I don’t see the contradiction here. Right Person is just asking what Left Person’s beliefs on those matters are, not whether they believe those beliefs are objective.
Hmm I think I have to disagree to the definition of poetry, because I think art in any form can also teach somebody something.
Art is always a mirror: In seeing how you react to art, you learn about yourself.
For example I think for me I really valued for example the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion and the manga Berserk, because both talk a lot about themes I had to struggle a lot with in my life until now.
But I think that this aspect of art does not have to be in every art there is. Impressionist paintings for example often don’t have any lesson to tell but, like any art, tell a story about some emotion and in Impressionism, a moment and you feel that moment.
I would argue that things that shock yourself are more likely to induce this self reflection, which is of course natural in a sense, because there is no obvious point about thinking about yourself, when you enjoy art, because you just want to enjoy it and not think about it and reflect why you thought about it like you did.
Interestingy I had a conversation about a hard question with somebody recently: What makes art good? I argued that for myself anything that changes me or makes me feel a lot is good art and they argued that the more art makes you think about yourself, the better it is. So to speak I had a more consumeristic view, and they an intellectual view.
But I think that both opinions are in a way what I truly love about art: It makes me think and reflect. By either being shocked and processing this experience or by being actively motivated to think. Neon Genesis Evangelion and Berserk did both of these things for me.
In summary: I again rambled about something not at all relevant to this post, but I wanted to say it.
This isn’t the contradiction you make it to be. Patrick, in the first three slides, is just repeating the group’s collective consensus he was raised in.
If you really think chattel slavery was morally acceptable for the slave owners just because there was a group consensus that the slaves were inferior… then I’m willing to let you go on thinking that
edit: Thankfully, like truths in metaphysics, moral truths are not determined by group consensus. So your downvotes mean nothing lol
The point is that slavery was seen as morally acceptable at some time and the moral relativist is forced to say that that means slavery was okay during that time. Most people here want to be moral relativists but they don’t want to accept its consequences.
No they understand just fine. Here’s a quote from an ethics book that gets at the same issue:
The extreme sexism at the heart of honor killings is but one of many examples that raise doubts about cultural relativism. After all, societies are sometimes based on principles of slavery, of warlike aggression, of religious bigotry or ethnic oppression. Cultural relativism would turn these core ideals into iron-clad moral duties, making cooperation with slavery, sexism, and racism the moral duty of all citizens of those societies. The iconoclast—the person deeply opposed to conventional wisdom—would, by definition, always be morally mistaken. This has struck many people as seriously implausible.
Russ Shafer-Landau - The fundamentals of ethics p.293 (“Some Implications of Ethical Subjectivism and Cultural Relativism”)
I shared that quote to show that OP seems to know what moral relativism is, and their objection is something actual ethicists point out. I dont see what its got to do with how many people in the comments here are relativists.
There were Roman slaves devoted to their masters. They sometimes married them and often took their master’s surname name when they were freed. Then kept slaves themselves. So yes, some slaves saw slavery as acceptable.
Consensus obviously cant mean every single person agreeing, its about what the widespread view in the culture is.
Either way its a hypothetical, doesnt matter if such a culture never existed in reality: suppose slavery was condone by some culture. Wouldnt that have made it moral?
Going by the meme: if a society is mysognist you would be wiling to agree its correct for them and womens rights activist in that society should stop (theyre going against what the culture has decided is moral, making the activist immoral)?
When I asked if slavery was right for them, I wasnt trying to describe their attitudes. I am saying that a consequence of thinking cultural relativism is true is that you must admit that they were correct in the attitudes they held (because their culture agreed it was right).
a consequence of thinking cultural relativism is true is that you must admit that they were correct in the attitudes they held
No, and that’s stupid.
Let me clarify, because I want to make sure you understand. I’m not saying that I have a different take. I’m not saying that perhaps you misunderstand. I’m saying that’s a fundamentally stupid thing to believe.
The whole point of relativism is that your simplistic concept of ANYTHING being “correct” is wrong. It’s relative. It’s not correct. Nothing is correct. Some people just thought it was correct.
Relativism says there is no objective truth but you’re just for some reason trying to say that relativism believes in objective truth but only for supporting bad things. It’s a ridiculous, childish take on a philosophy and I’m having trouble understanding how you could come to that conclusion. It has the intellectual rigor of “I am rubber you are glue”.
You are thinking of nihilism (specifically error theory it seems - that there are no moral facts and people are wrong for thinking there are) because relativism (whether relative to subject or culture) doesnt deny that there are moral truths, just that they are only correct for the individual or culture that holds them.
Cultural relativism: The view that an act is morally right just because it is allowed by the guiding ideals of the society in which it is performed, and immoral just because it is forbidden by those ideals.
Ethical subjectivism: The view that an act is morally right just because (a) I approve of it, or (b) my commitments allow it. An action is wrong just because (a) I disapprove of it, or (b) my commitments forbid it.
Same book as the other comment of mine you replied to.
So, no, I didnt get it wrong. And the consequences I pointed out do follow from cultural relativism.
That’s a completely wrong and stupid definition of relativism. Either because the book is wrong, or (and I’ll grant this is a possibility, because it happens a lot and it’s why the whole field of philosophy should be killed with fire) the ivory tower academic definition has gone so far beyond reality that it’s just completely absurd, and can be safely ignored as the ravings of a lunatic.
