Over at rob’s rants the pastor has written a meandering and difficult to follow entry in which apparently he believes atheists say “truth is relative.” I will leave it to the reader to make heads-or-tails of what he is claiming.
At the end he asked a few questions. I’m a little surprised this individual would reach the level of a senior pastorate in a church and never encounter these very basic questions, or contemplate them from an alternative perspective. Giving him the benefit of the doubt—that this is a genuine inquiry, I will go ahead and answer them:
Does it exist (moral absolutes)?
The short answer: no.
Is it the same for everyone? Absolute?
Here is where I develop some confusion. What does he mean by “it”? Presuming he means “absolute morality,” then, by definition it would have to be the same for everyone. (And that would include any gods, too!)
The problem within the absolute vs. relative morality is that two people very often talk past each other, because (and I cannot emphasize this enough)--they define “moral” differently. We often see the conversation:
Skeptic: What God did in the Tanakh was immoral.
Christian: Do you believe in Absolute morality?
Skeptic: No.
Christian: Then you can’t say what God did was immoral, because that is just your opinion.
The misunderstanding which is occurring here is in the definition. The Christian defines “morals” as something which is absolute. Therefore, if the skeptic applies something (whatever that “something” may be) to god, if that “something” is not absolute, in the Christian’s mind, the skeptic cannot be talking about “moral” because contained within the definition of moral is absolute.
Imagine I defined swans as “white birds.” By definition—it is impossible to have a black (or red or blue) swan. Why? Because once it is no longer white—it is no longer a swan. In the same way, we understand an Absolute Moralist mandates morals to be absolute. We understand if we apply a non-absolute standard, they think it can’t be a system of morality. Because our system of morality is different.
A relativist considers morals to be a breach of an accepted code of behavior. We do NOT require the word “absolute” to be contained within the definition of immorality. The question we ask to determine “is it moral?” is the search for the accepted code. NOT whether there is some absolute contained within the system.
More and more I see Christians who just don’t get it. Ask us both to define morality—you will see the difference. Now, there may be an argument as to which is the more accurate definition—THAT is an interesting discussion. But until the difference is seen, the conversation will not get off the ground.
Is it different for everyone? Relative?
Here I assume “it” means “system of morality? In the end—yes. It is different for everyone. As humans we reach consensus through interaction. We may even have vast groups who all agree on a moral code. But we recognize this is a consensus which can change. Think of the stigma of divorce in our moral system. That has changed within our lifetimes.
The danger here is that the person holding to absolutes often believes this renders morals to be simply a matter of individual taste. Everyone can do what they want. Nonsense—we all mutually succumb to authorities in which we voluntarily inhibit our desires for the good of the society, other individuals and ourselves.
Think of it as a four-way stop sign. We don’t “do what we want” at the intersection, because we recognize by doing so—others will as well. We voluntarily give up a few seconds of time in order to better society, others and ourselves.
If moral absolutes do exist, what are they?
Good question. Ask someone who holds to absolutes. Start with polygamy. Move to slavery. Then ask when is it acceptable to kill a baby for the father’s sin which was absolved. That one is a tricky absolute, let me tell ya!
If they [moral absolutes] do not exist, what are the standards we live by?
I think the author meant a different question. I think the question was supposed to be “What are the standards we should live by?”
I would argue we should live by the Platinum rule: treat others as they would like to be treated. Clearly as a society we see that will raise conflicts and we have passed laws to balance the desires as compared to the greater benefit of the society. But in an individual capacity, living with other individuals—this is a good basic rule.
The reason why would be based upon aversion and social contract theory.
If they [moral absolutes] do not exist, but there are undeniable standards by which we all live, why listen to them?
I don’t think there are undeniable standards by which we all live. A glance through any newspaper of a foreign country should dispel that idea.
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Ah, the old relative/absolute equivocation. These are such over-used and poorly-understood words that any argument using them is almost guaranteed to be utter bullshit.
ReplyDeleteYou can't talk about "relativism" absolutely: If you say something is or is not relative, you have to talk about specifically what it is or isn't relative to. For example, even under the most rigid system of metaphysical realism, the truth or falsity of a statement is relative to how the world "really is".
