I think you'll have to explain moral pluralism because i don't really understand that. I sort of do - like there are many options of right and wrong and none is really better than another - it takes a radical diversion reach a preference.

Well.. again, I got my information from Wikipedia...

The way I understand it: moral relativism states the absence of absolute moral truths. It argues that certain moral values work primarily created for a specific region. A moral value can be upheld in multiple areas, but not because it is necessarily a universal truth; it merely works for that particular society. The concepts of "good" and "bad" are merely human constructs used to uphold social harmony.

Moral pluralism is what I was arguing for: the idea that there are different value systems that are not recognized as necessarily wrong, but merely different. Thus, a person who adheres to moral pluralism tolerates beliefs that differ from his own, because he respects the culture that spawned in. However, this tolerance has its limits, and a moral pluralist may have trouble accepting a value system that is too far removed from his or her own.

I suppose moral pluralism is more a stance or attitude to a difference in value systems. Moral relativism and moral absolutism question the existence of universally applicable truths. They act as counter-arguments to one another. In the Wikipedia entry that I read, they also make a point to mention that moral pluralism and relativism are not synonymous with one another. They deal with similar topics, but focus on different aspects of it. A person who believes in moral relativism can choose to practice moral pluralism, but this doesn't have to be the case; it just depends on how open-minded the moral relativist chooses to be.

Indigo, I like what you said about Bundy being a return of a more primitive form of human nature. That's an interesting way of looking at it, and I must say I haven't really thought of it like that before. It's definitely something worth pondering on. However, is a relativist viewpoint necessary to link Bundy's actions to that of animals? Aren't most animals free from the reins of moral judgment, since they act on instinct and survival?

Yes

As I mentioned before: I think moral truths are easy to apply in the general case; it's in the specific situations that I'm more hesitant to agree with them.

For example, number 1 sounds like a great rule to follow. It's basically a rephrasing of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have done unto you." I try to base my actions around this principle, but I feel it's easy for me because I'm not in any stressful or highly intense situations that push me to do otherwise. Most people I meet are nice to me, so it's not too much for me to do the same, but let's consider a special case...

Now, I think stealing is generally wrong. You're taking the honest living of another man for your own benefit. However, what if you were a victim of a financial "perfect storm"? You were a hard-working, honest man who considered the welfare of others, but now you suddenly find your entire family living on the street. Let's also say that much of your misfortune was the result of a powerful and wealthy, yet evil, man's machinations. Your family, including your two infant children, are dying right in front of your eyes. One day, you suddenly find yourself in a situation where you can swipe a bit of food from the evil man's kitchen. Doing so will have no effect on the evil man, since he's rich, and he probably won't even know you did it or that anything was stolen from him. If you live according to Rule 1, you don't, because you don't believe in stealing, and you wouldn't want anyone stealing from you. Instead, you simply return to your family and watch them die.

If I heard this story, and was asked what the poor man should do... I'd say "Go steal from that bastard." I think there are a few out there who would agree with me. Is the stealing justified? No, of course not. The man is still committing a wrongful act (if you consider stealing wrongful, which I hope you do ); however, is it a greater wrong to steal or to let someone die? Though the answer to this question may seem obvious to some, other comparisons can be made where it would be a much harder call. In the situation I described, though, I think many of us would probably be lenient on the poor man, given the circumstances.

I think Kant would argue that his principle isn't like the golden rule because he thinks wants and actions have nothing to do with morality, the consequences of an action don't matter only as long as they were done because it was the right thing to. So if you are treating others the way you want to be treated, your doing things out of self interest and Kant would say that is immoral, that being said I don't necessarily like Kant

But the example you gave, it could be considered moral to take the food and still be applicable to Kant's first truth, it all depends how you form the maxim. You assumed the maxim was "stealing" and since if everyone stole the world couldn't exist, therefore it's immoral to take the food, but what if you made the maxim "stealing food from the extremely wealthy to save your starving children"? Then you could imagine a world where the individuals with starving children stole food from the extremely wealthy who don't even notice, that world is plausible, and no worse then the current world therefore stealing the food IS moral...So Kant made this rule extremely flexible, and I can't think of any situations where it wouldn't work still...