Either way, it’s a straw man. Just in the 2nd case, there’s a small group of batshit insane losers who actually believe the straw man is a real man, and they talk with it and have tea parties and shit. And get offended when you point out that it’s made of straw and they should get mental help.
This is the definition Ive found people use when they bring up cultural relativism. Whether informally with stuff like “you cant judge them, its just their culture” or when more fleshed out. As far as I can tell, no, ethicists for and against cultural relativism are discussing something quite in touch with reality.
The author is an important figure in metaethics, its much more likely theres something you missed than him being wrong about a basic definition in a field he is an expert in.
Philosophy is weird and unique like that. The more of an expert someone is in a field, the more likely they are to be completely out of touch with reality.
I’m going to use a technique that I frequently use when discussing philosophy, to cut through the smokescreen of bullshit. Ignore your preconceived definitions. They don’t matter. Instead of “cultural relativism”, whatever you think that is, we are going to discuss “what the general population thinks of when they hear the term ‘cultural relativism’”. For short, I am going to call this Skywalker Theory. No academic has ever written about Skywalker Theory. There are no papers to reference. There’s no books, no dissertations, no letters. Skywalker Theory exists solely in the minds of people who have never gone beyond Intro to Philosophy.
Skywalker Theory says:
The idea of an objective “good” is impossible since different groups believe different things at different times. We believe in Good and Bad, but it’s really just the result of cultural conditioning.
Any time your see “Cultural Relativism”, replace that with Skywalker Theory for the purposes of this discussion.
Skywalker Theory is not fleshed out. It’s really just a premise. There’s a lot that is up for discussion. Skywalker Theory may resemble established academic philosophies like nihilism, but it is not nihilism. It doesn’t have the baggage of all the various discussions and terms and definitions and writings that the philosophy of nihilism has. You can say “nihilism says that [x]” and reference previous writings and scenarios and logical conclusions. You cannot say that about Skywalker Theory. There’s nothing to reference.
“Skywalker theory” (so far identical to error theory) isnt what the post or the discussion is about. The meme is pretty clear it is about cultural relativism and clear about what it means by cultural relativism.
If you want to bring your own objection to moral realism, sure, but it makes little sense hijacking the definition to mean something entirely different and being unhappy this wasnt what the term others were using meant.
Wrong. The OP never mentions ANY specific philosophical theory. People commenting are clearly talking about little-r relativism, the popular definition, the one I gave, not the Relativism or Realism or Nihilism or whatever else “experts” have loaded down with jargon and tangents and straw men over the decades.
Skywalker theory strips you of philosophical tricks. You have to talk about the central premise, there is nothing more. Skywalker Theory is BY DEFINITION what we are talking about.
Modern philosophy is so weighted down, it’s almost entirely a discussion about terms rather than ideas. Skywalker Theory undoes that.
OP says, “the truth of moral judgments is relative to group consensus”. That’s it. Discuss that, and just that.
OP (and the ensuing discussion) does not say “there is an objective Truth but it is whatever a group of people happens to believe at the time, especially if it’s something that I personally believe is Bad”, because that’s an absurd and contradictory statement. That absurd statement is not a part of Skywalker Theory. No one cares if it’s part of some other theory, that’s a tangent. We’re talking about Skywalker Theory.
See how it works?
You can’t say “aha, your are clearly referring to the philosophy of fish guts, and as we all know the famous Professor Poopybutt demonstrated in 1803 that a belief in fish gut philosophy requires one to break one’s own legs.” No. Stop. We are not getting bogged down in a useless conversation about some crazy bullshit. We are not talking about fishgut theory, we are talking about Skywalker Theory, and Skywalker Theory has no other sources to reference than the premise given in this post, and the ensuing discussion.
Honest question: if a person living in the west in the 21st century thinks they should have the right to take people of a different race as their own personal slaves, do you think there is no basis to call this person immoral? The best we can do is say that this person is incompatible with the time and place they are in?
Ask the slaves that lol. That argument is moot because it relies on legitimizing the oppression committed by slavers by not seeing enslaved people as part of the population/group. Their history was not recorded the same way the slaver’s history was, yet they were still humans that thought about, talked about, and theorized about morality too. You don’t get to claim to know the group consensus of a past society just because slavers used oppression to erase the viewpoints of those who disagreed.
i know truth itself is not relative, so what is moral truth? to me it sounds like saying that following X persons subjective view of morality we can objectively say that Y is bad. this just then makes objectively proving a persons subjective morality a relative truth though, and not an objective truth, because we could express any side of morality, good or bad, objectively, and as you said, truth is not relative and only one truth must exist.
if you’re talking about things like Sam Harris’ definition of morality being a sort of “majority wellbeing”, i’m sure that while we can theoretically allow for the redefinition of morality and make some objective truths regaridng that subjecte moral viewpoint, but as it is not being absolute in the universe and moreso being related to subjective wellbeing of the most amount of living things, i feel that this is still just fulfilling the subjective definitions.
interestingly though, Sam Harris will go on all day about how we can’t redefine free will as being the ability to make choices which all life evidently has in common. just because these choices aren’t ultimately free, he rejects the “compatibilist” redefinition of free will.
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