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On July 28 2013 12:28 frogrubdown wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 08:52 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 04:03 frogrubdown wrote:On July 28 2013 03:40 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 03:29 frogrubdown wrote:On July 28 2013 03:13 WhiteDog wrote:
I'm a relativist. I don't really understand all the error theory thing.
That it cause problem philosophically doesn't mean much to me, as I come from a sociological background. From a sociological point of view, the theorical talk doesn't mean much.
What we can do on the other side, is see that 1) most ethical behavior or positions are historic, which means that they are not natural ; 2) most individuals have value, moral, taste and judgement that are heavily linked (if not entirely determined by) with their social origin (different social class have different value to be quick). Well, apparently theoretical talk means something to you when that theory happens to be relativism :p More seriously, every metaethical theory will have to come to terms with facts about the historical and cross-cultural differences in ethical beliefs that you discuss in (1) and (2). They will just disagree on what these facts say about metaethics. (As a sidenote, I think you're misreading my use of 'natural'. Think of 'natural' as non-supernatural. Cultures are every bit as natural as rocks on my use). To have a more productive dialogue, I'd think I'd have to know how your relativist views play out philosophically. For instance, what do you think is the meaning and truth conditions of a sentence such 'Murder is wrong'? (Obviously you don't have to be completely precise here. Because, from my point of view, relativism was historically a way to fight the ethnocentrism of the observant for anthropologues, defended by Bronislaw Manilowski. It's not entirelly a theorical talk, as it is a practice as much as a concept. I was hoping to avoid this issue for a little bit in the thread, but I guess I'll discuss it now. Yes, a doctrine given the name "relativism" has frequently been invoked as a weapon against imperialism, especially in social science departments. However, to be blunt, this has never made even the slightest amount of sense. There is no relativist argument for tolerance.My thoughts on this aren't original. They've been published by hundred of philosophers before and you can find them advanced in hundreds of intro philosophy classes at assorted universities. The problem is simply that if what culture you're in determines what is right, then there is no ground from which you can criticize the imperialistic practices of your own culture. It doesn't matter if what the other culture is doing is also right for them, because what's right for them has nothing to do with what's right for you according to relativism. Relativism would be the best news ever for would-be imperialists. I'll quote Bernard Williams: Let us at this stage of the argument about subjectivism take a brief rest and look round a special view or assemblage of views which has been built on the site of moral disagreements between societies. This is relativism, the anthropologists' heresy, possibly the most absurd view to have been advanced in moral philosophy. In its vulgar and unregenerate form (which I shall consider, since it is both the most distinctive and the most influential form) it consists of three propositions: that 'right' means (can only be coherently understood as meaning) 'right for a given society' ; that 'right for a given society' is to be understood in a functionalist sense ; and that (therefore) it is wrong for people in one society to condemn, interfere with, etc., the values of another society. A view with a long history, it was popular with some liberal colonialists, notably British administrators in places (such as West Africa) in which white men held no land. In that historical role, it may have had, like some other muddled doctrines, a beneficent influence, though modern African nationalism may well deplore its tribalist and conservative implications.
Whatever its results, the view is clearly inconsistent, since it makes a claim in its third proposition, about what is right and wrong in one's dealings with other societies, which uses a nonrelative sense of 'right' not allowed for in the first proposition. The claim that human sacrifice, for instance, was 'right for' the Ashanti comes to be taken as saying that human sacrifice was right among the Ashanti, and this in turn as saying that human sacrifice among the Ashanti was right; i.e., we have no business interfering with it. But this last is certainly not the sort of claim allowed by the theory. The most the theory can allow is the claim that it is right for (i.e., functionally valuable for) our socieity not to interfere with Ashanti society, and, first, this is certainly not all that was meant, and, second, is very dubiously true. From the chapter "Interlude Relativism", worth reading in full. People who call themselves relativists because of arguments like this are really absolutists. They believe in an absolute principle of non-interference in other cultures no matter what your culture thinks about interference (and the individual that disagrees with their culture's ethics are out of luck).
Also, when I read natural, I instantly oppose it to cultural so I might have misunderstood indeed.
As for your question "Murder is wrong", again from a sociological point of view, every assertions are always linked to a context, historical and sociological : "Murder is wrong in today's society", "Murder is not wrong in war", "It is not wrong to murder a slave when you are a noble in the medieval age in France", etc.
This doesn't answer my question about meaning and truth conditions as fully as I'd hoped. As I said, it was a question of practice and not a question of right or wrong. Back when Anthropology arise, most anthropologues were evolutionnists. But, what is important, is not that those anthropologues thought that each societies followed the same rail, it is more that they thought that they could understand a society using their own history or culture. For exemple, they had, in their own society, a certain view of "what is a woman", and considered the society they were studying through the same logic, which is obviously wrong because "woman" does not mean the same in every society (as someone like Margaret Mead showed). Malinowski used "relativism" not to give an explanation on what is right or wrong, but as a way for anthropologue to see a society : they had to accept everything, not take any moral judgement on what they were seeing, and try to actually study the reality that they were facing building their own concept. As I said, it's practical. that 'right' means (can only be coherently understood as meaning) 'right for a given society' (1); that 'right for a given society' is to be understood in a functionalist sense (2); and that (therefore) it is wrong for people in one society to condemn, interfere with, etc., the values of another society (3) 1 is true from a relativist point of view. 2 is completly false. Social science have gone away from functionalism since 60 years (T. Parsons). Nobody consider that what is "right" for a given society has a function within this society, but that it is right because it is right, and there are cultural, historical and social reason that can explain why this is considered as right and not that. Hence 3 is also false. We can critic, and progress, in moral as in science, but from a relativist point of view, we have to consider that defining what is right or wrong is a choice - political, in practice, etc. - that crystalize itself throughout history, in institutions, culture, etc., and not something that is given by the "above" (whether that be god, our gene, or our "human condition"). A view with a long history, it was popular with some liberal colonialists, notably British administrators in places (such as West Africa) in which white men held no land. In that historical role, it may have had, like some other muddled doctrines, a beneficent influence, though modern African nationalism may well deplore its tribalist and conservative implications. Interesting use of history. Completly true, but if you look at the other type of colonialism (mainly France) that had a more activ way of colonizating countries (on the idea that France represented what is "right"), the result is not really better (in fact, it was worse). I'm not sure where the author wants to go there. It seems like, from the quote you made, the author seems to refute "relativism" on moral grounds rather than logic. We still seem to be talking at cross purposes here. You're citing a number of things that I for the most part accept about the varieties and sources of ethical beliefs. You also discuss (as does Williams) the role that a set of views described as "relativism" has had in rhetoric concerning our treatment of other people. I have no problem with that stuff, but it doesn't really speak to what I was saying. My point, and Williams' point, is just that whether or not we should tolerate other practices or engage in imperialism or ethnocentrism has very little to do with relativism. There isn't any plausible argument on the basis of relativism (as a philosophical thesis about what determines goodness) to any conclusions about how we should treat others with different ethical beliefs. If anything, forms of absolutism can come out more tolerant than relativism on these issues, since they can include culture-independent principles of non-interference or judgment. I understand that you find these philosophical points less interesting than the historical/sociological points you discuss, but I think it's very important to keep the differences in mind when discussing relativism.
I don't think it's pointless. Philosophy is the basis of all science, but I don't understand why you are all bent on trying to figure an apodictic definition of morals while it is clear that in practice there are morals, that morals evolve through societies and history, and that - even if it we can and we have the right to judge it as wrong - it seems pretty obvious that at some point, in the past present or future, in another society of our own, some group of people judge some thing as right while some other don't.
But maybe it all comes from my own incapacity to understand all your posts.
If I say that I don't think that moral exist outside of human's practice and institutions, does that make me a nihilist ?
On July 28 2013 17:41 Poffel wrote:There seems to be quite some confusion because questions that are quite similar to those lined out in the OP can be raised in sociological and historical approaches to ethic and morals. This schools of thought have contributed enormously to our modern understanding of metaethics, and there is no argument here that the historical and social conditions are irrelevant to any ethical standpoint - quite the contrary, actually. However, to put it bluntly, the algorithms run by the computer you're reading this on don't become erroneous just because Alan Turing was gay. We mustn't confuse an explanation of when and how a proposition was spoken (or written) with a disconfirmation of said proposition. It's a common fallacy: Nietzsche and Freud did it with their rebuttals of Christian morals, Marx did it when he rejected the 'ruling ethos' as 'ideas of the ruling classes'. However, there is no direct connection between the historical and sociological conditions of its upbringing and the logical and scientific validity of a statement. "Though shalt not kill." doesn't magically become bullshit when you realize that the Biblical history of creation reflects contemporary myths. "Human dignity" isn't an empty term because of our knowledge about the labor conditions of the 18th Century educational elite. Conversely, if there are good ethical reasons to reject slavery because it violates human dignity, then slavery is ethically wrong - and always has been, even if the realization of this truth may not have occured before the new-age. In short, it does not make sense to evaluate the truth value of a proposition under specific timely conditions because logical evaluation does not depend on time. 1 and 1 is 2, not 1 and 1 becomes 2. As the OP has explained, there are meaningful reasons to reject the notion of ethical statements having truth values; but none of these are historical or sociological. In other words, while history and sociology can contribute to our understanding of ethics - and even raise suspicion against certain ideas -, the impression that something is right or wrong just because of its history or social embeddedness is not a viable philosophical standpoint but rather a genetic fallacy.
"Science" is not the same here and there. Social science aren't refutable, what some sociologues call a non-popperian space. It is true that it is a genetic fallacy to consider that the historical and sociological frame that has seen the birth of some laws in physics or mathematics is completly relevant to consider the "truth value" or the said law.
It is completly different for anything that is socially determined, because if it always linked to its context (social and historical) it is always "true" in the said context, and not elsewhere.
Slavery is ethically true because you use concept of "human dignity" that is considered as true today, but that might not be in the future, and that was completly false in our long history. You don't have to go that far, go back to Nazi's Germany and tell them that you should give some dignity to those men working in concentration camp and that killing them is a bad thing.
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On July 28 2013 18:10 BlindSC2 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
I have a general question about moral realism, though I know it's too general, covering too wide an area, to get a full answer, but I've wanted to ask it for a while.
Upon re-reading I'm finding I'm asking many different questions but I think it can be summarised under "What definition of 'fact' (or 'truth') are moral realists using, and what are the implications of it?", and due to my choice of example, what I'm asking here affect naturalistic realism in particular. And of course, at the end of the day, these question may simply serve to be a critique of said theories and these questions are debatable as to their ability to be answered
Suppose we took Utilitarianism to be true. We now know that happiness is the ultimate intrinsic good, and should be maximised while pain is minimised. What does it mean to call this a 'fact' though? What does it mean to say this is the truth? Was it true before (and will it continue to be true after) there were things capable of being happy (and does it matter if these beings are intelligent enough formulate the concept of morality?). Or did it become a moral truth as beings with the capacity for happiness began concerning themselves with morality?
