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It's a logical contradiction in a simple way: If you assert that 'moral relativism is true' that itself would be a relative claim which would undermine the ass

It's a logical contradiction in a simple way: If you assert that 'moral relativism is true' that itself would be a relative claim which would undermine the assertion as a universal position. Further, you end up in a position of equivalence of all claims and generate major contradictions. I will go out on a limb on the universal moral values claim and I think again it's pretty simple: The existence of even the most basic objective truth, such as 1+1=2 would imply by its existence a frame of reference by which all claims can be evaluated against. This constrains the scope of relative claims, as you pointed out, but also implies an actual truth or set of standards with which you can evaluate anything. It's not clear what universal moral values looks like, like Epicurean pleasure/pain or maybe it stems from thermodynamics, or even just mathematics itself, but it is possible that it could be discovered.

Barrin92 3y ago
>If you assert that 'moral relativism is true' that itself would be a relative claim no it wouldn't because meta-ethical statements express objectives claims about moral values, they are not themselves normative or moral claims. It is equivalent to pointing out that everyone is a relativist in regards to their favorite flavor of ice cream. That statement is itself verifiably true or false.
- pixl97 3y ago
  >That statement is itself verifiably true or false. Is it verifiably true without spending more entropy than exist in the visible universe to answer the question, because really affects if the answer if verifiably true or not.
fluoridation 3y ago
>If you assert that 'moral relativism is true' that itself would be a relative claim Would it? If we define "moral absolutism" as "the position that there exist moral statements that are true independently of any observers" then we could define the position of "moral relativism" as its logical negation: "there don't exist moral statements that are true independently of any observers". Is that sentence itself a moral statement? Why? To me it reads like a statement about reality, not about what is moral or immoral. >It's not clear what universal moral values looks like Universal moral values are not the same as absolute moral values, though. For example, let's suppose that "murder is wrong" is a universal moral value. That just tells you that every human agrees on that, but we're still working off a subjective, biased system, because every human you could ask will evaluate this moral question using their human brain. And if you could ask every living thing in the universe, you would still have the bias of matter-based life. How could you tell a universal moral value is basic enough that it's independent of any subjective point of view? The only truths I can imagine that could meet those requirements would have to be really abstract, like 1+1=2 as you say.
- nico 3y ago
  > he only truths I can imagine that could meet those requirements would have to be really abstract, like 1+1=2 And that is not even universally or absolutely true, 1+1=2 is a set of symbols that need to be interpreted by someone for them to have meaning, it’s a concept made up by people Hence, 1+1=2 is just as relative as anything else we express through language
  - fluoridation 3y ago
    "1+1=2" as a string of symbols is open to interpretation, however, both you and I understand the idea that that string of symbols is conveying, and that idea is true objectively.
    - nico 3y ago
      It’s just an agreement that has been pretty much forced on anyone that has a basic school education I can choose to disagree and doesn’t matter what you do I can assign a different meaning to it No ideas are objective truth, and objective truth is something that can’t even be tested
      - fluoridation 3y ago
        >I can assign a different meaning to it I don't even understand what that means. Ideas don't have meaning, they are meaning. What does it mean to assign a different meaning to the idea represented as "1+1=2"? >No ideas are objective truth No. Mathematical truths are objectively true. Even if addition itself is false in the universe, in the sense that in some cases you can put one real thing next to another and get other than two real things next to each other as a result, that 1+1=2 is true objectively. It would just mean that the universe is based on an axiomatic system that is more lax than our own.
        nico 3y ago
        You can believe whatever you want, assign any meaning you want I can say that 1+1=2 means it’s lunchtime on the moon I can also say that 1+1=11 I can’t force you (nor anyone else), to accept or agree with those meanings, but I can definitely assign any meaning I want No ideas, nor meaning, nor formulas, nor math are objective truth Just the fact that I can disagree with you right now means there isn’t an objective truth. If there was, then we wouldn’t even be able to disagree And the universe is not based on any axiomatic anything, maybe your models of the universe are, but those models are just a subjective approximation to whatever the reality of the universe is, which we all perceive and experience differently in a subjective manner
