Moral Relativism.

Oryx · Jun 12, 2011

Another thread about morals in this forum made me think a discussion on a very important issue could be interesting: the idea of moral relativity. Basically, it's the idea that morals are only right for one person, and that there are no objective moral values that are right for everyone. Every viewpoint is equally valid, or equally worthless depending on how you look at it. It allows for people to believe in one part of the world that it's immoral for women to not wear a shirt, but in another part of the world there can be no shame in it, for example. It can be seen as the answer to many moral issues, but also has its own problems. Can moral relativism stand when someone claims that murder isn't morally wrong to them, and you can't criticize their beliefs because every set of morals is equally valid?

A side note, but possibly important: In my school last semester, a well-known atheist (Sam Harris) and an evangelical philosopher (William Lane Craig) had a debate about whether morals can be objectively grounded in something other than God or religion. If you believe in objective morals but are not religious, what are the objective morals grounded in that make them objective? ~~Although I'm fairly sure that 95% of you are relativists anyway~~

So...discuss.

Esper · Jun 13, 2011

The idea of absolute moral relativism seems to have an inherent problem in that a person can then find it morally acceptable to deny another person's morality. At the very least you would have to adapt that relativism to a kind of libertarian "your morals stop where mine begin" in order for everyone to have their own moral stance. The problem with that then becomes a question of how far personal morals can be stretched. A person may believe adultery is morally wrong, but should they be able to enforce this upon other people if those people are morally okay with it? I think a lot of people (including me) would say no because you're stepping into someone's "morality sphere" (for lack of a better term) and trying to deny them their right to decide their morals.

So to me there needs to be rules set up that everyone has to abide by whether they like to or not. They would have to cover things like murder, rape, slavery, and so on. All the things that a person can do to deny another person their right or ability to decide their own morals. Those actions have to be morally wrong except for certain cases where they are necessary to prevent something morally worse (though I doubt you could ever find a situation were there is any excuse for rape). For everything else you have to decide the morality based on whether it affects anyone else but the individual. If it doesn't then, generally, it should be morally acceptable. If it affects other people then you have to weigh the costs and benefits of the people involved. Unfortunately that can be huge when you start to take all the indirect consequences into account and I think that's where a lot of moral arguing gets centered around.

But to summarize: no, I don't believe in moral relativism. It's a fine idea, but totally impractical because too many things overlap and there's too much room for conflict. There need to be agreed upon rules, but they have to be flexible rules.

Livewire · Jul 1, 2011

Well I think it quite obvious that what one society considers moral, one may not. Hindus believe the cow is a sacred animal, therefore it is protected in India and other Hindu countries. Then look at the beef consumption of the western world. You can't please everybody. But then again, you have to uphold morality just enough that society doesn't disintegrate around you. It's a razor's edge.

Moral Relativism.

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Oryx

CoquettishCat

Esper

Livewire