If it were always a moral truth of the world that happiness should be maximised, I don't see a way of getting out of the idea that some kind of God made it be so. I mean, perhaps if we were to take the multi-verse theory, the version where each universe has it's own 'laws of physics' etc, perhaps we could say that each universe has it's own moral facts that are arbitrarily and seemingly randomly formed. But what reason do we have for following or adhering to this moral fact? The laws of physics are always ruling over me and I cannot escape them, I can't 'ignore' gravity and just float off into space under normal conditions, but I can quite easily defy this moral fact of happiness maximisation, and so, basically, what's the point of it? If there were a God to 'enforce' it, the 'point' of it may be known, thus my earlier point.
On the other hand, if it only became a moral truth once beings capable of happiness became concerned with morality, I don't see how we can get out of something akin to relativism but on a species, or worldly scale. e.g what is moral truth on this world is 'true' because and only because beings capable of happiness that are concerned with morality exist here. However, in this other galaxy on this other world, where beings capable of 'zooplar' that are concerned with 'gammafornia' exist, the moral truth is to 'devartinate' the 'kinkinque'. This scenario basically falls under Mill's 'proof' of utilitarianism (only evidence x is visible is that x is seen, desired, desirable, etc) which I just don't agree with. We like to be happy and so we try to maximise happiness, sure, cool, but whether that is moral or a moral fact can be derived from it is another issue.
I'll cut it short there because that's probably already too many individual questions in one post.
Maybe I have completely the wrong concept of what truth is, and I hope to be enlightened, but I actually just don't understand what it would mean for there to be a moral truth, let alone how that truth would be found. I understand, of course, that truth can be contingent, it didn't have to be true that I made this post, much in that way that it wouldn't have had to be true that Utilitarianism were true in my hypothetical world, but I seem to have this unshakable thought in my head that if we claim something to be 'moral fact' it is something apart, above, other facts, in a different realm to the fact 'I am sitting in a chair', which is simply unobtainable to us.
While I certainly cannot speak for other moral realists I can give you a short account my own view on that. First let me point out that my claim to moral realism is in a sense weaker, than the one stated in the op, since I do not have a full fledged theory of truth. My stance is rather that moral reasoning is a subcategory of rational reasoning and that moral statements are not (significantly) more problematic with regard to truth-aptness and epistemology than other statements that are generally held to be truth-apt. In other words I hold that if you are a realist about "anything" (with few exceptions) then you also should be a moral realist.
Now compare the statement "if you are standing in the rain, you are going to get wet" with "if you are murdering somebody, you are committing a morally wrong act". Some semantic and syntactic differences aside I believe that both sentences are truth-apt in some important sense and that both can be known to be true to a certain extent.
Let's assume you would agree to the first sentence being true, maybe because you see a direct causal chain between the physical phenomenon of drops of water falling from the sky onto some subject/object and the following physical and chemical reactions which would lead you to label the object as 'wet'. Would you then be tempted to ask whether the statement was also true before atmospheres or planets even existed or before sentient beings were around to distinguish 'wet' from 'dry'? Well, if you don't then I do not see the problem for the moral statement and if you do, I would suggest that whatever satisfactory answer you come up with might also satisfactorily answer your questions with regard to moral statements.
To me, the moral statement is true because I see a causal chain from the physical phenomenon of one moral agent murdering another sentient agent and the following physical and chemical reactions that lead to suffering. And it is this consequence of suffering that leads me to label the action as morally wrong, since to my understanding, that is exactly what 'morally wrong' means. Just like being 'covered with water' is what being 'wet' means. I am not convinced that any extra 'swoosh' is required here.
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On July 28 2013 17:41 Poffel wrote:There seems to be quite some confusion because questions that are quite similar to those lined out in the OP can be raised in sociological and historical approaches to ethic and morals. This schools of thought have contributed enormously to our modern understanding of metaethics, and there is no argument here that the historical and social conditions are irrelevant to any ethical standpoint - quite the contrary, actually. However, to put it bluntly, the algorithms run by the computer you're reading this on don't become erroneous just because Alan Turing was gay. We mustn't confuse an explanation of when and how a proposition was spoken (or written) with a disconfirmation of said proposition. It's a common fallacy: Nietzsche and Freud did it with their rebuttals of Christian morals, Marx did it when he rejected the 'ruling ethos' as 'ideas of the ruling classes'. However, there is no direct connection between the historical and sociological conditions of its upbringing and the logical and scientific validity of a statement. "Though shalt not kill." doesn't magically become bullshit when you realize that the Biblical history of creation reflects contemporary myths. "Human dignity" isn't an empty term because of our knowledge about the labor conditions of the 18th Century educational elite. Conversely, if there are good ethical reasons to reject slavery because it violates human dignity, then slavery is ethically wrong - and always has been, even if the realization of this truth may not have occured before the new-age. In short, it does not make sense to evaluate the truth value of a proposition under specific timely conditions because logical evaluation does not depend on time. 1 and 1 is 2, not 1 and 1 becomes 2. As the OP has explained, there are meaningful reasons to reject the notion of ethical statements having truth values; but none of these are historical or sociological. In other words, while history and sociology can contribute to our understanding of ethics - and even raise suspicion against certain ideas -, the impression that something is right or wrong just because of its history or social embeddedness is not a viable philosophical standpoint but rather a genetic fallacy.
i think this argument is bad because it only works in hindsight and it's limited to "humans only" (limited by a specific context).
would you object to having alien slaves?; or you'd need another 23423 historical and social realizations before you get to a truth value?.
also, experimentation has meaning/value else your 2 would've never existed. this part of your genetic fallacy definition "...unless its past in some way affects its present value" is always present.
i do like Rassy idea of (trying to) linking morals with universal laws  . could it get more objective then that? (non-mathematically speaking).
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On July 28 2013 08:23 nadafanboy42 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 07:04 EatThePath wrote:On July 28 2013 06:47 Rassy wrote:
nadafanboy42 Netherlands. July 28 2013 06:24. Posts 188
Nice post, specially the part where you describe ethics as making choises and i think i have a somewhat similar opinnion.
Voted for expressivism in the poll though the later mentioned moral nihilism would probably fit me better.
I dont think there are objectivly "good" and "bad" things you can do. We not only can not know them, objectivly good and bad things dont exist at all and for me it is all subjective.
The only universal moral i can think of is to do that what raises the entropy the least.
High entropy is bad, low entropy is a little bit less bad. (by my personal choise)
Dont have much more to add,though i would like one of the moral realists to provide at least one ethical truth.
They claim that they exist and that it is possible for humans to know at least some of them, and i am realy curious wich ones they have found so far. (bold) This is my starting point for any conceivable moral code I might endorse, but it has so many problems itself. How can know the effects of one's actions specifically for this rubric. What calculus do you use to know whether you should kill X stars to stop the fires but keep N-X alive to fuel humanity to continue the work of managing and forestalling the universe's heat death. Is this even really a good or fulfilling plan anyway? In the event of inescapable heat death, wouldn't a better aim be to produce as much variety as possible in an envelope of thermodynamic possibilities? Not to mention, how much certainty is required to enact this sort of plan? What if heat death is not the ultimate fate, due to net energy flux? (What is dark energy?) Nevertheless this line of thought it still the most (the only?) ascertainable moral pursuit for me that escapes petty subjectivity. I suppose this standpoint is a sort of declaration that emotional needs should not be confused with moral issues. Which is an amusing crabwise denial of expressivism. I'm not going to say you two are wrong to have your position, but I just want to say that as far as my position, the crux is that I completely reject the description of "petty subjectivity". The key problem with that in my opinion is that it's people starting from a position of believing in objectivity, then after studying the concept deciding that it does not exist, and then keeping their exact same world view based upon objectivity existing, but just adding the lack of objectivity and thus conclude that existence is meaningless. When the proper response in my opinion is to go back to the first assumption, correct it, and then rebuild a new world view from the ground up accounting for the lack of objectivity. Subjectivity is the centre of our existence, it is the beginning and end point of all knowledge. When I say morality is a choice, that does not mean it is a meaningless choice, in fact when I say so morality becomes even more important and meaningful than if it was objective. To say "Murder is wrong" and "Murder isn't wrong" is not a choice between two equal positions of equal worth. It is a choice between two radically different positions with radically different consequences. It is a choice that is incredibly important to the person making it, and the people around them. My point was that if someone says "I think murder isn't wrong" I don't think you can say "no that is objectively false and I can prove it", but if you continue that understanding you realise that the only response is: "fine, if that is your choice I can't stop you from choosing. But I've decided that murder is wrong and if you try to commit one I will stop you".
No i understand you perfectly.
I never said it was a meaningless choise, i dont know where you get the idea that i think the choise has no meaning.
Annyway its kinda funny;
Humanity, wich can not forsee even 0.00000001% of the effects of anny action, still trying to determine if an action is "wrong" or "right" by analysing the 0.00000001% that they can forsee.
I guess short term thinking is essential for all moral phylosophy.
Whats phylosophys take on doing something with bad intentions but having a good result, or the other way around?
(i realy dont know this and am curious)
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On July 28 2013 08:16 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 07:41 Darkwhite wrote:On July 28 2013 07:31 Shiori wrote:Why is it good to build bridges which don't fall down? It isn't. It's good to build bridges competently when tasked to build a bridge for the purposes of ferrying people across it safely. The first people who built bridges weren't being immoral just because they didn't have 21st century engineering know-how. Does that make their bridge-building less moral? No. It makes their bridge-building worse in the sense the word "worse" is used in the vernacular i.e. as not preferred with respect to something else. Building bridges that "don't fall down" isn't a good action in itself. I could build tonnes of totally useless bridges in my backyard, which, even if mechanically stable, wouldn't be created from some moral impulse. Why is it good to cure people who's got syphilis? Probably because we know how to cure syphilis, because people want their syphilis to be cured, because we have the means to cure it on a global level, and because there's absolutely no conceivable reason not to cure syphilis. That doesn't mean all of our doctors are moral paragons compared to the rather primitive Hippocrates, though. It's not the properties of actions themselves that are moral/immoral, but the actions and the reasoning for the actions. I mean, Harris thinks that there is an objective moral difference between world A and world B, such that: A= our world. B= a world in which everyone is always suffering all the time, no matter what. He thinks that this difference (i.e. of our world being a better one) is a moral difference, rather than a value judgment or semantic distinction. But how could it be a moral difference? How can hypothetical worlds be moral agents? They're worlds. We wouldn't say rocks are moral or immoral. They're just rocks. Did you just say that curing syphilis is good, but you can't make up your mind on whether our world is better than everyone always suffering? "Curing syphilis" isn't good in itself; doctors doing their best to apply their medical knowledge to people who need/want it is good. Curing syphilis is just a fact about our level of scientific knowledge. It has no moral character whatsoever. Our world is certainly something I'd prefer to one in which everyone is suffering, but nevertheless, that says relatively little about the moral character of anything, and it doesn't establish whether well-being is a suitable qualifier for morality.
I was talking about treating individual cases of syphilis, not inventing a cure.
Furthermore, you are still misrepresenting Harris to point out a mistake you have put in yourself. Harris talks about the moral difference between choosing A over B and vice versa - which is, in the hypothetical, an action. This is fairly standard consequentialism, which philosophically is neither obviously true or obviously false.