Rob (whom I've stopped reading, because of my low opinion of his character, so I'll take your word for his points) is probably conflating two or three entirely different questions:
(1) Are moral beliefs necessarily universal, i.e must a belief apply to all people at all times to qualify as a moral belief? In other words, must the truth of a belief always be not relative to contingent cultural circumstances to qualify as a moral belief?
(2) Are some moral beliefs universal?
(3) Is the truth of a moral belief necessarily relative to the subjective properties of some or all people? Or is the truth of a moral belief relative to how the world is, independently of the subjective properties of some or all people?
I think that it's pretty clear that (1) is false. It seems obviously immoral to drive on the left side of a two-way road in the United States, but obviously moral to drive on the left in the UK. We can recast the specific statements to be more universal (e.g. "It is moral to drive on the agreed-upon side of the street") but we're just embedding the cultural context (agreed-upon side) into the statement itself.
(2) seems true for any set of moral beliefs. That some moral belief-systems include some culture-specific statements does not entail that some other statements can indeed be universal. No small few subjective relativist (myself included) would agree that it is always wrong — past, present and future; here, there and everywhere — to rape or enslave a human being.
The third question is more refractory. I cover it in depth on my series on meta-ethical subjective relativism.
"A relativist considers morals to be a breach of an accepted code of behavior."
ReplyDelete"As humans we reach consensus through interaction. We may even have vast groups who all agree on a moral code."
First, why do you claim that this is all there is? You have defined an epistemological system then claimed that this is the exclusive ontological reality. Do objective laws of logic exist? By even making a logical argument you are assuming they do. So non-material laws can exist, we know that. You are proposing, though, that because we all have systems by which we come to our moral beliefs (a psychological proposition, by the way, that no Christian scholar would likely dispute), it is appropriate to take it a step further and say that this epistemological system is the ONLY ontological relaity. Why? Can you provide any support for believing that this is all there is?
More importantly, how do you resolve moral disputes between cultures whose "consensus" differs? You admitted these differences will occur ("I don’t think there are undeniable standards by which we all live. A glance through any newspaper of a foreign country should dispel that idea."). If there is no objective standard, you must admit that when these disputes arise, there is no way one party can be more "right" than the other, and whether or not what a party does is "right" will depend on which moral system you are looking through.
It is like trying to decide whether or not an assault was legally permissible without having a law book to refer to. In order to resolve legal disputes we apply an objective standard. But if all morality is merely a social contract, you have no "law book" to use in order to resolve disputes between people who subscribe to different contracts. How do we know whether or not (assuming he actually had weapons of mass destruction) it would have been permissible for us to begin bombing Sadaam Hussein?
Besides, if morality is simply a matter of a social contract, am I free to opt-out of that contract? I find it ironic that postmodern thought today holds that it is morally wrong to impose your morality on others, but at the same time says there is no objective morality and morality is simply a matter of a social contract. This, of course, would require us to impose our morality on others who do not "sign on" to that contract in order to maintain order! Seems to be a pretty clear contradiction.
So my question is twofold:
(1) Is it permissible to impose your view of morality on others?
(2) If not, how do you resolve moral disputes between people who do not subscribe to the same contract?
(3) If it is permissible, who decides when it is OK to impose your moral views and when it is not? Is it simply a matter of "majority rules" so that the majority is allowed to oppress the minority whenever they want, as long as they believe it is morally OK to do so? Or does "might make right?"
I agree that the question of defining the absolutes is an interesting one. We can talk about whether or not it is possible to know what the absolutes are in another discussion. That, again, would be a question of epistemology, not ontology. But everyone, yourself included, assumes they exist whether you admit it or not. After all, you also said in relation to the stop sign:
"We voluntarily give up a few seconds of time in order to better society, others and ourselves."
