Where are your tithes going?

[taoist]

Ya know, I'm still trying to figure out how moral relativism implies no morality at all to our absolutist members.

Maybe it's yet another example of blind in the middle. Over here, we gotcher absolutely evil, never mind about examples; and over there we gotcher absolutely good, never mind about counterexamples; and in between, we got nothing at all, cause we just plain cain't see no relatively good or relatively evil, and never you mind that's where every example actually exists here in the real world.

If I were Dawkins, I'd call it "the tyrrany of the discontinuous mind," but in this case, I guess we could get by with the more circumscribed "moral myopia."

Moral myopia is immoral. Make something of that if you want to.

 

[Crow]

Ya know, I'm still trying to figure out how moral relativism implies no morality at all to our absolutist members.

Maybe it's yet another example of blind in the middle. Over here, we gotcher absolutely evil, never mind about examples; and over there we gotcher absolutely good, never mind about counterexamples; and in between, we got nothing at all, cause we just plain cain't see no relatively good or relatively evil, and never you mind that's where every example actually exists here in the real world.

If I were Dawkins, I'd call it "the tyrrany of the discontinuous mind," but in this case, I guess we could get by with the more circumscribed "moral myopia."

Moral myopia is immoral. Make something of that if you want to.

tao, I don't think that anyone has tried to make the case that there are no relatives, but rather that absolutes do exist.

 

[fool]

tao, I don't think that anyone has tried to make the case that there are no relatives, but rather that absolutes do exist.

Oh no, if you read this thread you'll see that Knight and Poly are trying to turn Moral Reletivity into Moral Negativity.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Oh no, if you read this thread you'll see that Knight and Poly are trying to turn Moral Reletivity into Moral Negativity.

If you had the ability to think you wouldn't make that comment.

It isn't my job to make sure you are comprehending everything that is being said.

 

[taoist]

tao, I don't think that anyone has tried to make the case that there are no relatives, but rather that absolutes do exist.

Au contraire, Crow,

I just finished reading twelve pages of a webmaster-hijacking based on just that principle ... that a moral relativist cannot call anything immoral. On this one, Deb, I gotta go with the fool.

In peace, well, relative peace anyway, Jesse

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Ya know, I'm still trying to figure out how moral relativism implies no morality at all to our absolutist members.

I will gladly consider a moral standard for the moral relativist.

In fact...

I already told Zakath I would love to read his "social contract", I guess I will have to wait on that one. :chuckle:

 

[allsmiles]

If you had the ability to think you wouldn't make that comment.

It isn't my job to make sure you are comprehending everything that is being said.

not trying to be disrespectful or confrontational, but do you have a job?

you must work from home, right? i'm very jealous

as for the moral contract, that strikes me as an unspoken common sense sort of thing that doesn't need to be spelled out. non-believers have the luxury of not needing their hands held when it comes to morality.

 

[fool]

If you had the ability to think you wouldn't make that comment.

It isn't my job to make sure you are comprehending everything that is being said.

I comprehend just fine.
And you still haven't answered my question.
I ask you from one man to another.
From one Father to another.
If Yaweh tells you to sacrafice your child to him will you do it?

 

[Nathon Detroit]

not trying to be disrespectful or confrontational, but do you have a job?

you must work from home, right? i'm very jealous

I live off the millions of dollars that pour into TOL daily.

 

[taoist]

I will gladly consider a moral standard for the moral relativist.

In fact...

I already told Zakath I would love to read his "social contract", I guess I will have to wait on that one. :chuckle:

Well, then, consider this.

Pick any incident, a real life incident, that is, one you can objectively check with facts. Carefully weigh who gets hurt, who gets helped. Call this one incident your standard, with all others to be judged by whether they are better or worse, as measured by the sum of helps and hurts for every nose involved.

Call everything better moral ... everything worse immoral.

There ya go, a standard for moral relativism. The trick is to work off a zero point that exists, rather than some absolutist point at infinity that doesn't. And if you find too much gets judged moral, or too much immoral, you can always pick another real, physical standard. It's a lot more practical that way.

(The joke is, this is exactly what happens in modern jurisprudence via the principle of precedent.)

 

[Nathon Detroit]

There ya go, a standard for moral relativism.

That wasn't a standard for moral relativism.

All you did was describe what moral relativism is!

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Pick any incident, a real life incident, that is, one you can objectively check with facts. Carefully weigh who gets hurt, who gets helped. Call this one incident your standard, with all others to be judged by whether they are better or worse, as measured by the sum of helps and hurts for every nose involved.

Call everything better moral ... everything worse immoral.

For sake of argument lets assume everyone used your standard of morality.

That being assumed could you determine if anyone was more or less moral than anyone else?

In other words...
Let's assume there is a person who (using this standard) finds nothing immoral about molesting his young children. Could you (taoist) make a determination that he was less moral than anyone else? Can you do that without appealing to any other standard other than the one you have given?

 

[fool]

That wasn't a standard for moral relativism.

All you did was describe what moral relativism is!