Harris thinks that it is a medical, objective fact that people don't like having syphilis and that measures should be taken to cure it and limit its spread - in the sense that no amount of relativism or philosophical smoke screens changes the near unanimous agreement to cure syphilis. He similarly thinks it is a moral, objective fact that people don't enjoy infinite, eternal suffering and that measures should be taken to improve well-being. He claims that neither of these can be proved with logical rigor, but that in neither case does this prevent a science of morals from serving its purpose.
You keep seeking refuge in philosophical ignorance, and you keep failing to explain why this is a problem for a science of morals and not for a science of medicine. In both cases, he prefers pragmatism to philosophy.
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The right thing...what is it?...I wonder...Does the right thing...make everybody happy?
Your true face...what is it?...I wonder...Is your true face...the face under the mask?
Your friends...what sort of people are they?...I wonder...Do these people think of you as a friend?
You...What makes you happy? I wonder...what makes you happy...does it make other people happy, too?
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On July 28 2013 18:36 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 12:28 frogrubdown wrote:On July 28 2013 08:52 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 04:03 frogrubdown wrote:On July 28 2013 03:40 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 03:29 frogrubdown wrote:On July 28 2013 03:13 WhiteDog wrote:
I'm a relativist. I don't really understand all the error theory thing.
That it cause problem philosophically doesn't mean much to me, as I come from a sociological background. From a sociological point of view, the theorical talk doesn't mean much.
What we can do on the other side, is see that 1) most ethical behavior or positions are historic, which means that they are not natural ; 2) most individuals have value, moral, taste and judgement that are heavily linked (if not entirely determined by) with their social origin (different social class have different value to be quick). Well, apparently theoretical talk means something to you when that theory happens to be relativism :p More seriously, every metaethical theory will have to come to terms with facts about the historical and cross-cultural differences in ethical beliefs that you discuss in (1) and (2). They will just disagree on what these facts say about metaethics. (As a sidenote, I think you're misreading my use of 'natural'. Think of 'natural' as non-supernatural. Cultures are every bit as natural as rocks on my use). To have a more productive dialogue, I'd think I'd have to know how your relativist views play out philosophically. For instance, what do you think is the meaning and truth conditions of a sentence such 'Murder is wrong'? (Obviously you don't have to be completely precise here. Because, from my point of view, relativism was historically a way to fight the ethnocentrism of the observant for anthropologues, defended by Bronislaw Manilowski. It's not entirelly a theorical talk, as it is a practice as much as a concept. I was hoping to avoid this issue for a little bit in the thread, but I guess I'll discuss it now. Yes, a doctrine given the name "relativism" has frequently been invoked as a weapon against imperialism, especially in social science departments. However, to be blunt, this has never made even the slightest amount of sense. There is no relativist argument for tolerance.My thoughts on this aren't original. They've been published by hundred of philosophers before and you can find them advanced in hundreds of intro philosophy classes at assorted universities. The problem is simply that if what culture you're in determines what is right, then there is no ground from which you can criticize the imperialistic practices of your own culture. It doesn't matter if what the other culture is doing is also right for them, because what's right for them has nothing to do with what's right for you according to relativism. Relativism would be the best news ever for would-be imperialists. I'll quote Bernard Williams: Let us at this stage of the argument about subjectivism take a brief rest and look round a special view or assemblage of views which has been built on the site of moral disagreements between societies. This is relativism, the anthropologists' heresy, possibly the most absurd view to have been advanced in moral philosophy. In its vulgar and unregenerate form (which I shall consider, since it is both the most distinctive and the most influential form) it consists of three propositions: that 'right' means (can only be coherently understood as meaning) 'right for a given society' ; that 'right for a given society' is to be understood in a functionalist sense ; and that (therefore) it is wrong for people in one society to condemn, interfere with, etc., the values of another society. A view with a long history, it was popular with some liberal colonialists, notably British administrators in places (such as West Africa) in which white men held no land. In that historical role, it may have had, like some other muddled doctrines, a beneficent influence, though modern African nationalism may well deplore its tribalist and conservative implications.
Whatever its results, the view is clearly inconsistent, since it makes a claim in its third proposition, about what is right and wrong in one's dealings with other societies, which uses a nonrelative sense of 'right' not allowed for in the first proposition. The claim that human sacrifice, for instance, was 'right for' the Ashanti comes to be taken as saying that human sacrifice was right among the Ashanti, and this in turn as saying that human sacrifice among the Ashanti was right; i.e., we have no business interfering with it. But this last is certainly not the sort of claim allowed by the theory. The most the theory can allow is the claim that it is right for (i.e., functionally valuable for) our socieity not to interfere with Ashanti society, and, first, this is certainly not all that was meant, and, second, is very dubiously true. From the chapter "Interlude Relativism", worth reading in full. People who call themselves relativists because of arguments like this are really absolutists. They believe in an absolute principle of non-interference in other cultures no matter what your culture thinks about interference (and the individual that disagrees with their culture's ethics are out of luck).
Also, when I read natural, I instantly oppose it to cultural so I might have misunderstood indeed.
As for your question "Murder is wrong", again from a sociological point of view, every assertions are always linked to a context, historical and sociological : "Murder is wrong in today's society", "Murder is not wrong in war", "It is not wrong to murder a slave when you are a noble in the medieval age in France", etc.
This doesn't answer my question about meaning and truth conditions as fully as I'd hoped. As I said, it was a question of practice and not a question of right or wrong. Back when Anthropology arise, most anthropologues were evolutionnists. But, what is important, is not that those anthropologues thought that each societies followed the same rail, it is more that they thought that they could understand a society using their own history or culture. For exemple, they had, in their own society, a certain view of "what is a woman", and considered the society they were studying through the same logic, which is obviously wrong because "woman" does not mean the same in every society (as someone like Margaret Mead showed). Malinowski used "relativism" not to give an explanation on what is right or wrong, but as a way for anthropologue to see a society : they had to accept everything, not take any moral judgement on what they were seeing, and try to actually study the reality that they were facing building their own concept. As I said, it's practical. that 'right' means (can only be coherently understood as meaning) 'right for a given society' (1); that 'right for a given society' is to be understood in a functionalist sense (2); and that (therefore) it is wrong for people in one society to condemn, interfere with, etc., the values of another society (3) 1 is true from a relativist point of view. 2 is completly false. Social science have gone away from functionalism since 60 years (T. Parsons). Nobody consider that what is "right" for a given society has a function within this society, but that it is right because it is right, and there are cultural, historical and social reason that can explain why this is considered as right and not that. Hence 3 is also false. We can critic, and progress, in moral as in science, but from a relativist point of view, we have to consider that defining what is right or wrong is a choice - political, in practice, etc. - that crystalize itself throughout history, in institutions, culture, etc., and not something that is given by the "above" (whether that be god, our gene, or our "human condition"). A view with a long history, it was popular with some liberal colonialists, notably British administrators in places (such as West Africa) in which white men held no land. In that historical role, it may have had, like some other muddled doctrines, a beneficent influence, though modern African nationalism may well deplore its tribalist and conservative implications. Interesting use of history. Completly true, but if you look at the other type of colonialism (mainly France) that had a more activ way of colonizating countries (on the idea that France represented what is "right"), the result is not really better (in fact, it was worse). I'm not sure where the author wants to go there. It seems like, from the quote you made, the author seems to refute "relativism" on moral grounds rather than logic. We still seem to be talking at cross purposes here. You're citing a number of things that I for the most part accept about the varieties and sources of ethical beliefs. You also discuss (as does Williams) the role that a set of views described as "relativism" has had in rhetoric concerning our treatment of other people. I have no problem with that stuff, but it doesn't really speak to what I was saying. My point, and Williams' point, is just that whether or not we should tolerate other practices or engage in imperialism or ethnocentrism has very little to do with relativism. There isn't any plausible argument on the basis of relativism (as a philosophical thesis about what determines goodness) to any conclusions about how we should treat others with different ethical beliefs. If anything, forms of absolutism can come out more tolerant than relativism on these issues, since they can include culture-independent principles of non-interference or judgment. I understand that you find these philosophical points less interesting than the historical/sociological points you discuss, but I think it's very important to keep the differences in mind when discussing relativism. I don't think it's pointless. Philosophy is the basis of all science, but I don't understand why you are all bent on trying to figure an apodictic definition of morals while it is clear that in practice there are moral s, that morals evolve through societies and history, and that - even if it we can and we have the right to judge it as wrong - it seems pretty obvious that at some point, in the past present or future, in another society of our own, some group of people judge some thing as right while some other don't. But maybe it all comes from my own incapacity to understand all your posts. If I say that I don't think that moral exist outside of human's practice and institutions, does that make me a nihilist ? Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 17:41 Poffel wrote:There seems to be quite some confusion because questions that are quite similar to those lined out in the OP can be raised in sociological and historical approaches to ethic and morals. This schools of thought have contributed enormously to our modern understanding of metaethics, and there is no argument here that the historical and social conditions are irrelevant to any ethical standpoint - quite the contrary, actually. However, to put it bluntly, the algorithms run by the computer you're reading this on don't become erroneous just because Alan Turing was gay. We mustn't confuse an explanation of when and how a proposition was spoken (or written) with a disconfirmation of said proposition. It's a common fallacy: Nietzsche and Freud did it with their rebuttals of Christian morals, Marx did it when he rejected the 'ruling ethos' as 'ideas of the ruling classes'. However, there is no direct connection between the historical and sociological conditions of its upbringing and the logical and scientific validity of a statement. "Though shalt not kill." doesn't magically become bullshit when you realize that the Biblical history of creation reflects contemporary myths. "Human dignity" isn't an empty term because of our knowledge about the labor conditions of the 18th Century educational elite. Conversely, if there are good ethical reasons to reject slavery because it violates human dignity, then slavery is ethically wrong - and always has been, even if the realization of this truth may not have occured before the new-age. In short, it does not make sense to evaluate the truth value of a proposition under specific timely conditions because logical evaluation does not depend on time. 1 and 1 is 2, not 1 and 1 becomes 2. As the OP has explained, there are meaningful reasons to reject the notion of ethical statements having truth values; but none of these are historical or sociological. In other words, while history and sociology can contribute to our understanding of ethics - and even raise suspicion against certain ideas -, the impression that something is right or wrong just because of its history or social embeddedness is not a viable philosophical standpoint but rather a genetic fallacy. "Science" is not the same here and there. Social science aren't refutable, what some sociologues call a non-popperian space. It is true that it is a genetic fallacy to consider that the historical and sociological frame that has seen the birth of some laws in physics or mathematics is completly relevant to consider the "truth value" or the said law. It is completly different for anything that is socially determined, because if it always linked to its context (social and historical) it is always "true" in the said context, and not elsewhere. Slavery is ethically true because you use concept of "human dignity" that is considered as true today, but that might not be in the future, and that was completly false in our long history. You don't have to go that far, go back to Nazi's Germany and tell them that you should give some dignity to those men working in concentration camp and that killing them is a bad thing.
This doesn't seem right. It implies that the same statement can be right and wrong at the same time. For example, the day slavery was abolished, does that mean slavery was right in the morning and wrong in the evening?