Wait....What? Wouldn't there have to be a standard for them to say something is wrong?

In order to be a universal truth it would have to be true, so those people would be wrong. Now the danger lies in assuming something we know already to be absolutely true, if we classify something as an absolute truth and we are wrong, then it's not really a truth at all now is it...So that makes the process of finding moral truths that much harder, even if you think you have it, is there really any time when you can ever say, yes it is absolutely true and end all further development towards that idea? What if your wrong?

This may be the case, and this may be exactly how modern laws were formed, they evolved over the years. BUT in order for a society to exist, they have to hold some common moral values in order for society to actually exist, now is that to say that these common values that are required for society to exist universal? Maybe... For example murder must be disapproved of, if it weren't then individuals wouldn't risk living together in large groups, they would be solitary, maybe forming small groups they could trust to not kill them at best, but nothing that would allow for a society to exist, so all societies must disapprove of murder. So regardless of the environment that must be true for all, right?

Now that's a tough one

If the same principles of nature, such as evolution and physics applied to every other universe then I could probably argue that it wouldn't make a difference which universe you were in, life and societies would exist in such a similar manner that there would still be truths that apply to all of us... But if different laws of physics and biology are found in other universes...Then hell, it's anyones guess as to what the heck would happen, I don't think we can comprehend those implications at least I can't at the moment

You don't know if eternal moral truths are a human concept, maybe on planet Gorbalax they are sitting discussing the same exact thing

Perhaps what we can say is that the framework for morality is there in the universe. In the same way that the framework for stars and planets. But the question is why is it this way, and why does it seem so right? It seems so right that we cannot comprehend other (theoretical) universes having a better system. Ours is just the best and only way we know. At this point my head explodes because i am physically unable to comprehend a different reality to our own 3 dimensional one.

*tapes indigo's head back together*

Well what if we consider cultural relativism and instead call it universal cultural relativism, and instead of comparing societies on Earth, we compare two different universes and their views, wouldn't we come to the same conclusion that cultural relativism did?

I think Kant would argue that his principle isn't like the golden rule because he thinks wants and actions have nothing to do with morality, the consequences of an action don't matter only as long as they were done because it was the right thing to. So if you are treating others the way you want to be treated, your doing things out of self interest and Kant would say that is immoral, that being said I don't necessarily like Kant

But the example you gave, it could be considered moral to take the food and still be applicable to Kant's first truth, it all depends how you form the maxim. You assumed the maxim was "stealing" and since if everyone stole the world couldn't exist, therefore it's immoral to take the food, but what if you made the maxim "stealing food from the extremely wealthy to save your starving children"? Then you could imagine a world where the individuals with starving children stole food from the extremely wealthy who don't even notice, that world is plausible, and no worse then the current world therefore stealing the food IS moral...So Kant made this rule extremely flexible, and I can't think of any situations where it wouldn't work still...

Haha... I have to admit, you make a very strong argument. I suppose the Golden Rule was an oversimplification (and an incorrect one, at that) of Kant's maxim. I must admit, when considering it the way you've described, it does neatly sidestep a lot of the problems I mentioned concerning moral absolutism.

Hmm.. now I'm going to be spending all day trying to think of exceptions to this rule, lol.

But a moral absolutist can not entertain moral pluralism? Because things are either right or they are wrong, there is no bending. Whereas a moral relativist has already bent by recognising that things are not always concrete.

Do you think moral absolutism the preserve of the ignorant?

Yeah Bundy could be an example of a more primitive time in human history, one that has managed to sneak into modern society. Humans certainly are a violent species, but we have come to temper our baser instincts towards others with a moral framework. Strangely though, powerful leaders seem to be able to watch the killing of tens of thousands of civilians as though they were nothing. Anyway, killing is in our blood-some more than others-and add to that a terrible upbringing and you have the recipe for disaster.

I would say a relativist or moral pluralist(i'm not sure now lol) viewpoint is necessary in order to understand that most animals are free from the reigns of moral judgement. You can apply this understanding to argument i made about Ted Bundy can't you? If it were proved that he was influenced by his primitive past. Of course we are heading into complex legal issues now.

