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Moral Relativism versus Universal Morality

RobotRipping said:
^which is what Kant was saying in his groundwork for the metaphysics of morals. I agree to an extent but utilitarianism throws a wrench in that theory.
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appeals to utility are cold as hell. i don't think such a dispassionate concept is moral at all.

P A said:
Out of curiosity: Are you an ethicist by training? Or just a philosopher-at-large?
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i am at large in that i have been successfully evading capture. =D

in reality i have an amateur interest and engaged in a substantial number of philo units in my history/politics degree. been a weirdo introverted thinker-er my whole life. the degree, while not giving me a speciality, immensely enhance my critical thinking ability and gave me a very enlightening foundation in philo pursuits. one particularly relevant mind expansion for me was finding there is a difference between know-that knowledge and know-how knowledge, because i always wondered how memory and imagination relate. it seems to me that i work predominantly in know-how, so i have great difficulty in recalling details/memorising, but work from vague notions of understanding in almost everything i do. i train my intuition, but my intuition leads me, if you follow.
 
L2R said:
appeals to utility are cold as hell. i don't think such a dispassionate concept is moral at all.
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it's not so much an appeal to utility tho; it's not pragmatic. It's too much to discuss right now but if you haven't read some of kant's metaphysics of morals give it a look
 
PA said:
Out of curiosity: Are you an ethicist by training? Or just a philosopher-at-large?
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He should own it: he's a philosopher by training, an ethicist by inclination interacting therewith, and thus an ethicist-proper as the extension of his training blooms...

ebola
 
ebola's my opposite, his know-what focus means he can articulate theory and concept with succint and sharp clarity, albeit somewhat overly jargonistic in presentation. yet, he has no idea what's going on. i know exactly what's going on, but comparitively i have like two syllables in my arsenal to convey it. =D

anyhoots, eb what do you think of the q in the op?
 
ebola to a tee
rut-cartoon1.bmp

=D
 
L2R said:
anyhoots, eb what do you think of the q in the op?
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Honestly, I think I need to hang back and listen a little bit more. I'm dissatisfied with all ethical formulations I've yet encountered, so I lack a wider framework with which to evaluate examples. I will note, initially, that the dichotomy of "subjective" and "objective" needs to be challenged and later superseded for progress to be made. Rather, the question is as to how ethical obligations emerge as the subject-object interaction develops into an interplay of social beings with distinct and sometimes conflicting interests.

But I honestly don't yet really know what is up...

ebola
 
haha @ l2r

ebola; objective morality is succinct from subjective morality; as seen with kant's categorical imperative. You lost me on the last bit of your paragraph. There is a blur between a priori and a posteriori positions on morality, which makes objectivity impossible imo. Carl Popper showed this distinction in a paper somewhere, i'll look for it. I think it was him anyway.

Are you thinking of something like noam chomsky's work?
 
ebola? said:
Rather, the question is as to how ethical obligations emerge as the subject-object interaction develops into an interplay of social beings with distinct and sometimes conflicting interests.
[/quote

Wait- are you saying that morality only exists when there's interaction, or multiple entities? That, alone on an island, the concept of morality is invalid/meaningless?
/sorry I know you were trying to chill back for a minute lol, don't worry if you don't wanna answer ;]
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re: let's kill the subject/object dichotomy.
agreed. it aint all one or the other.

re: what to do with conflicting interests.
bring it back to basics and you find interests which are universal, say for instance survival. a semblance of an objective morality can be found here, and the further one branches from the human fundamentals, the more subjective things get, as cultures and histories begin to vary. only these areas are where interests conflict.


now stop watching us fap from the ceiling and JOIN US DAMMIT! =D
 
nah, i'm not simply negotiating a compromise (let's all have some cake), i think there is truth in a complex situaiton. human definitions and distinctions are helpful in discussion and analysis but we seldom find definitives and absolutes in real real life like real life.

now let's all have some cake
 
it doesn't exist in interpersonal relations because there is no judge of right and wrong in that case that is objective.

morality would not exist on an island either, there is again, no judge of good or bad. It is beneficial to be human and take care of people, it's built in to us, but isn't about morals. That is just a physical response that pays off, like a herd being strong.
 
^but if you think morality doesn't exist in interpersonal relationships, nor does it exist when alone on an island, it'd seem you don't believe it exists as a concept when it clearly does..

(also, it doesn't even seem that objectivity is required by the literal definition (though *I* do view morality as inherently objective, even if we're not yet at a point of deciding what "proper" morality is)

and fwiw i definitely think morality comes into play on an island. morality is about right and wrong, and that doesn't stop just because you're the only one involved.
 
i disagree with RR on this point and am with you bmxxx. but i think i already covered why in this thread.
 
who is to judge what is right or wrong then? that is the problem with the subjective approach. If you are a cave man and you kill another cave man for food, is that right or wrong? who decides? who is the authority?

imo morality must exist objectively (via Kant's caterogical imperative), that works for me okay, to some extent. But subjective morality is meaningless, purely because it is subjective.
 
take a knife and apply its sharp edge down between the concepts of morality and judgement. these are separable with a good enough scalpel (thanks pirsig for the analogy).

IF judgement is essential for morality, THEN all that is not caught/detected is good.
this is false
 
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