How do you define what is "better"? You've used a moral term here and implied a moral goal we are shooting for. Is that goal simply a matter of societal consensus? If so, we are right back to the questions I asked above. Do you believe that IF a society believed, under its "social contract", that it was perfectly OK to chop up newborn babies for recreational purposes only, then there would be nothing you could point to in order to say that this practice is wrong? There would be nothing to support you if you decided to intervene? You cannot simply say "I would rely upon my society's social contract", because I would simply ask "Why does your social contract entitle you to act when theirs would say you should not intervene?" This activity is happening under their social contract, not ours.
Any attempt to define morality in relativistic terms inevitably will fail to provide an adequate mechanism for resolving moral disputes. Would you allow such a system to exist in our legal system? I would guess not. But you allow it in our moral system. This is particularly intriguing considering the number of legal rules that allegedly, at least, have a moral basis.
Sorry, I meant for this comment to just ask a couple of questions and leave it at that, because I really don't have time for this. But once I get started I often can't stop. This is why I really need to avoid reading other people's blogs in the first place when I'm bogged down with other work. :)
Ken
Ten Minas Ministries,
ReplyDeleteQuite a bit to unpack here, so I will start in the middle. *grin*
Ten Minas Ministries: I agree that the question of defining the absolutes is an interesting one. We can talk about whether or not it is possible to know what the absolutes are in another discussion.
I find it typical, when the age-old question of absolute vs. relative morality comes up, the person holding to absolutes rarely wants to discuss what, in particular, those absolutes actually are and how we can develop a method to adequately determine them. (And a person claiming a god said something leaves us with a method to determine which human is correct about which god said what.)
Oh, they want the discuss absolutes must exist, and how we act as if absolutes exist, and how somewhere “out there” exists this thing called an “absolute morality” yet in the end we cannot know it, nor make determinations about it. Other than “it exists.” Which is both unhelpful and unpersuasive.
The comparison to laws of logic illuminates the difference. Sure, such laws are an immaterial construct we use for communication. But we can talk about what such laws actually are! For instance, we talk about the Law of Non-contradiction. “A cannot equal non-A.” The reason such a rule is helpful is to allow us to adequately understand when we talk. If you tell me of squares with only three sides, or married bachelors, our communication breaks down.
Or, we understand the simple rule of argument:
1) If a then b.
2) A.
3) Conclusion: b must occur.
”A” could be anything—ice cream, being good, very small rocks. Likewise ”b” can be anything. But in order to communicate, we understand how those absolutely must relate. Tell a child, “If you are good, then I will buy you an ice cream” and they will intimately inform you how the laws of logic MUST work.
Yet when it comes to absolutes—we have no consensus. We have no, “Here is a law we both agree upon.” Could you imagine our conversations if we were told “there are laws of logic, but we don’t want to talk about what they are, or how to determine them”?
I find the comparison inadequate.
Let me expound upon my four-way stop sign analogy to better explain my position. I didn’t touch upon it (because I didn’t want to do a lengthy post. Ah well.) but I actually use a combination of aversion and social contract in determining morals.
I stick my hand in a fire. It hurts. I think, “Hey, I am averse to this.” I start to prevent myself from sticking body parts in a fire. I look at my wife. It doesn’t take much to realize sticking her hand in the fire would hurt her. I don’t want to hurt her. So I attempt to avert her, or others having her stick her hand in the fire.
Again, simply observation, communication and experimentation develops a system in which I can equate—“This hurts me, and if I don’t want the other person hurt I shouldn’t do it. If I want to hurt them—I do it.”
Works well with those we love; what about our enemies?
I want to punch you right in the face, Ten Minas Ministries. I want to punch you so hard your children will feel it. I not only recognize this will hurt you, I want it to hurt you. But wait a minute. There is nothing preventing you from punching me back! (For a moment let’s set aside the Assault and Battery laws.) As great my desire to hit you is; an even greater desire exists in which I do not want to be hit.
If I am allowed to hit you, there is nothing to prevent you from hitting me. Or your family ganging up and hitting me. Or your family ganging up and hitting my family. A simple realization I need to control my own impulses and desires is a recognition how it will eventually impact both me and my society.