Hmm.. I was thinking, NeverMore: even though Kant's rule could be applied universally with good result, the execution of this rule would be completely different, depending on the individual. It would essentially be a universal maxim that results in a morally relativistic world. Can it be considered a universal moral truth (rule), or a moral guide?

A moral truth, in my opinion, would be something that details or implies the nature or inherent quality of an action. A moral guide, however, dictates how we perform said actions. Just my thoughts... but what do you think?

I guess it's more of a moral guide your right, something you can refer to to determine if something is moral not necessarily what is moral, as we just saw, you used the rule and came to the conclusion that your action was immoral, I used the rule and found it was moral, so at that level it is based on the individual and even dependent of how much detail you put into forming the maxim. There has to be a limit to how detailed you can be, you can't for instance form the maxim: "stealing from rich evil people to save your starving children" because it contains an opinion, you think he's evil....It would only make sense to form the maxims using only facts and actions I guess...DAMN YOU KANT and your rule I will find an exception just to prove it isn't a reliable guide

This post was last modified: 02-23-2008 08:18 AM by NeverMore.

Oh no, I don't mean to presume anything about moral absolutism. I'm sorry if you took it that way. However, I do feel that pluralism would be less likely to be undertaken by an absolutist, and more by a relativist.

If a moral absolutist deemed "ignoring or tolerating an evil act" to be evil in itself, then pluralism would be very hard to maintain. There are many actions that are considered neutral (merely difference in lifestyle), but there are also actions that some perceive to be evil that others consider neutral (abortion). If a moral absolutist sees this, and considers it to be inherently evil (killing a life), then I would imagine that it would be against his/her nature to simply walk away (assuming ignoring evil is considered evil in itself).

And is ignoring evil considered evil? Would we consider someone evil if he/she ignored or walked away from a person being raped, murdered, or mugged? Maybe just weak? It's up to the individual to decide.

I'm sorry I notice this stuff is way over my head, I'm like the little kid that wants to do all the smart grown up things. But I have been interested in philosphy for a long time. So i like reading your guys posts, you guys are all really smart.

thats a good point nevermore. Alot of times wheither a choice is morally bad or good, will depend on the information on the situation we have.
ex middle eastern conflicts we may have had faulty information on WMDs. Considering that saddam had weapons of mass destruction and he was planning to attack the us and other nations then It would have been morally good to go into Iraq, correct? But we had inaccurate reports. So instead we shipped soilders and caused the deaths of inocent bystanders and destabilized a complete country. for no reason. That is morally bad, no?

what I'm trying to say that when we are making a descion about the right thing to do, it isn't an answer, that is automatic andfound in our genes. Our pecieved notions of ethics is influenced by others, and the current knowledge of the situation at hand.

No i didn't take it that way. I tend to agree with you that pluralism is less likely to be undertaken by an absolutist, and more by the relativist.

I wondered if absolutism is really another word for ignorance. It makes me chuckle when i hear people on radio talk shows give their opinions with breathtaking confidence - purely because it is something they themselves have had experience with, as though this makes their opinion infallible.

This is a good point. Do you think it implies that any universal moral truth must be bendable and adaptive to circumstance? Would this make it less of a universal truth, or is the universality something separate from what happens on the ground? Because surely we understand the reasons why a person would not physically help a victim of rape or mugging - they are probably scared and fearful of being hurt themselves. I

Completely ignoring a victim of, say, mugging - not even calling the police - is another matter. But some people do this, maybe more than we realise. Some people would say (usually the religious) that this is due to the breakdown of morals in our societies. If this is true perhaps it shows how weak morals are in the universe - if they can be so easily abandoned. We could look to other reasons why people ignore crime: societies that foster selfish attitudes, or create an atmosphere of hopelessness, disconnection, disaffection, resentment and cynicism. To me, it seems that factors like these are extremely powerful and are capable of pushing morals aside.

However most humans do have a conscience, and so feel guilty about not doing anything. I say most because some don't - i'm talking about people who exhibit psychopathic tendencies - whether murderer or businessman. I think i read that such tendencies of varying degrees can affect anyone. And people like this aren't so much evil but, as is the title to Nietzsche's book, "human, all too human". So again we have the question, are the people without conscience representing a universe with or without universal moral truths?