(I’m reminded of Sheryl Crow’s lyric, “If it makes you happy / it can’t be that bad / if it makes you happy / then why the hell are you so sad?”)

See now, we’re talking about language again.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Because objectively she gave less, but the value was relatively greater. But your point is well taken.

Right, Jesus was talking about the generosity, not the number of coins.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I feel that that may be an oversimplification of utilitarianism, but I won’t pursue the topic further because Charlemagne III has proven to me that he cannot discuss utilitarianism with an open mind. I will only say that “X is good” in utilitarianism is a claim of the latter type, because it is defined in terms of something that is true or false.

That discussion was held on another thread, so I think it is not fair of you to make a charge whereby others cannot judge for themselves whether I can discuss utilitarianism with an open mind.

This snarky attitude of yours is getting out of hand, so I think I’ll drop my interest in this thread, and every time you show up with another sarcastic attitude in other threads, I will bow out again.

This could have been a great thread, but as I always insisted with my students all the 33 years I taught, you must behave yourself in class. You must have a modicum of civility in life or your reputation will precede you everywhere you go.

Got it?

 

[Nihilist]

Relativism: the Challenge

As per the case that Elton Trueblood poses in his book The Philosophy of Religion, explaining the difference between relativism and objectivism can be approached this way.

Two men are in separate rooms of a three room house. Each room in the house has a separate thermostat control. One of the men is in a room with 90 degrees of heat. The other is in a room set at 50 degrees. They both enter simultaneously a room between them set at 70 degrees. The man from the cold room finds this room warm. The man from the hot room finds this room cool.

The argument of the relativist is that this proves the relativity of room temperatures per the individual’s personal experience. The argument of the objectivist is that the third room is neither hot nor cold, but set at a an objectively tolerable temperature. However, there is a caveat. The objectivist argues that you have to stay in that room and let your body study the real temperature long enough to find out that it is objectively tolerable, neither too warm nor too cool.

The relativist should answer this argument. How does he answer it? Is relativism the final way to judge the truth about anything, that truth is what you feel it is; or is there an objective truth independent of what anyone might sense at a given moment that is waiting to be found both by the objectivist and the relativist?

What say you?

How could there be an ‘objective’ temperature, independent of a perceiver? Even the third room- it is being perceived by someone- not by senses of hot and cold, but by looking at a thermometer. How can something be ‘objectively tolerable’, aside from a subject who finds it tolerable?

All of this stuff is entirely relative, depending upon perceptions. God made the universe for no other purpose than for humans to perceive it, so there souls can be saved. Therefore, why would he make it ‘objective’, when ‘subjective perceptions’ are the only things that matter?

In fact, this type of objectivism actually promotes materialism, in attributing to matter an absolute existence.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

How could there be an ‘objective’ temperature, independent of a perceiver? Even the third room- it is being perceived by someone- not by senses of hot and cold, but by looking at a thermometer. How can something be ‘objectively tolerable’, aside from a subject who finds it tolerable?

All of this stuff is entirely relative, depending upon perceptions. God made the universe for no other purpose than for humans to perceive it, so there souls can be saved. Therefore, why would he make it ‘objective’, when ‘subjective perceptions’ are the only things that matter?

In fact, this type of objectivism actually promotes materialism, in attributing to matter an absolute existence.

Objectivity isn’t predicated on matter. Berkeley, for instance, would have said that there are plenty of objective truths. Roughly: A truth is objective if and only if it is God’s perception.

 

[Oreoracle]

The idea that our conventional idea of happiness is bound up with preference satisfaction is such a hard sell that I think preference utilitarians should admit they are being revisionists about the term “happiness”. Their revisions may be beneficial, but they are certainly revisions.

Actually I think the relationship between happiness and preferences is strong. Could you give me an example of something that makes you happier that you don’t prefer, or that you prefer that doesn’t make you happier? If not, this would show they are at least logically equivalent, if not semantically equivalent.

The main reason that I prefer “preference” over “happiness” (or even over “pleasure”, which some utilitarians use) is that people tend to have the misconception that “maximizing happiness” amounts to injecting people with drugs to keep them high all day. That is, of course, not at all what is meant. This confusion doesn’t seem to occur when the term “preference” is used instead.