It implies you should never oppose "ethics" laws (like abortion, guns, bull fighting...) of you own country because they are always "true" in the current "context" (whatever that means?)
It seems really counterintuitive to me.
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On July 28 2013 21:06 mavignon wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 18:36 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 12:28 frogrubdown wrote:On July 28 2013 08:52 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 04:03 frogrubdown wrote:On July 28 2013 03:40 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 03:29 frogrubdown wrote:On July 28 2013 03:13 WhiteDog wrote:
I'm a relativist. I don't really understand all the error theory thing.
That it cause problem philosophically doesn't mean much to me, as I come from a sociological background. From a sociological point of view, the theorical talk doesn't mean much.
What we can do on the other side, is see that 1) most ethical behavior or positions are historic, which means that they are not natural ; 2) most individuals have value, moral, taste and judgement that are heavily linked (if not entirely determined by) with their social origin (different social class have different value to be quick). Well, apparently theoretical talk means something to you when that theory happens to be relativism :p More seriously, every metaethical theory will have to come to terms with facts about the historical and cross-cultural differences in ethical beliefs that you discuss in (1) and (2). They will just disagree on what these facts say about metaethics. (As a sidenote, I think you're misreading my use of 'natural'. Think of 'natural' as non-supernatural. Cultures are every bit as natural as rocks on my use). To have a more productive dialogue, I'd think I'd have to know how your relativist views play out philosophically. For instance, what do you think is the meaning and truth conditions of a sentence such 'Murder is wrong'? (Obviously you don't have to be completely precise here. Because, from my point of view, relativism was historically a way to fight the ethnocentrism of the observant for anthropologues, defended by Bronislaw Manilowski. It's not entirelly a theorical talk, as it is a practice as much as a concept. I was hoping to avoid this issue for a little bit in the thread, but I guess I'll discuss it now. Yes, a doctrine given the name "relativism" has frequently been invoked as a weapon against imperialism, especially in social science departments. However, to be blunt, this has never made even the slightest amount of sense. There is no relativist argument for tolerance.My thoughts on this aren't original. They've been published by hundred of philosophers before and you can find them advanced in hundreds of intro philosophy classes at assorted universities. The problem is simply that if what culture you're in determines what is right, then there is no ground from which you can criticize the imperialistic practices of your own culture. It doesn't matter if what the other culture is doing is also right for them, because what's right for them has nothing to do with what's right for you according to relativism. Relativism would be the best news ever for would-be imperialists. I'll quote Bernard Williams: Let us at this stage of the argument about subjectivism take a brief rest and look round a special view or assemblage of views which has been built on the site of moral disagreements between societies. This is relativism, the anthropologists' heresy, possibly the most absurd view to have been advanced in moral philosophy. In its vulgar and unregenerate form (which I shall consider, since it is both the most distinctive and the most influential form) it consists of three propositions: that 'right' means (can only be coherently understood as meaning) 'right for a given society' ; that 'right for a given society' is to be understood in a functionalist sense ; and that (therefore) it is wrong for people in one society to condemn, interfere with, etc., the values of another society. A view with a long history, it was popular with some liberal colonialists, notably British administrators in places (such as West Africa) in which white men held no land. In that historical role, it may have had, like some other muddled doctrines, a beneficent influence, though modern African nationalism may well deplore its tribalist and conservative implications.
Whatever its results, the view is clearly inconsistent, since it makes a claim in its third proposition, about what is right and wrong in one's dealings with other societies, which uses a nonrelative sense of 'right' not allowed for in the first proposition. The claim that human sacrifice, for instance, was 'right for' the Ashanti comes to be taken as saying that human sacrifice was right among the Ashanti, and this in turn as saying that human sacrifice among the Ashanti was right; i.e., we have no business interfering with it. But this last is certainly not the sort of claim allowed by the theory. The most the theory can allow is the claim that it is right for (i.e., functionally valuable for) our socieity not to interfere with Ashanti society, and, first, this is certainly not all that was meant, and, second, is very dubiously true. From the chapter "Interlude Relativism", worth reading in full. People who call themselves relativists because of arguments like this are really absolutists. They believe in an absolute principle of non-interference in other cultures no matter what your culture thinks about interference (and the individual that disagrees with their culture's ethics are out of luck).
Also, when I read natural, I instantly oppose it to cultural so I might have misunderstood indeed.
As for your question "Murder is wrong", again from a sociological point of view, every assertions are always linked to a context, historical and sociological : "Murder is wrong in today's society", "Murder is not wrong in war", "It is not wrong to murder a slave when you are a noble in the medieval age in France", etc.
This doesn't answer my question about meaning and truth conditions as fully as I'd hoped. As I said, it was a question of practice and not a question of right or wrong. Back when Anthropology arise, most anthropologues were evolutionnists. But, what is important, is not that those anthropologues thought that each societies followed the same rail, it is more that they thought that they could understand a society using their own history or culture. For exemple, they had, in their own society, a certain view of "what is a woman", and considered the society they were studying through the same logic, which is obviously wrong because "woman" does not mean the same in every society (as someone like Margaret Mead showed). Malinowski used "relativism" not to give an explanation on what is right or wrong, but as a way for anthropologue to see a society : they had to accept everything, not take any moral judgement on what they were seeing, and try to actually study the reality that they were facing building their own concept. As I said, it's practical. that 'right' means (can only be coherently understood as meaning) 'right for a given society' (1); that 'right for a given society' is to be understood in a functionalist sense (2); and that (therefore) it is wrong for people in one society to condemn, interfere with, etc., the values of another society (3) 1 is true from a relativist point of view. 2 is completly false. Social science have gone away from functionalism since 60 years (T. Parsons). Nobody consider that what is "right" for a given society has a function within this society, but that it is right because it is right, and there are cultural, historical and social reason that can explain why this is considered as right and not that. Hence 3 is also false. We can critic, and progress, in moral as in science, but from a relativist point of view, we have to consider that defining what is right or wrong is a choice - political, in practice, etc. - that crystalize itself throughout history, in institutions, culture, etc., and not something that is given by the "above" (whether that be god, our gene, or our "human condition"). A view with a long history, it was popular with some liberal colonialists, notably British administrators in places (such as West Africa) in which white men held no land. In that historical role, it may have had, like some other muddled doctrines, a beneficent influence, though modern African nationalism may well deplore its tribalist and conservative implications. Interesting use of history. Completly true, but if you look at the other type of colonialism (mainly France) that had a more activ way of colonizating countries (on the idea that France represented what is "right"), the result is not really better (in fact, it was worse). I'm not sure where the author wants to go there. It seems like, from the quote you made, the author seems to refute "relativism" on moral grounds rather than logic. We still seem to be talking at cross purposes here. You're citing a number of things that I for the most part accept about the varieties and sources of ethical beliefs. You also discuss (as does Williams) the role that a set of views described as "relativism" has had in rhetoric concerning our treatment of other people. I have no problem with that stuff, but it doesn't really speak to what I was saying. My point, and Williams' point, is just that whether or not we should tolerate other practices or engage in imperialism or ethnocentrism has very little to do with relativism. There isn't any plausible argument on the basis of relativism (as a philosophical thesis about what determines goodness) to any conclusions about how we should treat others with different ethical beliefs. If anything, forms of absolutism can come out more tolerant than relativism on these issues, since they can include culture-independent principles of non-interference or judgment. I understand that you find these philosophical points less interesting than the historical/sociological points you discuss, but I think it's very important to keep the differences in mind when discussing relativism. I don't think it's pointless. Philosophy is the basis of all science, but I don't understand why you are all bent on trying to figure an apodictic definition of morals while it is clear that in practice there are moral s, that morals evolve through societies and history, and that - even if it we can and we have the right to judge it as wrong - it seems pretty obvious that at some point, in the past present or future, in another society of our own, some group of people judge some thing as right while some other don't. But maybe it all comes from my own incapacity to understand all your posts. If I say that I don't think that moral exist outside of human's practice and institutions, does that make me a nihilist ? On July 28 2013 17:41 Poffel wrote:There seems to be quite some confusion because questions that are quite similar to those lined out in the OP can be raised in sociological and historical approaches to ethic and morals. This schools of thought have contributed enormously to our modern understanding of metaethics, and there is no argument here that the historical and social conditions are irrelevant to any ethical standpoint - quite the contrary, actually. However, to put it bluntly, the algorithms run by the computer you're reading this on don't become erroneous just because Alan Turing was gay. We mustn't confuse an explanation of when and how a proposition was spoken (or written) with a disconfirmation of said proposition. It's a common fallacy: Nietzsche and Freud did it with their rebuttals of Christian morals, Marx did it when he rejected the 'ruling ethos' as 'ideas of the ruling classes'. However, there is no direct connection between the historical and sociological conditions of its upbringing and the logical and scientific validity of a statement. "Though shalt not kill." doesn't magically become bullshit when you realize that the Biblical history of creation reflects contemporary myths. "Human dignity" isn't an empty term because of our knowledge about the labor conditions of the 18th Century educational elite. Conversely, if there are good ethical reasons to reject slavery because it violates human dignity, then slavery is ethically wrong - and always has been, even if the realization of this truth may not have occured before the new-age. In short, it does not make sense to evaluate the truth value of a proposition under specific timely conditions because logical evaluation does not depend on time. 1 and 1 is 2, not 1 and 1 becomes 2. As the OP has explained, there are meaningful reasons to reject the notion of ethical statements having truth values; but none of these are historical or sociological. In other words, while history and sociology can contribute to our understanding of ethics - and even raise suspicion against certain ideas -, the impression that something is right or wrong just because of its history or social embeddedness is not a viable philosophical standpoint but rather a genetic fallacy. "Science" is not the same here and there. Social science aren't refutable, what some sociologues call a non-popperian space. It is true that it is a genetic fallacy to consider that the historical and sociological frame that has seen the birth of some laws in physics or mathematics is completly relevant to consider the "truth value" or the said law. It is completly different for anything that is socially determined, because if it always linked to its context (social and historical) it is always "true" in the said context, and not elsewhere. Slavery is ethically true because you use concept of "human dignity" that is considered as true today, but that might not be in the future, and that was completly false in our long history. You don't have to go that far, go back to Nazi's Germany and tell them that you should give some dignity to those men working in concentration camp and that killing them is a bad thing. This doesn't seem right. It implies that the same statement can be right and wrong at the same time. For example, the day slavery was abolished, does that mean slavery was right in the morning and wrong in the evening? It implies you should never oppose "ethics" laws (like abortion, guns, bull fighting...) of you own country because they are always "true" in the current "context" (whatever that means?) It seems really counterintuitive to me.
More like slavery was right for a specific group and wrong for another group in the same society. Those two "fought" (through various ways) each other over the definition of what is right and wrong, and eventually the dominant group came to control the institutions that permitted them to crystalize their own view through out history and culture.
The main problem we have is that you have a refutable definition of what is "true" : it is ALWAYS true for every one at every moment, while I don't believe such apodictic "truth" exist in human societies.
