Talk:Moral relativism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
See for older talk: Talk:Cultural relativism
[edit] "Objective truth"... possible truths, but none are scientific... falsifiability?
There seems to be much discussion here as to whether or not there are moral constructs that can be viewed as "objective truths"... I think it's worth mentioning that, while moral/ethical statements may have significant practical value (and therefore may be interpreted as "truth" in a utilitarian sense), they are not scientific statements. Wikipedia's own page on falsifiability maintains that "Ethical statements such as "murder is evil" or "John was wrong to steal that money" are not usually considered to be falsifiable."
- Although Karl Popper's claim was that the difference between science and nonscience was falsifiability, he was wrong... It's actually just as hard to falsify something (to prove it's not true) as it is to confirm something. There are ways to work any new evidence you might find into any theory--even if they initially seem to conflict.
- Perhaps falsifiability does not necessarily equal scientific. However, it still stands that moral/ethical statements are not falsifiable, whatever implications that may have on their scientific qualities (or lack thereof). One way or another, it is important to mention the non-falsifiability of moral statements in this article (even if we don't link that to science), as non-falsifiability places them in the same category as other non-falsifiable statements such as conspiracy theories or pseudoscience. Like I said, wikipedia's own page on falsifiability states that moral/ethical statements are "not considered to be falsifiable," so why shouldn't we mention that here? By the way, you claim Popper was wrong, but Wikipedia's page on falsifiability claims that there is actually an open debate and no right/wrong consensus concerning Popper.
- The point I was trying to make is that every theory/proposition is not falsifiable, which defeats the purpose of declaring it in specific cases. You're right that there are people who disagree with my position (e.g. people who still think Popper was right)--although how they could is beyond me... But in contemporary philosophy of science Popper has certainly fallen out of favor, which is about as close as you can get nowadays to being "wrong."
- So I followed your own link to the philosophy of science page, where I found under the "falsifiability" section that: "Despite criticisms of falsifiability by philosophers, it remains a cornerstone of many working scientists' personal philosophy of science." .... fallen out of favor??? hmmm.... It sounds to me that this objection to falsifiability is clearly a pet peeve of yours, and not at all a consensus among scientists/philosophers. Anyhow, many pages on wikipedia reference the idea of falsifiability, such as the page on Freud (which mentions that his critics have accused his theories of not being falsifiable). It's only fair to reference the notion of falsifiability here as well, as to correspond to the falsifiability page's own mention of the non-falsifiability of moral/ethical statements. In addition, the article should contain a link to non-cognitivism, which entirely pertains to the "truth-value" of morals/ethics.
- Right... many "working scientists" still go for falsification theory, because it has a nice ring to it and seems to justify what they're doing. But "working scientists" are very different from philosophers of science; the first group is content to simply do science (whatever it might be), while the latter is interested in what science actually is and the justification of its methodology. (Of course, a lot of philosophers of science are also scientists, but hopefully you get my point.) It's among the philosophers that falsifiability has fallen out of favor, and it's the philosophers who matter in this article, since scientists (although they might say "falsifiability" when necessary) generally reject all this sort of theorizing as hogwash for the humanities.
- I do think it's appropriate to mention "falsifiability" in the Freud article, because this criticism has been leveled at him quite frequently since Popper, in an attempt to separate Freud from modern psychology, which is supposed to be "real science." (I'll have to check that article to make sure it doesn't say anything stupid about falsifiability...) However, I don't think falsifiability has come up nearly as much in the discourse on morality. If we're going to add a "not-falsifiable" clause to every article on wikipedia that deals with something non-falsifiable... well, let's just not think about that. Also, this isn't actually a peeve of mine... I've just got time to kill.-BrownApple 22:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
- So I followed your own link to the philosophy of science page, where I found under the "falsifiability" section that: "Despite criticisms of falsifiability by philosophers, it remains a cornerstone of many working scientists' personal philosophy of science." .... fallen out of favor??? hmmm.... It sounds to me that this objection to falsifiability is clearly a pet peeve of yours, and not at all a consensus among scientists/philosophers. Anyhow, many pages on wikipedia reference the idea of falsifiability, such as the page on Freud (which mentions that his critics have accused his theories of not being falsifiable). It's only fair to reference the notion of falsifiability here as well, as to correspond to the falsifiability page's own mention of the non-falsifiability of moral/ethical statements. In addition, the article should contain a link to non-cognitivism, which entirely pertains to the "truth-value" of morals/ethics.
- The point I was trying to make is that every theory/proposition is not falsifiable, which defeats the purpose of declaring it in specific cases. You're right that there are people who disagree with my position (e.g. people who still think Popper was right)--although how they could is beyond me... But in contemporary philosophy of science Popper has certainly fallen out of favor, which is about as close as you can get nowadays to being "wrong."