That discussion was held on another thread, so I think it is not fair of you to make a charge whereby others cannot judge for themselves whether I can discuss utilitarianism with an open mind.

It wasn’t a charge, it was an explanation of my own behavior; namely, why I wouldn’t respond to questions of a certain form from a particular poster. Since that topic is only tangentially related to the topic of the thread, I don’t see how I’m deterring you. I asked you about your opinion toward objective beauty, and you never responded.

So I’ve been discussing your topic with you quite civilly. The idea that I’ve somehow ruined your thread by declining to discuss utilitarianism with you can only mean that your thread was really a thinly-veiled snipe at utilitarianism and similar philosophies, or that you feel I’m upstaging you somehow.

If you think that I’m really out of line, report me.

 

[Amandil]

It’s worth being clear on definitions:

Descriptive moral relativism says it is a matter of fact that moral values vary by culture and tradition. This is obviously true. For example it is a fact that polygamy is permitted in some cultures and not in others.

This idea fudges the distinction between morality(or “moral values”) and value opinions on morality.

It is not a “matter of fact” because cultures can error just as individuals can, so just because the Aztecs thought human sacrifice was right and Jews thought it was wrong does not mean that it was really right for the Aztecs to murder innocent children.

And no culture ever existed which taught a totally different set of values.

Moral objectivism claims that it is a matter of fact that certain moral values are always true, irrespective of culture or tradition. For example it would claim that polygamy is always wrong (or always right) for all cultures everywhere.

Metaethical moral relativism denies moral objectivism. For example it claims there is no factual basis for stating that polygamy is always wrong or always right.

The problem with objectivism and metaethical relativism is proving which is universally true. Polygamy might be wrong according to the bible but not according to another holy book or tradition. To use your analogy, there is no universally agreed temperature scale, although perhaps there could be.

Which is nice to theorize about but impossible to live. With the women who watches her husband attempt to instill polygamy against what she knows is contrary to the exclusivity of a marital union, just as with a family who has suffered the loss of a loved one through murder, or a victim who has suffered a rape, theft, etc; while the relativist likes to insist that “morality is relative”-which would necessarily mean that when it comes to the morality of the crimes committed against them they necessarily would not have any recourse to justice-every relativist, when they become the victim of a crime, all of a sudden becomes an objectivist by insisting that there are things which ought never to be done.

The secular world has made a pragmatic compromise, by accepting relativism in the nitty gritty but agreeing a number of high level principles as if they are objectively true in, for instance, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

IOW, they contradict their own relativism and affirm absolute and objective moral principles.

 

[Amandil]

How could there be an ‘objective’ temperature, independent of a perceiver?

Because the presence of sensible heat in the space exists objectively, even without a perceiver to measure it, or the absence of a scale by which to measure it.

Certain scientists who have become bad philosophers have tried to posit this necessary exchange between the observer-observed in an attempt to further empiricism(which is at its foundation a subjectivist system).

Things objectively are, regardless of our presence or ability to sense or measure them.

Even the third room- it is being perceived by someone- not by senses of hot and cold, but by looking at a thermometer. How can something be ‘objectively tolerable’, aside from a subject who finds it tolerable?

“Objectively tolerable” may seem rather subjective but it is based upon objective principles. I wouldn’t necessarily call either the 50 degree room or the 90 degree room “objectively intolerable”, perhaps for some uncomfortable, but not intolerable.

The surface of the human skin is about 85 degrees and we barely detect a difference of +/- 5 degrees, so the difference between 90 and 80 is negligible. So at 90 some most may begin to sweat(depending on perhaps their state of activity), a few may not but they would not be able to tell a significant difference between 90 and 80(of course this assumes a relative humidity of 50%, higher humidity levels necessarily hold more latent heat thus the sensible heat increases).

If the first room was a freezing and the other room was at 105 or 110, I would call those closer to “objectively intolerable”, because in the case of the first room you have the possibility of the flesh starting to freeze(we are mostly made of water), and in the other room you have the danger of heat stroke(since the external temperature exceeds the internal temperature of the human body and the natural movement of heat is to expand from where the heat energy is more abundant to where it is less).