It is true that it is morally acceptable for a citizen of the US to carry a gun in public, while it is not true for an european. I can still defend the idea that it is not moral to carry a gun in the US, and through my own actions, I will possibly be able to make others accept my own moral view on guns, so that all the US, through its institutions, culture and education, comes to the conclusion that it is morally wrong to carry a gun in a public.
It is a political statement, a choice, to decide what is moral or immoral, and not something that is given by the above, the beyond, the after - the "meta". I don't accept the idea that "something" exist that can tell me that everything and everywhere it is right or wrong to carry a gun in public.
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On July 28 2013 18:36 WhiteDog wrote:
"Science" is not the same here and there. Social science aren't refutable, what some sociologues call a non-popperian space. It is true that it is a genetic fallacy to consider that the historical and sociological frame that has seen the birth of some laws in physics or mathematics is completly relevant to consider the "truth value" or the said law.
It is completly different for anything that is socially determined, because if it always linked to its context (social and historical) it is always "true" in the said context, and not elsewhere.
Slavery is ethically true because you use concept of "human dignity" that is considered as true today, but that might not be in the future, and that was completly false in our long history. You don't have to go that far, go back to Nazi's Germany and tell them that you should give some dignity to those men working in concentration camp and that killing them is a bad thing.
Assuming that you're talking about the concepts put forward by Bourdieu and Passeron, these are about the difference between realism and constructivism, which is an important discussion for the consideration of relations (and contradictions) between different theoretical approaches in sociology, but they do not alleviate the burden of proof in regard to the empirical adequacy of sociological models (unless you think that sociological knowledge corresponds to social reality purely by coincidence). It doesn't make sociology irrefutable, it just means that constructivist models have to assess their theoretical laden differently than realist models.
On your illustration: Let's say I don't go back as far but only to the Nuremberg trials where Nazis were convicted for their crimes during the Third Reich... In your opinion, this must mean that our society has come to the agreement that our ethical values apply to the Third Reich as well. Are you not part of our society? I mean, apparently you doubt the legitimacy of the claim that the imperative "don't commit genocide" can be applied retroactively as a rule for Nazi Germany, even though society in general seems to think that that's ok?
On July 28 2013 19:47 xM(Z wrote:i think this argument is bad because it only works in hindsight and it's limited to "humans only" (limited by a specific context). would you object to having alien slaves?; or you'd need another 23423 historical and social realizations before you get to a truth value?. also, experimentation has meaning/value else your 2 would've never existed. this part of your genetic fallacy definition "...unless its past in some way affects its present value" is always present. i do like Rassy idea of (trying to) linking morals with universal laws . could it get more objective then that? (non-mathematically speaking).
I'm sorry but I don't get your objection. The idea of an alien dignity is purely speculative at this point, and that there might be such a thing does not negate the truth value of human dignity at all. I'm sure your argument is more profound than that historical knowledge only works in hindsight, but I just don't see what you're getting at...
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On July 28 2013 21:25 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 21:06 mavignon wrote:On July 28 2013 18:36 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 12:28 frogrubdown wrote:On July 28 2013 08:52 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 04:03 frogrubdown wrote:On July 28 2013 03:40 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 03:29 frogrubdown wrote:On July 28 2013 03:13 WhiteDog wrote:
I'm a relativist. I don't really understand all the error theory thing.
That it cause problem philosophically doesn't mean much to me, as I come from a sociological background. From a sociological point of view, the theorical talk doesn't mean much.
What we can do on the other side, is see that 1) most ethical behavior or positions are historic, which means that they are not natural ; 2) most individuals have value, moral, taste and judgement that are heavily linked (if not entirely determined by) with their social origin (different social class have different value to be quick). Well, apparently theoretical talk means something to you when that theory happens to be relativism :p More seriously, every metaethical theory will have to come to terms with facts about the historical and cross-cultural differences in ethical beliefs that you discuss in (1) and (2). They will just disagree on what these facts say about metaethics. (As a sidenote, I think you're misreading my use of 'natural'. Think of 'natural' as non-supernatural. Cultures are every bit as natural as rocks on my use). To have a more productive dialogue, I'd think I'd have to know how your relativist views play out philosophically. For instance, what do you think is the meaning and truth conditions of a sentence such 'Murder is wrong'? (Obviously you don't have to be completely precise here. Because, from my point of view, relativism was historically a way to fight the ethnocentrism of the observant for anthropologues, defended by Bronislaw Manilowski. It's not entirelly a theorical talk, as it is a practice as much as a concept. I was hoping to avoid this issue for a little bit in the thread, but I guess I'll discuss it now. Yes, a doctrine given the name "relativism" has frequently been invoked as a weapon against imperialism, especially in social science departments. However, to be blunt, this has never made even the slightest amount of sense. There is no relativist argument for tolerance.My thoughts on this aren't original. They've been published by hundred of philosophers before and you can find them advanced in hundreds of intro philosophy classes at assorted universities. The problem is simply that if what culture you're in determines what is right, then there is no ground from which you can criticize the imperialistic practices of your own culture. It doesn't matter if what the other culture is doing is also right for them, because what's right for them has nothing to do with what's right for you according to relativism. Relativism would be the best news ever for would-be imperialists. I'll quote Bernard Williams: Let us at this stage of the argument about subjectivism take a brief rest and look round a special view or assemblage of views which has been built on the site of moral disagreements between societies. This is relativism, the anthropologists' heresy, possibly the most absurd view to have been advanced in moral philosophy. In its vulgar and unregenerate form (which I shall consider, since it is both the most distinctive and the most influential form) it consists of three propositions: that 'right' means (can only be coherently understood as meaning) 'right for a given society' ; that 'right for a given society' is to be understood in a functionalist sense ; and that (therefore) it is wrong for people in one society to condemn, interfere with, etc., the values of another society. A view with a long history, it was popular with some liberal colonialists, notably British administrators in places (such as West Africa) in which white men held no land. In that historical role, it may have had, like some other muddled doctrines, a beneficent influence, though modern African nationalism may well deplore its tribalist and conservative implications.
Whatever its results, the view is clearly inconsistent, since it makes a claim in its third proposition, about what is right and wrong in one's dealings with other societies, which uses a nonrelative sense of 'right' not allowed for in the first proposition. The claim that human sacrifice, for instance, was 'right for' the Ashanti comes to be taken as saying that human sacrifice was right among the Ashanti, and this in turn as saying that human sacrifice among the Ashanti was right; i.e., we have no business interfering with it. But this last is certainly not the sort of claim allowed by the theory. The most the theory can allow is the claim that it is right for (i.e., functionally valuable for) our socieity not to interfere with Ashanti society, and, first, this is certainly not all that was meant, and, second, is very dubiously true. From the chapter "Interlude Relativism", worth reading in full. People who call themselves relativists because of arguments like this are really absolutists. They believe in an absolute principle of non-interference in other cultures no matter what your culture thinks about interference (and the individual that disagrees with their culture's ethics are out of luck).
Also, when I read natural, I instantly oppose it to cultural so I might have misunderstood indeed.
As for your question "Murder is wrong", again from a sociological point of view, every assertions are always linked to a context, historical and sociological : "Murder is wrong in today's society", "Murder is not wrong in war", "It is not wrong to murder a slave when you are a noble in the medieval age in France", etc.
This doesn't answer my question about meaning and truth conditions as fully as I'd hoped. As I said, it was a question of practice and not a question of right or wrong. Back when Anthropology arise, most anthropologues were evolutionnists. But, what is important, is not that those anthropologues thought that each societies followed the same rail, it is more that they thought that they could understand a society using their own history or culture. For exemple, they had, in their own society, a certain view of "what is a woman", and considered the society they were studying through the same logic, which is obviously wrong because "woman" does not mean the same in every society (as someone like Margaret Mead showed). Malinowski used "relativism" not to give an explanation on what is right or wrong, but as a way for anthropologue to see a society : they had to accept everything, not take any moral judgement on what they were seeing, and try to actually study the reality that they were facing building their own concept. As I said, it's practical. that 'right' means (can only be coherently understood as meaning) 'right for a given society' (1); that 'right for a given society' is to be understood in a functionalist sense (2); and that (therefore) it is wrong for people in one society to condemn, interfere with, etc., the values of another society (3) 1 is true from a relativist point of view. 2 is completly false. Social science have gone away from functionalism since 60 years (T. Parsons). Nobody consider that what is "right" for a given society has a function within this society, but that it is right because it is right, and there are cultural, historical and social reason that can explain why this is considered as right and not that. Hence 3 is also false. We can critic, and progress, in moral as in science, but from a relativist point of view, we have to consider that defining what is right or wrong is a choice - political, in practice, etc. - that crystalize itself throughout history, in institutions, culture, etc., and not something that is given by the "above" (whether that be god, our gene, or our "human condition"). A view with a long history, it was popular with some liberal colonialists, notably British administrators in places (such as West Africa) in which white men held no land. In that historical role, it may have had, like some other muddled doctrines, a beneficent influence, though modern African nationalism may well deplore its tribalist and conservative implications. Interesting use of history. Completly true, but if you look at the other type of colonialism (mainly France) that had a more activ way of colonizating countries (on the idea that France represented what is "right"), the result is not really better (in fact, it was worse). I'm not sure where the author wants to go there. It seems like, from the quote you made, the author seems to refute "relativism" on moral grounds rather than logic. We still seem to be talking at cross purposes here. You're citing a number of things that I for the most part accept about the varieties and sources of ethical beliefs. You also discuss (as does Williams) the role that a set of views described as "relativism" has had in rhetoric concerning our treatment of other people. I have no problem with that stuff, but it doesn't really speak to what I was saying. My point, and Williams' point, is just that whether or not we should tolerate other practices or engage in imperialism or ethnocentrism has very little to do with relativism. There isn't any plausible argument on the basis of relativism (as a philosophical thesis about what determines goodness) to any conclusions about how we should treat others with different ethical beliefs. If anything, forms of absolutism can come out more tolerant than relativism on these issues, since they can include culture-independent principles of non-interference or judgment. I understand that you find these philosophical points less interesting than the historical/sociological points you discuss, but I think it's very important to keep the differences in mind when discussing relativism. I don't think it's pointless. Philosophy is the basis of all science, but I don't understand why you are all bent on trying to figure an apodictic definition of morals while it is clear that in practice there are moral s, that morals evolve through societies and history, and that - even if it we can and we have the right to judge it as wrong - it seems pretty obvious that at some point, in the past present or future, in another society of our own, some group of people judge some thing as right while some other don't. But maybe it all comes from my own incapacity to understand all your posts. If I say that I don't think that moral exist outside of human's practice and institutions, does that make me a nihilist ? On July 28 2013 17:41 Poffel wrote:There seems to be quite some confusion because questions that are quite similar to those lined out in the OP can be raised in sociological and historical approaches to ethic and morals. This schools of thought have contributed enormously to our modern understanding of metaethics, and there is no argument here that the historical and social conditions are irrelevant to any ethical standpoint - quite the contrary, actually. However, to put it bluntly, the algorithms run by the computer you're reading this on don't become erroneous just because Alan Turing was gay. We mustn't confuse an explanation of when and how a proposition was spoken (or written) with a disconfirmation of said proposition. It's a common fallacy: Nietzsche and Freud did it with their rebuttals of Christian morals, Marx did it when he rejected the 'ruling ethos' as 'ideas of the ruling classes'. However, there is no direct connection between the historical and sociological conditions of its upbringing and the logical and scientific validity of a statement. "Though shalt not kill." doesn't magically become bullshit when you realize that the Biblical history of creation reflects contemporary myths. "Human dignity" isn't an empty term because of our knowledge about the labor conditions of the 18th Century educational elite. Conversely, if there are good ethical reasons to reject slavery because it violates human dignity, then slavery is ethically wrong - and always has been, even if the realization of this truth may not have occured before the new-age. In short, it does not make sense to evaluate the truth value of a proposition under specific timely conditions because logical evaluation does not depend on time. 1 and 1 is 2, not 1 and 1 becomes 2. As the OP has explained, there are meaningful reasons to reject the notion of ethical statements having truth values; but none of these are historical or sociological. In other words, while history and sociology can contribute to our understanding of ethics - and even raise suspicion against certain ideas -, the impression that something is right or wrong just because of its history or social embeddedness is not a viable philosophical standpoint but rather a genetic fallacy. "Science" is not the same here and there. Social science aren't refutable, what some sociologues call a non-popperian space. It is true that it is a genetic fallacy to consider that the historical and sociological frame that has seen the birth of some laws in physics or mathematics is completly relevant to consider the "truth value" or the said law. It is completly different for anything that is socially determined, because if it always linked to its context (social and historical) it is always "true" in the said context, and not elsewhere. Slavery is ethically true because you use concept of "human dignity" that is considered as true today, but that might not be in the future, and that was completly false in our long history. You don't have to go that far, go back to Nazi's Germany and tell them that you should give some dignity to those men working in concentration camp and that killing them is a bad thing. This doesn't seem right. It implies that the same statement can be right and wrong at the same time. For example, the day slavery was abolished, does that mean slavery was right in the morning and wrong in the evening? It implies you should never oppose "ethics" laws (like abortion, guns, bull fighting...) of you own country because they are always "true" in the current "context" (whatever that means?) It seems really counterintuitive to me. More like slavery was right for a specific group and wrong for another group in the same society. Those two "fought" (through various ways) each other over the definition of what is right and wrong, and eventually the dominant group came to control the institutions that permitted them to crystalize their own view through out history and culture. The main problem we have is that you have a refutable definition of what is "true" : it is ALWAYS true for every one at every moment, while I don't believe such apodictic "truth" exist in human societies. It is true that it is morally acceptable for a citizen of the US to carry a gun in public, while it is not true for an european. I can still defend the idea that it is not moral to carry a gun in the US, and through my own actions, I will possibly be able to make others accept my own moral view on guns, so that all the US, through its institutions, culture and education, comes to the conclusion that it is morally wrong to carry a gun in a public. It is a political statement, a choice, to decide what is moral or immoral, and not something that is given by the above, the beyond, the after - the "meta". I don't accept the idea that "something" exist that can tell me that everything and everywhere it is right or wrong to carry a gun in public.