voxl 3y ago
Yes, there are physical facts, most moral relativists are physical realists. But that is also exactly where the moral relativism originates. You _do_ have physical laws, you _do not_ have moral laws. You can _test_ physical laws, you _can not test_ moral laws. Once you axiomatically ordain some set of rules as "moral truths" or some measure of "moral truth" then the physical apparatus comes in, and you get to use it. But you have to pick the framework of morality first!
- naasking 3y ago
  > But that is also exactly where the moral relativism originates. You _do_ have physical laws, you _do not_ have moral laws. You can _test_ physical laws, you _can not test_ moral laws. First, this assumes a very specific kind of moral realism, but does not describe all forms of moral realism. Second, we do just fine testing mathematical laws by checking for consistency without any tests of the sort you're describing. Finally, these sorts of arguments against moral realism have been discussed for decades, so I'll simply leave this here for people to assess: A Proof of the Objectivity of Morals - Bambrough (1969), https://www.dropbox.com/s/p9v7qt23p21gfci/Proof%20of%20the%20Objectivity%20of%20Morals.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/p9v7qt23p21gfci/Proof%20of%20the%2...
  - fluoridation 3y ago
    >Second, we do just fine testing mathematical laws by checking for consistency without any tests of the sort you're describing. So is there some axiomatic system that can elucidate moral truths, such as the wrongness of stealing, from first principles? >A Proof of the Objectivity of Morals - Bambrough (1969) Quickly skimmed through it, but: awful, just awful. I challenge Bambrough to prove to me that I have two hands.
    - naasking 3y ago
      > So is there some axiomatic system that can elucidate moral truths, such as the wrongness of stealing, from first principles? Read Kant. > Quickly skimmed through it, but: awful, just awful. I challenge Bambrough to prove to me that I have two hands. Clearly you missed the entire thrust of the argument, and Moore's before it.
jmoss20 3y ago
> The existence of even the most basic objective truth, such as 1+1=2 You might be surprised that even this is a relatively (sorry) controversial view. Many (most?) practicing mathematicians do not hold it. Even if it were, then you get the is-ought gap -- the existence of objective / analytic / verifiable / what have you facts doesn't obviously imply anything about moral "facts".
lamontcg 3y ago
> It's not clear what universal moral values looks like, like Epicurean pleasure/pain or maybe it stems from thermodynamics, or even just mathematics itself, but it is possible that it could be discovered. I strongly suspect they come from game theory, although they look more like statistical mechanics in that they govern the bulk behavior of societies and individuals will have widely varying personal moralities (serial killers) just like atoms have widely varying individual velocities. There will also be some society-to-society variation. Plus the game theoretical concerns have probably changed over time (Genghis Khan's army raping and murdering 11% of the world population probably represents an early peak in the selfish strategies of following a powerful leader and subjugating others). And those forces will have shaped our biological evolution and neural wiring as well.
westcoast49 3y ago
> If you assert that 'moral relativism is true' that itself would be a relative claim which would undermine the assertion as a universal position. Moral relativism means that everyone views the world through the lens of their own experiences. And my statement about moral relativism is also, as you point out, viewed through the lens of my own experiences (with that particular topic). But the second statement does not undermine the first one, instead it sort of "recurses" over it.
pixl97 3y ago
>It's not clear what universal moral values looks like, like Epicurean pleasure/pain or maybe it stems from thermodynamics, or even just mathematics itself, but it is possible that it could be discovered. So if you want to take thermodynamic morals for a spin, the answer is complete chaos. In the case of humanity we are just a waveform, a state, running from low entropy to high entropy. The only outcome of any open universe long term thermodynamic equation in itself is entropy maximization. Mathematics seems like another dead end here. Mathematics is both incomplete and paradoxical. My assumption is any mathematical system that attempts to answer morality questions will quickly fall foul of Russel's Paradox. And as of so far no one has any proofs that morals/morality is a reduceable problem. If morals are NP hard, then it is not a problem with findable solution, one could exist, but finding it would be random chance. And for example said morality solution could have hash conflicts, any reducible answer could be one many potential random answers.
bluGill 3y ago
1+1=2 (standard arithmetic) 1+1=10 (base 2 arithmetic) 1+1=11 (base 1 arithmetic) 1+1=11 (string concatenation) 1+1=true (+ often is used for AND in boolean arithmetic) 1+1=0 (mod 2 arithmetic) Those are just what I think of in 3 minutes. I know there are others that I can't remember at the moment, and I'm sure there are even more that I've never encountered in my math studies.