All of this stuff is entirely relative, depending upon perceptions. God made the universe for no other purpose than for humans to perceive it, so there souls can be saved.

Did God create the universe for us to perceive the universe? Or did God create the universe so that we might perceive Him?

Therefore, why would he make it ‘objective’, when ‘subjective perceptions’ are the only things that matter?

But obviously subjective perceptions are not the “only things that matter”. God is not merely a subjective perception, He is an objective Being, someone to be known; just as other people are objective beings, independent of our thoughts.

In fact, this type of objectivism actually promotes materialism, in attributing to matter an absolute existence.

How so? There’s nothing in objectivism that says that matter exists absolutely of its own accord. It just says that a tree is really exists as a tree, not a figment of your imagination.

 

[Amandil]

Objectivity isn’t predicated on matter. Berkeley, for instance, would have said that there are plenty of objective truths. Roughly: A truth is objective if and only if it is God’s perception.

That is the corollary from the “Argument from the Soul’s Ability to Objectify the Body.” That while our bodies are objects to our souls which are pure subject, and that other people and things are also knowable objects to our subject, our “we”, our “I” is object to Another Who is in fact pure subject, Who is “I AM WHO AM”.

 

[Nihilist]

But obviously subjective perceptions are not the “only things that matter”. God is not merely a subjective perception, He is an objective Being, someone to be known; just as other people are objective beings, independent of our thoughts.

How so? There’s nothing in objectivism that says that matter exists absolutely of its own accord. It just says that a tree is really exists as a tree, not a figment of your imagination.

Well, Berkele, Kant, etc. none of them said things were just in our imagination. But that the noumenon is either unknown (Kant), or may as well not exist (Berkeley).

Consider ‘Object X’. To one person it looks green, small and tastes bitter. To another observer (human or animal), it looks red, large and taste sweet. In itself, “Object X” can’t be both. Even using animal sensible devices (thermometers, rulers, etc.), is basically just to compare on perceived object (X), with another (the measuring device).

Therefore, either as noumenon, it doesn’t exist (Berkeley), or, if its exists, it is unknown (Kant). But this isn’t to say the observer just ‘imagined’ X.

 

[Amandil]

Well, Berkele, Kant, etc. none of them said things were just in our imagination. But that the noumenon is either unknown (Kant), or may as well not exist (Berkeley).

Consider ‘Object X’. To one person it looks green, small and tastes bitter. To another observer (human or animal), it looks red, large and taste sweet. In itself, “Object X” can’t be both. Even using animal sensible devices (thermometers, rulers, etc.), is basically just to compare on perceived object (X), with another (the measuring device).

Therefore, either as noumenon, it doesn’t exist (Berkeley), or, if its exists, it is unknown (Kant). But this isn’t to say the observer just ‘imagined’ X.

But regardless “Object X” is. It exists objectively.

But the problem in both their systems is that within their systems there is no possible way they could know either way.

They are (objectively) saying that “it is unknown”(Kant), or that that it (objectively)“doesn’t exist”(Berkeley).

That’s the problem with any appeal to relativism or subjectivism; you are making the objective statement that “X” is. Thus even in practice relativism is negated.

 

[Bradski]

This idea (descriptive relativism) fudges the distinction between morality(or “moral values”) and value opinions on morality.

It doesn’t fudge anything. It helps to explain the difference between itself and normative relativism. It’s not ‘an idea’ but a philosophic description (the clue is in the name).

It describes the fact that different societies for example have different values relative to others. It is not a value judgement - it just describes what it.

It is not a “matter of fact” because cultures can error just as individuals can, so just because the Aztecs thought human sacrifice was right and Jews thought it was wrong does not mean that it was really right for the Aztecs to murder innocent children.

If you think that the culture of the Aztecs was different ‘relative’ to Europeans and that they had a different set of moral values and thought about moral concepts in a different way, then making an empirical statement to that fact is descriptive relativism.

It makes no claim as to whether either group is right or wrong. It does not evaluate either group. If you are going to go off like a fire cracker every time someone mentions an activity that you don’t personally approve, then we are all going to get bogged down very quickly.