That sounds closer to expressivism, if I understand the OP. You are basically saying ethical statements are non cognitive, if it's up to each individual to make his own choice.
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On July 28 2013 21:44 Poffel wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 18:36 WhiteDog wrote:
"Science" is not the same here and there. Social science aren't refutable, what some sociologues call a non-popperian space. It is true that it is a genetic fallacy to consider that the historical and sociological frame that has seen the birth of some laws in physics or mathematics is completly relevant to consider the "truth value" or the said law.
It is completly different for anything that is socially determined, because if it always linked to its context (social and historical) it is always "true" in the said context, and not elsewhere.
Slavery is ethically true because you use concept of "human dignity" that is considered as true today, but that might not be in the future, and that was completly false in our long history. You don't have to go that far, go back to Nazi's Germany and tell them that you should give some dignity to those men working in concentration camp and that killing them is a bad thing. Assuming that you're talking about the concepts put forward by Bourdieu and Passeron, these are about the difference between realism and constructivism, which is an important discussion for the consideration of relations (and contradictions) between different theoretical approaches in sociology, but they do not alleviate the burden of proof in regard to the empirical adequacy of sociological models (unless you think that sociological knowledge corresponds to social reality purely by coincidence). It doesn't make sociology irrefutable, it just means that constructivist models have to assess their theoretical laden differently than realist models. On your illustration: Let's say I don't go back as far but only to the Nuremberg trials where Nazis were convicted for their crimes during the Third Reich... In your opinion, this must mean that our society has come to the agreement that our ethical values apply to the Third Reich as well. Are you not part of our society? I mean, apparently you doubt the legitimacy of the claim that the imperative "don't commit genocide" can be applied retroactively as a rule for Nazi Germany, even though society in general seems to think that that's ok ?
Passeron especially consider that sociology is not refutable as Popper means it.
The famous exemple is the exemple of the black swan. If I state that all swans are white, and that I see a black swan, then my first assertion is wrong. For Passeron, in social science, the idea that all swans are white is wrong by itself : swans are white in this very lake the first of July. If I see a black swan in another lake or in the same lake at a different time, that doesn't make my first statement wrong.
It does not indeed alleviate the burden of proof - it just states limit to what we can prove or disprove.
To be more precise I'll quote a translated quote of Passeron's book (p. 134 of the french edition, translated more or less by me, so might be badly worded):
None of the logical conditions of the "falsification" of a theory or a general proposition is fulfilled strictly speaking in the case of the logical structure of sociological theories (or "historical synthesis") as soon as one takes seriously the constraints of historical observation. Since no historical statement can completely dispose co-occurences, that the statement consider as related in the explanation or interpretation, from its space-time coordinates (context more or less expanded by typology), the universality of general propositions in sociology or history is about "digital universality" and never about the universality in the strict sense. In other words, the general sociological propositions can always be generated by the logical "conjunction" of singular statements that it resume.
I don't doubt "the legitimacy of the claim that the imperative "don't commit genocide" can be applied retroactively as a rule for Nazi Germany" (I'm quoting you because my weak english makes it hard for me to state it as good as you did), I doubt that us considering that genocide is wrong and judging them according to that moral instantly makes it wrong for the nazi society in their time. I don't consider that something exist that can definitly says that "genocide is wrong always and everywhere".
I consider that "genocide is wrong" is the produce of a struggle over what is right or wrong in our societies.
On July 28 2013 22:01 mavignon wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 21:25 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 21:06 mavignon wrote:On July 28 2013 18:36 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 12:28 frogrubdown wrote:On July 28 2013 08:52 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 04:03 frogrubdown wrote:On July 28 2013 03:40 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 03:29 frogrubdown wrote:On July 28 2013 03:13 WhiteDog wrote:
I'm a relativist. I don't really understand all the error theory thing.
That it cause problem philosophically doesn't mean much to me, as I come from a sociological background. From a sociological point of view, the theorical talk doesn't mean much.
What we can do on the other side, is see that 1) most ethical behavior or positions are historic, which means that they are not natural ; 2) most individuals have value, moral, taste and judgement that are heavily linked (if not entirely determined by) with their social origin (different social class have different value to be quick). Well, apparently theoretical talk means something to you when that theory happens to be relativism :p More seriously, every metaethical theory will have to come to terms with facts about the historical and cross-cultural differences in ethical beliefs that you discuss in (1) and (2). They will just disagree on what these facts say about metaethics. (As a sidenote, I think you're misreading my use of 'natural'. Think of 'natural' as non-supernatural. Cultures are every bit as natural as rocks on my use). To have a more productive dialogue, I'd think I'd have to know how your relativist views play out philosophically. For instance, what do you think is the meaning and truth conditions of a sentence such 'Murder is wrong'? (Obviously you don't have to be completely precise here. Because, from my point of view, relativism was historically a way to fight the ethnocentrism of the observant for anthropologues, defended by Bronislaw Manilowski. It's not entirelly a theorical talk, as it is a practice as much as a concept. I was hoping to avoid this issue for a little bit in the thread, but I guess I'll discuss it now. Yes, a doctrine given the name "relativism" has frequently been invoked as a weapon against imperialism, especially in social science departments. However, to be blunt, this has never made even the slightest amount of sense. There is no relativist argument for tolerance.My thoughts on this aren't original. They've been published by hundred of philosophers before and you can find them advanced in hundreds of intro philosophy classes at assorted universities. The problem is simply that if what culture you're in determines what is right, then there is no ground from which you can criticize the imperialistic practices of your own culture. It doesn't matter if what the other culture is doing is also right for them, because what's right for them has nothing to do with what's right for you according to relativism. Relativism would be the best news ever for would-be imperialists. I'll quote Bernard Williams: Let us at this stage of the argument about subjectivism take a brief rest and look round a special view or assemblage of views which has been built on the site of moral disagreements between societies. This is relativism, the anthropologists' heresy, possibly the most absurd view to have been advanced in moral philosophy. In its vulgar and unregenerate form (which I shall consider, since it is both the most distinctive and the most influential form) it consists of three propositions: that 'right' means (can only be coherently understood as meaning) 'right for a given society' ; that 'right for a given society' is to be understood in a functionalist sense ; and that (therefore) it is wrong for people in one society to condemn, interfere with, etc., the values of another society. A view with a long history, it was popular with some liberal colonialists, notably British administrators in places (such as West Africa) in which white men held no land. In that historical role, it may have had, like some other muddled doctrines, a beneficent influence, though modern African nationalism may well deplore its tribalist and conservative implications.
Whatever its results, the view is clearly inconsistent, since it makes a claim in its third proposition, about what is right and wrong in one's dealings with other societies, which uses a nonrelative sense of 'right' not allowed for in the first proposition. The claim that human sacrifice, for instance, was 'right for' the Ashanti comes to be taken as saying that human sacrifice was right among the Ashanti, and this in turn as saying that human sacrifice among the Ashanti was right; i.e., we have no business interfering with it. But this last is certainly not the sort of claim allowed by the theory. The most the theory can allow is the claim that it is right for (i.e., functionally valuable for) our socieity not to interfere with Ashanti society, and, first, this is certainly not all that was meant, and, second, is very dubiously true. From the chapter "Interlude Relativism", worth reading in full. People who call themselves relativists because of arguments like this are really absolutists. They believe in an absolute principle of non-interference in other cultures no matter what your culture thinks about interference (and the individual that disagrees with their culture's ethics are out of luck).
Also, when I read natural, I instantly oppose it to cultural so I might have misunderstood indeed.
As for your question "Murder is wrong", again from a sociological point of view, every assertions are always linked to a context, historical and sociological : "Murder is wrong in today's society", "Murder is not wrong in war", "It is not wrong to murder a slave when you are a noble in the medieval age in France", etc.