Barrin92 3y ago

>If you assert that 'moral relativism is true' that itself would be a relative claim no it wouldn't because meta-ethical statements express objectives claims about moral values, they are not themselves normative or moral claims. It is equivalent to pointing out that everyone is a relativist in regards to their favorite flavor of ice cream. That statement is itself verifiably true or false.

pixl97 3y ago
>That statement is itself verifiably true or false. Is it verifiably true without spending more entropy than exist in the visible universe to answer the question, because really affects if the answer if verifiably true or not.

fluoridation 3y ago

>If you assert that 'moral relativism is true' that itself would be a relative claim Would it? If we define "moral absolutism" as "the position that there exist moral statements that are true independently of any observers" then we could define the position of "moral relativism" as its logical negation: "there don't exist moral statements that are true independently of any observers". Is that sentence itself a moral statement? Why? To me it reads like a statement about reality, not about what is moral or immoral. >It's not clear what universal moral values looks like Universal moral values are not the same as absolute moral values, though. For example, let's suppose that "murder is wrong" is a universal moral value. That just tells you that every human agrees on that, but we're still working off a subjective, biased system, because every human you could ask will evaluate this moral question using their human brain. And if you could ask every living thing in the universe, you would still have the bias of matter-based life. How could you tell a universal moral value is basic enough that it's independent of any subjective point of view? The only truths I can imagine that could meet those requirements would have to be really abstract, like 1+1=2 as you say.

nico 3y ago
> he only truths I can imagine that could meet those requirements would have to be really abstract, like 1+1=2 And that is not even universally or absolutely true, 1+1=2 is a set of symbols that need to be interpreted by someone for them to have meaning, it’s a concept made up by people Hence, 1+1=2 is just as relative as anything else we express through language
- fluoridation 3y ago
  "1+1=2" as a string of symbols is open to interpretation, however, both you and I understand the idea that that string of symbols is conveying, and that idea is true objectively.
  - nico 3y ago
    It’s just an agreement that has been pretty much forced on anyone that has a basic school education I can choose to disagree and doesn’t matter what you do I can assign a different meaning to it No ideas are objective truth, and objective truth is something that can’t even be tested
    - fluoridation 3y ago
      >I can assign a different meaning to it I don't even understand what that means. Ideas don't have meaning, they are meaning. What does it mean to assign a different meaning to the idea represented as "1+1=2"? >No ideas are objective truth No. Mathematical truths are objectively true. Even if addition itself is false in the universe, in the sense that in some cases you can put one real thing next to another and get other than two real things next to each other as a result, that 1+1=2 is true objectively. It would just mean that the universe is based on an axiomatic system that is more lax than our own.
      - nico 3y ago
        You can believe whatever you want, assign any meaning you want I can say that 1+1=2 means it’s lunchtime on the moon I can also say that 1+1=11 I can’t force you (nor anyone else), to accept or agree with those meanings, but I can definitely assign any meaning I want No ideas, nor meaning, nor formulas, nor math are objective truth Just the fact that I can disagree with you right now means there isn’t an objective truth. If there was, then we wouldn’t even be able to disagree And the universe is not based on any axiomatic anything, maybe your models of the universe are, but those models are just a subjective approximation to whatever the reality of the universe is, which we all perceive and experience differently in a subjective manner

voxl 3y ago

Yes, there are physical facts, most moral relativists are physical realists. But that is also exactly where the moral relativism originates. You _do_ have physical laws, you _do not_ have moral laws. You can _test_ physical laws, you _can not test_ moral laws. Once you axiomatically ordain some set of rules as "moral truths" or some measure of "moral truth" then the physical apparatus comes in, and you get to use it. But you have to pick the framework of morality first!