- Perhaps falsifiability does not necessarily equal scientific. However, it still stands that moral/ethical statements are not falsifiable, whatever implications that may have on their scientific qualities (or lack thereof). One way or another, it is important to mention the non-falsifiability of moral statements in this article (even if we don't link that to science), as non-falsifiability places them in the same category as other non-falsifiable statements such as conspiracy theories or pseudoscience. Like I said, wikipedia's own page on falsifiability states that moral/ethical statements are "not considered to be falsifiable," so why shouldn't we mention that here? By the way, you claim Popper was wrong, but Wikipedia's page on falsifiability claims that there is actually an open debate and no right/wrong consensus concerning Popper.
[edit] There seems to be an article on moral realism embedded in here
In the "Moral relativism versus absolute morality" section of this article is a paragraph that reads
- Moral Relativism is in direct opposition of Moral Realism (which contains the concept of moral absolutism) and is characterised as follows:
And then is followed by two rather lengthy paragraphs that appear to be solely about the concept of moral realism, not even bothering to describe it in comparison to moral relativism. I'm no philosophy guy, though, so I figured I'd ask here before moving this stuff over to the moral realism article; is there any reason why this lengthy description is here, am I just missing mention of how it relates to moral relativism within it? Bryan 05:47, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
[edit] criticism of moral reletavism
The article says:
"Moreover, aside from logical constraints, there is an evaluative aspect to certain moral terms (e.g., good and bad), a standard of measurement, much as is with the concepts of less or more, and this property would not be relativistic."
Does this make sense to anyone? why would this 'evaluative' property not be relativistic? Seems to me like a meaningless sentance that should be removed.
- Mistaken, perhaps, but certainly not meaningless, which means something quite different. Less, more, good, bad, have a shared aspect across the cultural divide (e.g., this wrench is good or that pail holds less than the other), and the meaning of that aspect (there are other aspects) is not relative to a cultural standard, but to a universal standard. In other words, there is an invariant property of certain terms (not necessarily what they refer to). The standard of less in "This is less than that," is not relativistic, notwithstanding the variance between this and that. Some terms, including some moral terms, are even lacking in descriptive content and have formal, modal properties, such as the term "ought." Therefore, aside from other descriptive properties of the terms, their factual content, there is a means of reconcilling differences, one that does not depend upon relativistic criteria(e.g., based on a cultural standard), but one that is universal. THis is not a novel view, but one hashed out by the analytical movement for fifty years. (see Baird, Berumen, Hare,).
"One might also say, as Berumen has, if relativism were true, then in some sense it hoists itself by its own petard, for there is no reason to prefer it over any other theory."
Seems like the criticism of someone who mistakes moral-relativism to be immorality of amorality (see section 'Moral relativism versus absolute morality'). Moral relativism does *not* mean that one shouldn't have moral values, it only means that one accepts that these values are convensions. It is by no means an ethical thoery that dictates a course of action, nor one that negates any course of action.
I therefor think that putting such criticism here is misleading. It only muffles the meaning of the term. It's better to restrict the criticism to such that is made by people who understand what moral-relativism means.Cederal 13:28, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- There is no such mistake and it is not misleading. Several editors have thought moral relativism simply means that different moral norms exist and that they all have a validity of their own. This is anthropological relativism, and not very sophisticated version, at that. The accepted philosophical definition of moral relativism (Hume, Westermarck, Williams, Hare, Baird, et al) is that there is no preferred standard of truth by which to measure moral judgments, unlike, for example, that which obtains for mathematics, logic, or (to some lesser extent) science. Hare and Berumen, among others, have shown that one must distinguish between a proposition's cognitive content, its correlation with the facts in the world, and its formal or logical properties. Ethical judgments are subject to the rules of formal reasoning, logic, which are devoid of any factual content (beyond trivial tautological content). Consequently, notwithstanding the truth conditions of an ethical proposition's descriptive properties, it is subject to one standard of formal reasoning...which negates an aspect of relativism, though some opposed to relativism would find it less than satisfying, for it says nothing about the descriptive content, itself, just that one cannot hold contradictory positions,that the laws of identity apply, and there are rules that apply to conditional statements, etc.. Relativists (some) claim their's is a metaethical theory. Some critics, in turn, claim this is a distinction without a real difference, for saying that there is no preferred standard of truth (a unviersal standard against which to measure all ethical assertions) is, in fact, making a normative judgment about ethical propositions. Some relativists want to have theier cake and eat it too....its metaethics, they'll say, except when they are judging the truth of normative propositons. It is in this sense (when it is acting as a normative theory...which it does whenever it weighs in on truth or says there is no preferred standard) that Berumen (and others )suggest that relativism cannot logically claim precedence by its own standards. icut4u