This doesn't answer my question about meaning and truth conditions as fully as I'd hoped. As I said, it was a question of practice and not a question of right or wrong. Back when Anthropology arise, most anthropologues were evolutionnists. But, what is important, is not that those anthropologues thought that each societies followed the same rail, it is more that they thought that they could understand a society using their own history or culture. For exemple, they had, in their own society, a certain view of "what is a woman", and considered the society they were studying through the same logic, which is obviously wrong because "woman" does not mean the same in every society (as someone like Margaret Mead showed). Malinowski used "relativism" not to give an explanation on what is right or wrong, but as a way for anthropologue to see a society : they had to accept everything, not take any moral judgement on what they were seeing, and try to actually study the reality that they were facing building their own concept. As I said, it's practical. that 'right' means (can only be coherently understood as meaning) 'right for a given society' (1); that 'right for a given society' is to be understood in a functionalist sense (2); and that (therefore) it is wrong for people in one society to condemn, interfere with, etc., the values of another society (3) 1 is true from a relativist point of view. 2 is completly false. Social science have gone away from functionalism since 60 years (T. Parsons). Nobody consider that what is "right" for a given society has a function within this society, but that it is right because it is right, and there are cultural, historical and social reason that can explain why this is considered as right and not that. Hence 3 is also false. We can critic, and progress, in moral as in science, but from a relativist point of view, we have to consider that defining what is right or wrong is a choice - political, in practice, etc. - that crystalize itself throughout history, in institutions, culture, etc., and not something that is given by the "above" (whether that be god, our gene, or our "human condition"). A view with a long history, it was popular with some liberal colonialists, notably British administrators in places (such as West Africa) in which white men held no land. In that historical role, it may have had, like some other muddled doctrines, a beneficent influence, though modern African nationalism may well deplore its tribalist and conservative implications. Interesting use of history. Completly true, but if you look at the other type of colonialism (mainly France) that had a more activ way of colonizating countries (on the idea that France represented what is "right"), the result is not really better (in fact, it was worse). I'm not sure where the author wants to go there. It seems like, from the quote you made, the author seems to refute "relativism" on moral grounds rather than logic. We still seem to be talking at cross purposes here. You're citing a number of things that I for the most part accept about the varieties and sources of ethical beliefs. You also discuss (as does Williams) the role that a set of views described as "relativism" has had in rhetoric concerning our treatment of other people. I have no problem with that stuff, but it doesn't really speak to what I was saying. My point, and Williams' point, is just that whether or not we should tolerate other practices or engage in imperialism or ethnocentrism has very little to do with relativism. There isn't any plausible argument on the basis of relativism (as a philosophical thesis about what determines goodness) to any conclusions about how we should treat others with different ethical beliefs. If anything, forms of absolutism can come out more tolerant than relativism on these issues, since they can include culture-independent principles of non-interference or judgment. I understand that you find these philosophical points less interesting than the historical/sociological points you discuss, but I think it's very important to keep the differences in mind when discussing relativism. I don't think it's pointless. Philosophy is the basis of all science, but I don't understand why you are all bent on trying to figure an apodictic definition of morals while it is clear that in practice there are moral s, that morals evolve through societies and history, and that - even if it we can and we have the right to judge it as wrong - it seems pretty obvious that at some point, in the past present or future, in another society of our own, some group of people judge some thing as right while some other don't. But maybe it all comes from my own incapacity to understand all your posts. If I say that I don't think that moral exist outside of human's practice and institutions, does that make me a nihilist ? On July 28 2013 17:41 Poffel wrote:There seems to be quite some confusion because questions that are quite similar to those lined out in the OP can be raised in sociological and historical approaches to ethic and morals. This schools of thought have contributed enormously to our modern understanding of metaethics, and there is no argument here that the historical and social conditions are irrelevant to any ethical standpoint - quite the contrary, actually. However, to put it bluntly, the algorithms run by the computer you're reading this on don't become erroneous just because Alan Turing was gay. We mustn't confuse an explanation of when and how a proposition was spoken (or written) with a disconfirmation of said proposition. It's a common fallacy: Nietzsche and Freud did it with their rebuttals of Christian morals, Marx did it when he rejected the 'ruling ethos' as 'ideas of the ruling classes'. However, there is no direct connection between the historical and sociological conditions of its upbringing and the logical and scientific validity of a statement. "Though shalt not kill." doesn't magically become bullshit when you realize that the Biblical history of creation reflects contemporary myths. "Human dignity" isn't an empty term because of our knowledge about the labor conditions of the 18th Century educational elite. Conversely, if there are good ethical reasons to reject slavery because it violates human dignity, then slavery is ethically wrong - and always has been, even if the realization of this truth may not have occured before the new-age. In short, it does not make sense to evaluate the truth value of a proposition under specific timely conditions because logical evaluation does not depend on time. 1 and 1 is 2, not 1 and 1 becomes 2. As the OP has explained, there are meaningful reasons to reject the notion of ethical statements having truth values; but none of these are historical or sociological. In other words, while history and sociology can contribute to our understanding of ethics - and even raise suspicion against certain ideas -, the impression that something is right or wrong just because of its history or social embeddedness is not a viable philosophical standpoint but rather a genetic fallacy. "Science" is not the same here and there. Social science aren't refutable, what some sociologues call a non-popperian space. It is true that it is a genetic fallacy to consider that the historical and sociological frame that has seen the birth of some laws in physics or mathematics is completly relevant to consider the "truth value" or the said law. It is completly different for anything that is socially determined, because if it always linked to its context (social and historical) it is always "true" in the said context, and not elsewhere. Slavery is ethically true because you use concept of "human dignity" that is considered as true today, but that might not be in the future, and that was completly false in our long history. You don't have to go that far, go back to Nazi's Germany and tell them that you should give some dignity to those men working in concentration camp and that killing them is a bad thing. This doesn't seem right. It implies that the same statement can be right and wrong at the same time. For example, the day slavery was abolished, does that mean slavery was right in the morning and wrong in the evening? It implies you should never oppose "ethics" laws (like abortion, guns, bull fighting...) of you own country because they are always "true" in the current "context" (whatever that means?) It seems really counterintuitive to me. More like slavery was right for a specific group and wrong for another group in the same society. Those two "fought" (through various ways) each other over the definition of what is right and wrong, and eventually the dominant group came to control the institutions that permitted them to crystalize their own view through out history and culture. The main problem we have is that you have a refutable definition of what is "true" : it is ALWAYS true for every one at every moment, while I don't believe such apodictic "truth" exist in human societies. It is true that it is morally acceptable for a citizen of the US to carry a gun in public, while it is not true for an european. I can still defend the idea that it is not moral to carry a gun in the US, and through my own actions, I will possibly be able to make others accept my own moral view on guns, so that all the US, through its institutions, culture and education, comes to the conclusion that it is morally wrong to carry a gun in a public. It is a political statement, a choice, to decide what is moral or immoral, and not something that is given by the above, the beyond, the after - the "meta". I don't accept the idea that "something" exist that can tell me that everything and everywhere it is right or wrong to carry a gun in public. That sounds closer to expressivism, if I understand the OP. You are basically saying ethical statements are non cognitive, if it's up to each individual to make his own choice.
Yes ! Aside from the emotion part, because it somehow means that some kind of biological imperative exist and that it define what is right or wrong. I also consider that it is not something that is individually made, but socially (even if "I" come to defend the idea that having gun in public is wrong in the US, my very stance have been determined by my own biography, the people I've met and the institution I've passed through. The "I" mean more than me in this case, but also the social context that produced me).
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On July 28 2013 05:51 sVnteen wrote:this thread is too much for me at this point  gonna try to see what people say in this thread to maybe understand it a bit better...
Same here. I'm interested, but I don't feel like I've grasped the topic well enough to make any meaningful comment.
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Nice, another philosophical thread :D (not sarcastic btw!), it's always nice to see people having the courage to come to the fore with their arguments on such complex topics and have the willingness to discuss them.
It seems so far, like nadafans pointed out in his assumptions, that few here doubt the possibility of ethics or free will (I think only one mentioned man as determined by chaos theory?), which surprised me in a secular age dominated by science and perhaps not so much by the tradition of philosophy. To me the question of the possibility of morality itself is already a big one which the answer also has further consequences to the possibility of certain views on morality.
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On July 28 2013 21:44 Poffel wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 19:47 xM(Z wrote:i think this argument is bad because it only works in hindsight and it's limited to "humans only" (limited by a specific context). would you object to having alien slaves?; or you'd need another 23423 historical and social realizations before you get to a truth value?. also, experimentation has meaning/value else your 2 would've never existed. this part of your genetic fallacy definition "...unless its past in some way affects its present value" is always present. i do like Rassy idea of (trying to) linking morals with universal laws . could it get more objective then that? (non-mathematically speaking). I'm sorry but I don't get your objection. The idea of an alien dignity is purely speculative at this point, and that there might be such a thing does not negate the truth value of human dignity at all. I'm sure your argument is more profound than that historical knowledge only works in hindsight, but I just don't see what you're getting at...
i was just trying to change the context just so you'd see yourself committing a genetic fallacy. it had to be speculative since it didn't (couldn't have) happened yet.
"Human dignity" isn't an empty term because of our knowledge about the labor conditions of the 18th Century educational elite. Conversely, if there are good ethical reasons to reject slavery because it violates human dignity, then slavery is ethically wrong - and always has been, even if the realization of this truth may not have occured before the new-age.
that statement doesn't exclude a future in which slavery will be ethically right and based on your genetic fallacy definition + Show Spoiler +It is fallacious to either endorse or condemn an idea based on its past—rather than on its present—merits or demerits,
your argument is based on an arrow of time narrative, a one-way direction under which things progress. i do not agree with that.
i can envision instances in which humanity restarts all over again and in doing so, it'll pass through the same merits and demerits of (roughly) the same ideas all over again just because concepts like genetic fallacy are believed in.
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On July 28 2013 22:25 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 21:44 Poffel wrote:On July 28 2013 18:36 WhiteDog wrote:
"Science" is not the same here and there. Social science aren't refutable, what some sociologues call a non-popperian space. It is true that it is a genetic fallacy to consider that the historical and sociological frame that has seen the birth of some laws in physics or mathematics is completly relevant to consider the "truth value" or the said law.
It is completly different for anything that is socially determined, because if it always linked to its context (social and historical) it is always "true" in the said context, and not elsewhere.