naasking 3y ago
> But that is also exactly where the moral relativism originates. You _do_ have physical laws, you _do not_ have moral laws. You can _test_ physical laws, you _can not test_ moral laws. First, this assumes a very specific kind of moral realism, but does not describe all forms of moral realism. Second, we do just fine testing mathematical laws by checking for consistency without any tests of the sort you're describing. Finally, these sorts of arguments against moral realism have been discussed for decades, so I'll simply leave this here for people to assess: A Proof of the Objectivity of Morals - Bambrough (1969), https://www.dropbox.com/s/p9v7qt23p21gfci/Proof%20of%20the%20Objectivity%20of%20Morals.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/p9v7qt23p21gfci/Proof%20of%20the%2...
- fluoridation 3y ago
  >Second, we do just fine testing mathematical laws by checking for consistency without any tests of the sort you're describing. So is there some axiomatic system that can elucidate moral truths, such as the wrongness of stealing, from first principles? >A Proof of the Objectivity of Morals - Bambrough (1969) Quickly skimmed through it, but: awful, just awful. I challenge Bambrough to prove to me that I have two hands.
  - naasking 3y ago
    > So is there some axiomatic system that can elucidate moral truths, such as the wrongness of stealing, from first principles? Read Kant. > Quickly skimmed through it, but: awful, just awful. I challenge Bambrough to prove to me that I have two hands. Clearly you missed the entire thrust of the argument, and Moore's before it.

jmoss20 3y ago

> The existence of even the most basic objective truth, such as 1+1=2 You might be surprised that even this is a relatively (sorry) controversial view. Many (most?) practicing mathematicians do not hold it. Even if it were, then you get the is-ought gap -- the existence of objective / analytic / verifiable / what have you facts doesn't obviously imply anything about moral "facts".

lamontcg 3y ago

> It's not clear what universal moral values looks like, like Epicurean pleasure/pain or maybe it stems from thermodynamics, or even just mathematics itself, but it is possible that it could be discovered. I strongly suspect they come from game theory, although they look more like statistical mechanics in that they govern the bulk behavior of societies and individuals will have widely varying personal moralities (serial killers) just like atoms have widely varying individual velocities. There will also be some society-to-society variation. Plus the game theoretical concerns have probably changed over time (Genghis Khan's army raping and murdering 11% of the world population probably represents an early peak in the selfish strategies of following a powerful leader and subjugating others). And those forces will have shaped our biological evolution and neural wiring as well.

westcoast49 3y ago

> If you assert that 'moral relativism is true' that itself would be a relative claim which would undermine the assertion as a universal position. Moral relativism means that everyone views the world through the lens of their own experiences. And my statement about moral relativism is also, as you point out, viewed through the lens of my own experiences (with that particular topic). But the second statement does not undermine the first one, instead it sort of "recurses" over it.

pixl97 3y ago

>It's not clear what universal moral values looks like, like Epicurean pleasure/pain or maybe it stems from thermodynamics, or even just mathematics itself, but it is possible that it could be discovered. So if you want to take thermodynamic morals for a spin, the answer is complete chaos. In the case of humanity we are just a waveform, a state, running from low entropy to high entropy. The only outcome of any open universe long term thermodynamic equation in itself is entropy maximization. Mathematics seems like another dead end here. Mathematics is both incomplete and paradoxical. My assumption is any mathematical system that attempts to answer morality questions will quickly fall foul of Russel's Paradox. And as of so far no one has any proofs that morals/morality is a reduceable problem. If morals are NP hard, then it is not a problem with findable solution, one could exist, but finding it would be random chance. And for example said morality solution could have hash conflicts, any reducible answer could be one many potential random answers.

bluGill 3y ago

1+1=2 (standard arithmetic) 1+1=10 (base 2 arithmetic) 1+1=11 (base 1 arithmetic) 1+1=11 (string concatenation) 1+1=true (+ often is used for AND in boolean arithmetic) 1+1=0 (mod 2 arithmetic) Those are just what I think of in 3 minutes. I know there are others that I can't remember at the moment, and I'm sure there are even more that I've never encountered in my math studies.