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> I don't think I'm a moral relativist, but this is a non-sequitur. It's possible for morality to be relative, but still have guiding principals. At an individ
by weberc2 7y ago
> I don't think I'm a moral relativist, but this is a non-sequitur. It's possible for morality to be relative, but still have guiding principals.
At an individual level, I agree. But I stipulated "at a cultural level", by which I mean something like "if the culture is morally relativistic, I don't think you'll see a critical mass of principled individuals that would prop up a principled culture". I don't think moral relativism is compatible with a principled culture, at least not given the parameters of human psychology.
> No, people have always found a way to justify what want to be right regardless of the underlying ideology.
To be clear, I didn't claim moral absolutism generally or religion in particular is a panacea against this sort of self-dishonesty, but I think you see less of it and instances are less pronounced if only because that individual will lose credibility with his peers. In a morally relativistic culture, the offender only needs to argue "that's your morality, not mine" or "that's your truth, not mine", which is roughly what we see today.
> We've just become more explicit about it in some cases. People's beliefs about what is right tend to be very convenient for them regardless of what they claim their beliefs to be.
I think there's always a temptation to convince oneself that what they want is moral, but I think that temptation is inhibited because he knows his community won't let him get away with it (his reputation would be damaged if he advocated for a few overtly immoral things or many subtly immoral things, consistently). Further, with religions in particular, there is often a text that lays out the morality and there is only so much word lawyering someone can do without overtly running afoul of it. It further constrains the impulse. And with religions like Christianity in particular, a central activity is reflecting on one's selfishness and working against it (the concept of "dying to oneself").
Like I said before, it's not a panacea (there are many religious people and indeed Christians who subvert it), but I think it is a bulwark that we tear down at our own peril.
- jmcqk6 7y agoYou only need to look at the literal thousands of different versions of Christianity to see this. Is it wrong to be gay as a christian? You're going to find hundreds of different christian opinions on this, with their own scripture to back it up. Are you saved by words or actions? Again, you're going to find many many different answers, all with their own scripture and reasoning. You claim that christianity is about reflecting on one's selfishness and working against it, but can you say that about the prosperity gospel? Trump is about as self-centered as a person can get, but he's held up as a saint by millions of christians in this country. But perhaps you just mean within a single church community, and not christianity at large? I was a PK, though, so I know how church politics can go and the infighting and selfishness that can be exhibited within the community. Basically the most we can hope for when it comes to morality is some general agreement about right and wrong, and that agreement is always shifting. There has never been a community or religion in the history of the world that hasn't exhibited this.
- weberc2 7y agoMost of this doesn’t refute my point; it’s largely enumeration fallacy and I tried very hard to address this in my post (“not a panacea” and all that). The thing that is probably most valid and damaging to my model is the bit about evangelicals accepting Trump. I genuinely don’t know about this, but I’m inclined to say that it’s due to the absorbtion of post-Truth mindset from the broader culture. I don’t think you would see anything like it 15 or 20 years ago. FWIW, I’m sorry we’re being downvoted. I think we’re having quite an interesting conversation. :)
- jmcqk6 7y agoWhat's an enumeration fallacy? I've googled, but nothing useful came up. The point I was trying to make is that even if you say "we should follow christian values" the necessary follow up question is "which christian values?" 15 or 20 years ago, the same type of thing was happening, just on a smaller scale. Good examples are some of the Televangelists like Peter Popoff. Perhaps the thing we're disagreeing about is the extent that a "principled culture" protects against this kind of self-indulgence. Based on my personal experiences with the church, I've found the moral framework that it provides does not usually play an active role in the behavior of it's members, and is more often wielded as a tool of judgement against others than as a tool of self-reflection and self-improvement. But I can also recognize that my experiences with the church are not necessarily typical. I'm not sure that there is a utility to moral authoritarianism beyond the ability to quell disagreements. History has shown that "god says" is an extremely powerful motivating force.
- humanrebar 7y agoI don't know what your point is. The lack of consistency in Christian behavior does not imply that Christian morality is on the whole unhelpful. Especially since Christianity tends to downplay ritual and effort-based holiness, comparatively speaking. You don't achieve level 100 in Christian by donating, passing theology tests, travelling, conquering, converting people, or being sin free. Of course actual Christian practice will be all over the place. None of it is explicitly mandatory. Morality is fairly explicit, but actual enforcement of morality isn't the job of Christians outside of particular scenarios.
- Shorel 7y agoIn that case, that ideal principled culture could be totally incompatible with human psychology, at least until an AI takes over. As much as you defend organized religion, it seems to evolve into bigotry quite often, if not always. But in the end, we are so dependent on the idea of a God, that we will end making an actual one. Long live our robot overlords.
- GoblinSlayer 7y agoMoral relativism doesn't prevent loss of credibility with peers. Rather it enables reflected response: you treat nice people nicely and bad people badly - that's relativism, it looks unreasonable to be nice with everyone.
- weberc2 7y agoAfter thinking about it for some time, I think I'd like to simplify my model: In a morally relativistic society, credibility is distributed along tribal lines because there are no higher principles. Everyone is motivated to look out for oneself and the best avenue for that is a tribal alliance (as you point out "you treat nice people nicely and bad people badly", however, "nice" and "bad" devolve almost immediately into proxies for "benefits me" or "does not benefit me"). Things that would otherwise be absolutely wrong (like sexual assault or political violence) now vary morally depending on what is convenient to our tribe in the moment. Science can be swiftly rejected as racist or sexist (or whatever sin our tribe is immediately obsessed with) if it supports an inconvenient finding, but it will be back in favor next week when it produces convenient results. In a morally absolute society, universal principles resist these selfish, tribalistic tendencies (although not completely or perfectly in all places at all times--remember we're describing a bulwark and not a panacea). We agree that sexual assault and political violence are very bad and we condemn people even in our own tribe who commit such acts. Empiricism is also venerated above personal or tribal convenience (although sophisticated empirical findings may take time to trickle down the chain of trust to the layperson). Anyway, there are lots of holes to punch here since the topic is highly subjective and I didn't draw all of the connecting details (due to time constraints), but that's the general model.