- I agree, you shoulda seen the paragraph on moral realism that I moved to the other article (it said that a society that didn't embrace moral realism would be in trouble because it couldn't say things like "murder is wrong" :). I think moral relativism is often misrepresented along these lines, the only reason I didn't do a full rewrite is because I've no philosophical qualifications and didn't want to mess things up with my probably idiosyncratic understanding of these terms. If so many people agree this article needs work, though, I'm willing to take a crack at it (or at least support anyone who does). Perhaps it would be a good idea, though, to include a section on "common criticisms" like these even if they don't make sense. If people who come to this article have heard these criticism before then they should find something here addressing that stuff, IMO. Bryan 16:56, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I agree with the comment on moral realism; however, I think this artilce has become a paen to relativism or universism, and it doesn't always protray relativism or its critics accurately. Relativism offers a potent critique to many ethical theories; however, it is not immune from criticism, itself, and the counter criticisms, here, strike me as taking them too lightly, even misrepresenting them, with a significant POV in favor of a very unsophisticated relativism. The article ought to describe the philosophical positions in an expository manner without taking one. It does not do that. Moreover, the language introduced in recent edits is far removed from the language of technical philsophers. Among other things, words such as "reason" and "reasons" and "justification" are used in a manner that is not customary in philosophical circles. icut4u
[edit] Revamp
This article became a hodgepodge of incongruent, redundant, and, sometimes, incomprehensible assertions. The major philosophical positions about both relativism as well as the principal criticisms of it were misrepresented. Technical philosophical terms were misused with abandon. It had a definite POV in support of a species of relativism at every turn, though it never articulated it in a manner that was understandable. I did what I could to restructure it and insert more information on the major philsophical doctrines, pro and con, along with references to some of the philosophers supporting those doctrines. The article was recently made into a promotion for a quasi-religious, moral doctrine that is certainly not among the major philosphical views dealing with relativism, namely, what is called "universism." I left a blurb in the article about it near the end, along with the website link promoting it, but its encyclopedic merit is highly suspect. I note that an article about universism was deleted. I will leave it to others to decide what to do with it, here, but it certainly should not dominate the longstanding philosophical tradition of relativism, that has more rigourous theories and very capable representation, nor should it give short-shrift to some of the serious difficulties that relativism presents. I will eventually put in some publications for references. icut4u
[edit] New point of view?
I've just finished reading the Trilogy of Conversations With God, and since they are so popular today and they address Moral Relativism, shouldn't we complete the page with a note about the "new" point of view presented at this Trilogy? (is it really new? can somebody argue if the CWG point of view is really new or is it already covered in one of the presented definitions?).
--Ricardojimenezr 04:09, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- It seems as though it belongs in an article dealing with religious belief or with channeling, or some such thing. That there is one truth or many truths or no truths is implicit in the article. Discussion of a particular moral code or religious belief, such as this, seems out of place. The ideas presented on the page are certainly not new, and I don't see its relevance for this article. I will defer to you and others if a separate blurb seems necessary, as with the one on universism, which I myself find highly questionable as something that merits any attention in this article.
[edit] Universism
I removed the section on Universism, as this is a very small quasi-religious movement that has just started up, with members meeting in each other's houses. There's currently a vote going on as to whether to undelete the article about it. See Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion/Universist Movement. I've voted there that the movement may be (marginally) notable enough to have its own article, but it doesn't represent a notable philosophical position on moral relativism and therefore has no place in this article, in my view. The passage I removed is below. I also removed the link to their website. SlimVirgin 23:14, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)
Universism is a new system of thought developed outside of formal, academic philosophy, and promoted by The Universist Movement. Proponents argue, among other things, that only those individuals causing or directly affected by an action can make any judgment about the action's ultimate rightness or wrongness. That is, individuals not directly involved in an action have no moral authority to judge that action. Any judgments, with or without authority, are understood to be relative to the individual's reason, experience and emotion, and thus different in many cases. This is similar to the outlook propounded by Sartre.