And, as a society in America, we see the problem with vigilante justice, or the problem with people unable to control their impulses (i.e.—they are stupid) so we enact laws saying, “Look—if you aren’t smart enough to control yourself, we will enforce it.” You and I prefer to live in this society, even though there are times we wish we could sneak in a strike or two on an opponent, we recognize it is better for our world in which we do not.
Part of my aversion is to be in a society which allows people to hit each other without any justice regarding the same.
That is what I meant by my four-way stop. In comparing it to morality, I control my basic instinct to punch you (or drive through the stop sign), because of the realization the other person could therefore equally punch me back (or equally drive through).
I define “better,” by what I prefer. Do you believe a non-slave country is “better” than a slave country? When you understand your own answer to that question—you will understand what I mean by “better.”
Why do I believe this (relative morality, I presume) is all there is? To quote Sherlock Holmes, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
While I may not go quite so far to say absolute morality is impossible; due to its very, very small possibility, the far more probable answer is that relatively morality exists. Sure absolute morals may exist on the 10th dimension in the 4th universe—but I am far more interested in the here and now.
I have seen the “support” there is another, spiritual, dimension in which this thing called Absolute morality exists. I am obviously not persuaded such a dimension exists, let alone what it contains, let alone that it contains absolute morals.
When cultures clash
Yeah, that is a bit of a sticky wicket. No easy solution here. What do we do about Al Qaeda, for example? To Americans, we are in the moral right—their terrorist activities are immoral. Yet to Al Qaeda, we Americans are the immoral ones, and they have the mandate from God.
Where is it written as to which group is the moral one? Both claim a god has given them the mandate to do what they do.
You raise an interesting question regarding Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. What DID give us the right to invade, simply because he was looking to obtain information or had the capability to create such a weapon. How is it we as Americans (the only nation to use an atom bomb on a foreign country) have the “right” to dictate who else in the world gets WMD? If Japan peruses the technology—what gives us the “right” to say they can’t have it? Or Israel? (Ha Ha) or Egypt? Or Iran? Where, in either relative morals OR absolute morals, did we get the “right” to say it is O.K. for Pakistan, but not for North Korea?
Ten Minas Ministries: If there is no objective standard, you must admit that when these disputes arise, there is no way one party can be more "right" than the other, and whether or not what a party does is "right" will depend on which moral system you are looking through.
(Presuming when you say “objective” you mean the same as when I say “Absolute.”) Yep. Another place in which we diverge. Where is it written in cosmological stone when disputes arise, one is more “right” than the other? You are presuming absolute morality must exist in order to make such a determination.
Often people who hold to absolute morality do so because they want a final decision. They want to have some ultimate judge or law which makes the determination “This side was moral; that side was not. This decision was moral; that decision was not.” They ache to be declared the winner in the battle of morals.
Not surprisingly, since many such people feel humanity is insufficient to be its own lawmaker, they create a mandate “higher” than humanity—they create a god. The genocides of the Tanakh are an excellent example of this. A situation in which a dispute arose between two cultures, and one attempts to justify the genocide of the men, women and children, NOT by saying they just wanted to kill ‘em for the land—oh NO! They had a God-given, absolute moral RIGHT to kill baby boys and older sisters. They had a God-given, absolute moral RIGHT to take the virgin daughters as their own wives, and to raid the massacred of their valuables.
Sorry, Ten Minas Ministries. I do not have such ache. I do not have a need to determine which culture, in a clash, is more “right.” I have no need to search out justification that what I did was acceptable because some human says some other human says God says its O.K.
Ten Minas Ministries: Besides, if morality is simply a matter of a social contract, am I free to opt-out of that contract?
Sure. But societies recognize such behavior and take it into consideration. “Morals” are not some easy dictionary definition which we can plug in like a math equation. There are nuances, and flex and different aspects, depending on one’s culture, environment and heredity.
For instance, you may “opt-out” of my social contract regarding hitting each other. Society, seeing this as a problem decided to enact laws hoping to give you greater incentive to opt back in. If hurting me is not incentive enough, perhaps 90 days of removal from society would be.