And there was a standard described.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

And there was a standard described.

Not one that could indentify others immorality.

 

[fool]

For sake of argument lets assume everyone used your standard of morality.

Let's assume everyone used yours.

That being assumed could you determine if anyone was more or less moral than anyone else?

Could you?

In other words...
Let's assume there is a person who (using this standard) finds nothing immoral about molesting his young children. Could you (taoist) make a determination that he was less moral than anyone else? Can you do that without appealing to any other standard other than the one you have given?

Let's assume that there is a person who (using your standard) finds they have been chosen to sacrafice their child to Yaweh. Could you (Knight) make a determination that he was right? How?

 

[Crow]

Well, then, consider this.

Pick any incident, a real life incident, that is, one you can objectively check with facts. Carefully weigh who gets hurt, who gets helped. Call this one incident your standard, with all others to be judged by whether they are better or worse, as measured by the sum of helps and hurts for every nose involved.

Call everything better moral ... everything worse immoral.

There ya go, a standard for moral relativism. The trick is to work off a zero point that exists, rather than some absolutist point at infinity that doesn't. And if you find too much gets judged moral, or too much immoral, you can always pick another real, physical standard. It's a lot more practical that way.

(The joke is, this is exactly what happens in modern jurisprudence via the principle of precedent.)

Yup. And it's a lousy system. A few people own property. A private company wants to obtain their property so that they can develop it for profit. So rather than respecting the right of a person to possess their own property and having to make that person an offer that they will feel is acceptable for that property or even having to look for other property to purchase, it's decided that relatively more people will make relatively more money if the property owner is forced off his property and given a below-market value payment for the seized property. Oh, and if the present owner should take the case to court, which is his legal right, and lose, you might as well throw in charging him rent on his own property for the time that it took to receive the judgement, say five years or so.

Ok, now we have precident. Private developers can hook up with a town council and seize private property by eminent domain not to develop a road or something vital to the needs of the community, but to put up a strip mall, and pretty much tell you how much they're willing to pay for your property, as opposed to having to pay what the owner wants for his land or having to locate their mall where people are willing to sell.

So if Standard oil wants to seize a forest privately owned by a conservation group and set up a refinery, that's no longer wrong. They can make bunches more money than a lousy bunch of tree huggers who just happen to own that land. Heck, by the time the owners legally contest the seizure, they might end up owing the land grabber more than they were offered for the property in the first place. It's OK, because it's expedient, and it's been done before.

Or is it?

That's a problem I see when you toss abosolutes out. Because I am someone who bases my morality upon biblical standards, I perceive that it is absolutely wrong for one private party to seize another private party's property just because they possess greater economic and political influence.

 

[fool]

Not one that could indentify others immorality.

But one that could lay guide lines regaurding who as a society we are going to strangle.

 

[Turbo]

A morning after pill doesn't kill anybody, Turbo, and RU486 does. If you want to revisit that thread, do so, but let's not hijack this one in yet another direction.

OK. You agree that RU486 kills innocent people. And it's legal. And there are various other forms of legal abortion which you recognize kill innocent lives.

Therefore do you agree that your previous assertion that murder has never been made legal is false?

 

[Turbo]

Legally no, morally yes. Same situation with any other euthansia or genocide that's ever been state sanctioned. A legal loophole doesn't mean a lick.

It DOES mean that your assertion that murder has never been made legal is false.

And I'm surprised that you downplay the significance of these by calling them legal loopholes.

 

[taoist]

Knight,
That wasn't a standard for moral relativism. All you did was describe what moral relativism is!

taoist,
A standard, in the usual sense, is something used to measure. My point is that the absolutist standard doesn't connect to real life. But I'm pleased to see you recognize the moral relativism inherent in the method I described of choosing standards.

But you're right that I didn't actually pick an incident to set the standard at work. So, let's pick an incident at random, a philistine, for example, passing across the street to avoid a hungry beggar. No one is helped, no one is harmed, and a minimal amount of social interaction. Let this be our nonmoral zero point.

Quote:
"Pick any incident, a real life incident, that is, one you can objectively check with facts. Carefully weigh who gets hurt, who gets helped. Call this one incident your standard, with all others to be judged by whether they are better or worse, as measured by the sum of helps and hurts for every nose involved.

Call everything better moral ... everything worse immoral."

Knight,

For sake of argument lets assume everyone used your standard of morality.

That being assumed could you determine if anyone was more or less moral than anyone else?

taoist,
I can't believe you passed over this ... "all others to be judged by whether they are better or worse, as measured by the sum of helps and hurts for every nose involved"

Knight,
In other words...
Let's assume there is a person who (using this standard) finds nothing immoral about molesting his young children. Could you (taoist) make a determination that he was less moral than anyone else? Can you do that without appealing to any other standard other than the one you have given?

taoist,
Who is helped in this incident? Who is harmed? How does this compare to our arbitrarily chosen philistine? By this standard, I'd say it's clear this person has behaved immorally, even using this relativisic standard. More, I'd say this person would be judged immoral by almost any standard so chosen.