Slavery is ethically true because you use concept of "human dignity" that is considered as true today, but that might not be in the future, and that was completly false in our long history. You don't have to go that far, go back to Nazi's Germany and tell them that you should give some dignity to those men working in concentration camp and that killing them is a bad thing. Assuming that you're talking about the concepts put forward by Bourdieu and Passeron, these are about the difference between realism and constructivism, which is an important discussion for the consideration of relations (and contradictions) between different theoretical approaches in sociology, but they do not alleviate the burden of proof in regard to the empirical adequacy of sociological models (unless you think that sociological knowledge corresponds to social reality purely by coincidence). It doesn't make sociology irrefutable, it just means that constructivist models have to assess their theoretical laden differently than realist models. On your illustration: Let's say I don't go back as far but only to the Nuremberg trials where Nazis were convicted for their crimes during the Third Reich... In your opinion, this must mean that our society has come to the agreement that our ethical values apply to the Third Reich as well. Are you not part of our society? I mean, apparently you doubt the legitimacy of the claim that the imperative "don't commit genocide" can be applied retroactively as a rule for Nazi Germany, even though society in general seems to think that that's ok ? Passeron especially consider that sociology is not refutable as Popper means it. The famous exemple is the exemple of the black swan. If I state that all swans are white, and that I see a black swan, then my first assertion is wrong. For Passeron, in social science, the idea that all swans are white is wrong by itself : swans are white in this very lake the first of July. If I see a black swan in another lake or in the same lake at a different time, that doesn't make my first statement wrong. It does not indeed alleviate the burden of proof - it just states limit to what we can prove or disprove. To be more precise I'll quote a translated quote of Passeron's book (p. 134 of the french edition, translated more or less by me, so might be badly worded): Show nested quote +None of the logical conditions of the "falsification" of a theory or a general proposition is fulfilled strictly speaking in the case of the logical structure of sociological theories (or "historical synthesis") as soon as one takes seriously the constraints of historical observation. Since no historical statement can completely dispose co-occurences, that the statement consider as related in the explanation or interpretation, from its space-time coordinates (context more or less expanded by typology), the universality of general propositions in sociology or history is about "digital universality" and never about the universality in the strict sense. In other words, the general sociological propositions can always be generated by the logical "conjunction" of singular statements that it resume. I don't doubt "the legitimacy of the claim that the imperative "don't commit genocide" can be applied retroactively as a rule for Nazi Germany" (I'm quoting you because my weak english makes it hard for me to state it as good as you did), I doubt that us considering that genocide is wrong and judging them according to that moral instantly makes it wrong for the nazi society in their time. I don't consider that something exist that can definitly says that "genocide is wrong always and everywhere". I consider that "genocide is wrong" is the produce of a struggle over what is right or wrong in our societies.
What you've quoted from Passeron certainly makes sense as a safeguard against the temptation of a 'grand unified theory of mankind', and that's why I deem it especially important in regard to theory comparison (where 'middle range theories' (Merten) indeed seem to be the success model in sociology). I still think that it's peripheral for the discussion at hand because it regards universalistic certainty rather than universalistic truth: It is one thing to deem sociological methodology (or even generally scientific reasoning) unfit to bridge the gap between case study and the principles guiding the interactions of the observed phenomena (with sufficient certainty); it is a different thing to argue that such guiding principles do not exist (which is a matter of truth, not certainty - even a blind guess can be true, albeit neither certain nor scientific).
The important part is that you're not committing the fallacy I was talking about:
I don't consider that something exist that can definitly says that "genocide is wrong always and everywhere". I consider that "genocide is wrong" is the produce of a struggle over what is right or wrong in our societies.
That's basically all that my initial complaint was about - there is a tendency to mix up these two perspectives (which you correctly keep separated). The fact that our precept "genocide is wrong" is the product of struggles over right and wrong doesn't devalue the ethical correctness of the precept.
On July 28 2013 22:43 xM(Z wrote:
your argument is based on an arrow of time narrative, a one-way direction under which things progress. i do not agree with that.
Neither do I. Now I understand your complaint, and I'm sorry for the confusion caused by the poor wording of the page I linked. However, since I don't think that my post was similarly ambiguous, we don't really seem to have a disagreement here:
On July 28 2013 17:41 Poffel wrote:
In short, it does not make sense to evaluate the truth value of a proposition under specific timely conditions because logical evaluation does not depend on time.
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On July 28 2013 23:22 Poffel wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 22:25 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 21:44 Poffel wrote:On July 28 2013 18:36 WhiteDog wrote:
"Science" is not the same here and there. Social science aren't refutable, what some sociologues call a non-popperian space. It is true that it is a genetic fallacy to consider that the historical and sociological frame that has seen the birth of some laws in physics or mathematics is completly relevant to consider the "truth value" or the said law.
It is completly different for anything that is socially determined, because if it always linked to its context (social and historical) it is always "true" in the said context, and not elsewhere.
Slavery is ethically true because you use concept of "human dignity" that is considered as true today, but that might not be in the future, and that was completly false in our long history. You don't have to go that far, go back to Nazi's Germany and tell them that you should give some dignity to those men working in concentration camp and that killing them is a bad thing. Assuming that you're talking about the concepts put forward by Bourdieu and Passeron, these are about the difference between realism and constructivism, which is an important discussion for the consideration of relations (and contradictions) between different theoretical approaches in sociology, but they do not alleviate the burden of proof in regard to the empirical adequacy of sociological models (unless you think that sociological knowledge corresponds to social reality purely by coincidence). It doesn't make sociology irrefutable, it just means that constructivist models have to assess their theoretical laden differently than realist models. On your illustration: Let's say I don't go back as far but only to the Nuremberg trials where Nazis were convicted for their crimes during the Third Reich... In your opinion, this must mean that our society has come to the agreement that our ethical values apply to the Third Reich as well. Are you not part of our society? I mean, apparently you doubt the legitimacy of the claim that the imperative "don't commit genocide" can be applied retroactively as a rule for Nazi Germany, even though society in general seems to think that that's ok ? Passeron especially consider that sociology is not refutable as Popper means it. The famous exemple is the exemple of the black swan. If I state that all swans are white, and that I see a black swan, then my first assertion is wrong. For Passeron, in social science, the idea that all swans are white is wrong by itself : swans are white in this very lake the first of July. If I see a black swan in another lake or in the same lake at a different time, that doesn't make my first statement wrong. It does not indeed alleviate the burden of proof - it just states limit to what we can prove or disprove. To be more precise I'll quote a translated quote of Passeron's book (p. 134 of the french edition, translated more or less by me, so might be badly worded): None of the logical conditions of the "falsification" of a theory or a general proposition is fulfilled strictly speaking in the case of the logical structure of sociological theories (or "historical synthesis") as soon as one takes seriously the constraints of historical observation. Since no historical statement can completely dispose co-occurences, that the statement consider as related in the explanation or interpretation, from its space-time coordinates (context more or less expanded by typology), the universality of general propositions in sociology or history is about "digital universality" and never about the universality in the strict sense. In other words, the general sociological propositions can always be generated by the logical "conjunction" of singular statements that it resume. I don't doubt "the legitimacy of the claim that the imperative "don't commit genocide" can be applied retroactively as a rule for Nazi Germany" (I'm quoting you because my weak english makes it hard for me to state it as good as you did), I doubt that us considering that genocide is wrong and judging them according to that moral instantly makes it wrong for the nazi society in their time. I don't consider that something exist that can definitly says that "genocide is wrong always and everywhere". I consider that "genocide is wrong" is the produce of a struggle over what is right or wrong in our societies. What you've quoted from Passeron certainly makes sense as a safeguard against the temptation of a 'grand unified theory of mankind', and that's why I deem it especially important in regard to theory comparison (where 'middle range theories' (Merton) indeed seem to be the success model in sociology). I still think that it's peripheral for the discussion at hand because it regards universalistic certainty rather than universalistic truth: It is one thing to deem sociological methodology (or even generally scientific reasoning) unfit to bridge the gap between case study and the principles guiding the interactions of the observed phenomena (with sufficient certainty); it is a different thing to argue that such guiding principles do not exist (which is a matter of truth, not certainty - even a blind guess can be true, albeit neither certain nor scientific). The important part is that you're not committing the fallacy I was talking about: Show nested quote +I don't consider that something exist that can definitly says that "genocide is wrong always and everywhere". I consider that "genocide is wrong" is the produce of a struggle over what is right or wrong in our societies. That's basically all that my initial complaint was about - there is a tendency to mix up these two perspectives (which you correctly keep separated). The fact that our precept "genocide is wrong" is the product of struggles over right and wrong doesn't devalue the ethical correctness of the precept.
We might disagree, because when I state that "genocide is wrong" is the product of struggles over right and wrong, I mean that it could have been "genocide is right" if the winner was someone else. Since there are no universal way to define what is right or wrong (from my point of view) I can't judge what is right or wrong outside of the context in which I am making the said judgement.
From my point of view, in my society, in my culture, in this day and age, etc., genocide is wrong. And I will never be able to completly get rid of the context (my society, my culture, this day and age) to judge or assure the "co-occurence" I've made between "genocide" and "wrong". The "=" in "genocide = wrong" is always historical or sociological and thus always imply more than a simple "=".
In the link you posted about the genetic fallacy, I see that "the value of many scientific ideas can be objectively evaluated by established techniques, so that the origin or history of the idea is irrelevant to its value". Since there are no "established techniques" to universally and "objectively" evaluate what is right or wrong (there is no "something"), I can't separate my moral statement from its origin or history.
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Nitpick: Blackburn is a noncognitivist, but he's not an expressivist.
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Despite 5 pages of xxxxx i dont see this discussion going annywhere
1) Ethical discourse is cognitive (or, fact-stating; or, truth-evaluable). That is, ethical assertions make claims about the world and are capable of being either true or false.[1]
(2) Some ethical statements are true.
(3) We know, or are capable of knowing, some ethical truths
Moral ethics seem to be in majority here judging by the poll but despite 5 pages filled with text and quotes they have failed to proove anny of these 3 points wich are the foundation of their beliefs.
"Since there are no "established techniques" to "objectively" evaluate what is right or wrong (there is no "something"), I can't separate my moral statement from its origin or history."
You are so right here (well at least imo) and imo the discussion can end right here, unless someone succesfully manages to refute this point but noone is taking anny efforts to do so, not even the moral realists.
Sry to say so and not to insult annyone but this realy has been a bad discussion so far, it is not even clear what the point of discussion is annymore, people just keep throwing quotes against eachoter.
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On July 28 2013 16:17 Absentia wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 15:33 harlock78 wrote:
Another layman observation. For moral realists, what would be the truth value of "killing is wrong"? Would it be false, because it is not always true? Or would it be a nonsensical proposition?
With "murder is wrong", the term is value-laden so saying that it is true is trivial.
If it is nonsensical, is there any relevant question of interest to society that can be treated in a formal general way, without endless circumstantial clarifications? The OP doesn't cover moral realism in any great detail because it is a gigantic area of enquiry. There are forms of moral realism which differ radically in terms of what makes a particular moral proposition true or false. For example, certain moral realists, called 'deontologists', would argue that 'murder is wrong' is true on any interpretation in virtue of some categorical imperative (in other words a moral law that must always be adhered to). Other moral realists argue that 'murder is wrong' is true only on particular interpretations. For instance, they might claim that the assassination of a totalitarian dictator demonstrates the falsity of the proposition 'murder is wrong'. This might be because the assassination of the totalitarian dictator brings about greater well-being for the population that is being dictated.
Yep. The good ol' deontonology vs. consequentialism stuff
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On July 28 2013 17:41 Poffel wrote:
In short, it does not make sense to evaluate the truth value of a proposition under specific timely conditions because logical evaluation does not depend on time. 1 and 1 is 2, not 1 and 1 becomes 2.
Mathematical object live in their own space. The operation of transforming human moral concepts to pure mathematical ones and then analyze them as boolean functions can change depending on your base principles.
For example in your example of human dignity, is there a meta system that would tell you the definition and boundaries of human dignity?
Have you seen the movie "talk to her" by Almodovar? I d be curious to see how a computer would answer the moral dilemma.
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EPT