Or you may “opt-out” of appropriate dress. Wear a bathing suit and Hawaiian shirt to a formal occasion. While I know of no “moral dress code” the participants in tuxedos and long dresses have a way of making you feel socially uncomfortable for doing so.
And it should be noted, in looking at history, how we have modified our society’s morals by having those who “opt out” eventually become the moral norm.
Finally, your questions:
Ten Minas Ministries: (1) Is it permissible to impose your view of morality on others?
“Permissible”? What is “preventable”? For example, I do not agree with underage drinking. Is it “permissible” for me to enforce this moral on my daughter? Sure. How about on other people’s children? Yes—within my house, or by passing laws, or by talking with parents, or using whaetver means are at my disposal.
I am uncertain where any person discussing this question would ever say it is “impermissible” to impose one’s view of morality on another. Whether it is possible, or liked, or effective is an entirely different question…
Ten Minas Ministries: (3) If it is permissible, who decides when it is OK to impose your moral views and when it is not? Is it simply a matter of "majority rules" so that the majority is allowed to oppress the minority whenever they want, as long as they believe it is morally OK to do so? Or does "might make right?"
On a personal basis, I decide when it is O.K. As to society, there are different ways, depending on different societies. Some use “majority rules.” Some use a patriarch system. Some a system of priests or religion. Some an honor/shame culture. Much of what we are more “comfortable” with is what we are raised in. Unfortunately, due to the world-power status of the United States, most Americans DO think “Might makes right.” Since we already have the bomb, and a great military strength, WE get to decide who else in the world has the “right” to the bomb.
By the way—this flips both ways. Who decides which human is correct about what another human said a god said it is OK to impose what the human said is an absolute moral? We both struggle with a resolution here.
Ten Minas Ministries: Any attempt to define morality in relativistic terms inevitably will fail to provide an adequate mechanism for resolving moral disputes. Would you allow such a system to exist in our legal system? I would guess not. But you allow it in our moral system.
Err…our laws DO display relative morality. They change, don’t they? Even the closest thing we have to an Absolute—the U.S. Constitution--can be amended.
Maybe we don’t understand absolute morality the same way. I understand absolute morality to mean a moral which is the same for everyone, everywhere, everytime. The same for your god concept in 10,000 BCE as in 1000 BCE as in 2500 CE. The same for the goat herder in the Egypt of 3000 BCE as the Chinese on January 10, 1278 at 1:17 p.m.
The same for the person in Arkansas when it became a state, as a person in Virginia from when the first settlers arrived.
Everybody. Everywhere. Everytime. Everything—up to and including your god.
Perhaps that explains my confusion as to why you would want to compare absolute morals to any legal system which ever existed. Since they all change (and hence, are not absolute.)
Another persistent equivocation is in the sense of "objective" as properties of objects (things outside the mind, as opposed to subjective, minds and their properties) and "consistently determinable".
ReplyDeleteFor instance it is consistently determinable that I like Indian food. Every rational person, examining the evidence, would come to the same conclusion. However, the property of "liking Indian food" is clearly subjective: it is a property of my mind.
The equivocation comes about because for us to hold that some property is a property of an object, it must be consistently determinable: consistent determination is necessary to conclude objectivity. But it's not sufficient, as the previous case trivially proves.
Furthermore, the objective/subjective distinction is arbitrary and not mutually exclusive: The "subjective" properties of our minds are also "objective" properties of our brains.
Hence Ten Minas gets off on the wrong foot:
Do objective laws of logic exist? By even making a logical argument you are assuming they do.
Well, no, no more than speaking in English means that English is "objective", in the sense that the English language exists apart from the minds of those who speak it. The same is true of the "laws of logic": Logic, the construct that is canonical propositional calculus, is subjective; logic is "objective" (and completely material) only in the sense that our brains have specific neural structures that are logic.
Pull this keystone from Ten Minas' argument and the whole thing collapses into vapor.
Ten Minas complains that meta-ethical subjective relativism isn't objective. Well duh. And algebra isn't geometry, and democracy isn't totalitarianism, and Indian food isn't bland. Thank you Captain Obvious.