[edit] Relativism Redirect
On the issue of merging....there are several specific versions of relativism, for example, Cultural relativism, Cognitive relativism, Linguistic relativism, etc. One can imagine other forms. Philosophers and others close to the subject generally recognize moral and ethical reltivism as the appropriate nomenclature for the subject matter of this article. I therefore would disagree with the recent proposal to merge this with the article entitled Relativism. At most, non-duplicative points from the latter article ought to be incorporated into this one, though a cursory overview on my part didn't reveal anything that would add to it. Unless there is a disagreement, I will take the liberty of removing the caption suggesting this in due course. Thanks. icut4u
- Yes, I agree. I can't see any discussion of the issue here, or any reason to merge. They are two quite separate, stand-alone pages. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:38, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Criticism
The last entry does not adeqately state or deal with (in the counter-argument) R.M. Hare's point that relativism is mistaken in a very fundamental way, since all moral prpositions and arguments are subject to the laws of logic, without regard to the truth values of the content. Also the conclusion of relstivism being unaffected by a criticism is personal opinion and not encyclopedic.[[User:Logic2go|Logic2go]
Since no one else tried to fix it I did. Logic2go
[edit] References format
Is there a good reason not to turn the references section into wiki Template:Book reference references? I've been doing that on pages that didn't already have consistent reference style but this page has one. Deborah-jl 22:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] There is something I don't understand
"An observer in a particular time and place, depending on his outlook (e.g., culture, religion, background), might call something good that another observer in a particular time and place would call evil."
- Why is this a criticism? It seems only to support moral relativism. If one society sees something as good, and another sees the same thing as bad - then moral relativism is correct. Claiming otherwise contradicts the definition of morality, and disconnects it from the notion of right and wrong.
[edit] Laymen's terms
I'm going to risk sounding like an idiot and propose that the language of this article be simplified; not necessarilly for those with "weaker" minds, but a weaker vocabulary. The flowery and elequent (sp) language really got in my way of understanding the article, and I have a feeling a lot of people can relate. No, I'm not going to start writing in a flowery language now, to show that I myself am elequent (and that I don't need the article to be "dumbed down"), because I don't feel the need to; obviously, knowing a lot of vocabulary doesn't always determine someone's wisdom or intelligence. Just give us the information; it's annoying to look up some words that I don't understand -- give it to us in "laymen's terms". Really, I think the pseudo-flowery language just gets in the way of the reader's learning. Do other encyclopedias read like this? It sounds like Plato's description of a sophist; just please try and make this simple and understandable like Socrates. And I want to say one more time that simplifying the language doesn't equate to dumbing it down. I may consider simplifying it myself, once I get a consesus/permission on it, because I think that will really do the public a service. 24.23.51.27 05:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Problems for moral relativists
"Various historical and cultural events and practices (including the Holocaust, Stalinism, Apartheid in South Africa, genocide, unjust wars, genital mutilation, slavery, terrorism, Nazism, etc.) present difficult problems for relativists."
It isn't obvious to me how the holocaust for example (but the others as well) is a problem for moral relativists, and the following sentences don't seem to provide an explanation.
It seems like the argument is that since the holocaust is so obviously evil (the assumption), and that moral relativism can be used to consider the holocaust good, that moral relativism thus has an obvious problem on its hands. But the point of moral relativism is that the holocaust can only be considered evil by arbitary standards of right and wrong. There is only a problem for moral relativists who aren't actually moral relativists.
So I'm going to change it to read "Some believe various historical ... present difficult problems for relativists." I don't know if that is actually true, but as the header says there are already citation problems in that section. I don't really like my change much, but it's better than what's there. 70.66.9.162 13:54, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Peer review request
Editors interested in this topic might like to take part in peer review on a new version of Global justice I've been working on. Cheers, --Sam Clark 11:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] "Debate on moral relativism" section
In case some of you guys haven't noticed, there exists a severe editorial slant in the section that is supposed to consist of opposing veiwpoints. The section refutes every argument!!! It hardly even questions the existance of what a great deal of people believe to be a critically flawed principle (I being among them). I'd like to see some major changes made by someone by the end of the week, or so help me, I will rewrite the entire section! I will not kill the rest of the article, but another voice on this topic must be heard!
Deepdesertfreman 13:12, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] "Some philosophical considerations" section
This section has no subtitles or subsections, and is very long. In one paragraph it talks about descriptive relativists and in the next, meta-ethical relativists. This section needs to be re-written or merged into other sections. Tom Stringham 19:12, 24 August 2006 (UTC) EDIT: I have divided the section into subsections and moved one of the paragraphs to the top and adapted it into a leading paragraph. I have also renamed the section to "Philosophical Views". Tom Stringham 19:38, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] everyday moral relativism
The two religious critiques at the end are not about the philosophical theory of moral relativism but rather about the everyday sort of "different strokes for different folks" mentality that's become common in the modern world. Where does discussion of this layman's moral relativism belong? A section of this page? Its own page? Jonathan Tweet 15:44, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
