this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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They think it's moral, which is the point. Morality is fluid, not objective. Do I think genital mutilation or slavery are moral? Absolutely not, I think they violate basic standards of human rights. But those standards are, themselves, human inventions and not objective truths.
Almost no one thinks they're the bad guy in the story.
I haven't missed the point, what I've given are stock responses to moral relativism. I got them from ethicist Russ Shafer-Landau's books "The Fundamentals of Ethics" and "Whatever Happened to Good and Evil." If my comment doesn't make sense do read it, the chapters on relativism are short.
I will try to repeat. If morals are made true by the perspectives of societies, you are absolutely wrong in saying genital mutilation is wrong for them. It is only wrong for you, because your society says so. You must admit they are correct in saying it is something moral for themselves. A ridiculous conclusion.
I'd like to hear why you think there aren't objective moral facts. I'm an atheist myself and think they can exist.
Sorry to disappoint you but all I have is "we use reason to figure out loads of other incredibly complicated things, why not moral issues". I've edited my comment to reflect what I can try defending.
I've mostly been focusing on reading how it can be possible for morals to exist at all without a god, looking at objections from both religious people and atheists (stuff like disagreement meaning they dont exist, god needing to create moral facts, etc.) . I will be going from 'it can exist' to 'heres how we can gain knowledge of it' later, since I need to know if the first is possible before doing the second :)
But people can apply their own reasoning that will have a different result. In another comment the Holocaust was mentioned as a universal wrong, but I'd argue the Nazis believed it was the morally correct action that was necessary to save their country from their supposed enemies. Propaganda set the foundations for them to work off of, but it's still a rationale for actions the world over considered morally disgusting. Obviously some of them didn't believe that and just followed orders, but there were absolutely true believers that saw their actions as moral when considering the world they wanted to build. A sort of "you either deal with the problem for good or allow the enemy a chance to fight back," kind of thing.
Just so we're all clear: I'm not defending their decisions and I don't like the implications of moral relativism, but I do think it's a thing.
I think the issue with that is we can apply it to science too, a field we don't disagree there are facts in. There are conspiracy theorists and small minorities of scientists who go against views that there are actually consensus on. It appears they have, as you expressed it, applied their own reasoning and gotten to different results. But if that isn't enough to reject the possibility of getting scientific knowledge, why should it for moral knowledge?
Also, something being objective means that it is true irrespective of what people think. These facts doesn't care what you think. What is the case, is the case. The same for morals. Its a fact 2+2=4 even if you can't count, its a fact evolution happened even if you didnt take biology, its a fact the holocaust was wrong, even if nazis were convinced otherwise.
And I do think its reasonable you think morals are relative. Each culture really has just made up lots of stuff. We also are biased to our cultures, and just defend whatever our religions say. But I want to try to defend the possibility of doing ethics if done right.
I agree with your statement in regards to conspiracy theories and science, but there is a way to prove one way or the other when it comes to science. To choose to not believe that is a choice to reject evidence so we can in that case say they are absolutely incorrect.
This issue with morality is more difficult because what we're trying to "prove" is often something that is outside of the natural world. Say for example a forced uniform, or code of clothing like a Hijab. It's immoral to not wear one or to not cover your hair for religious reasons, but we (especially as atheists) see forcing people to wear something as immoral. To force someone to do anything is not right in our minds, but to others it's more important to respect God and to protect yourself from the wrath of God or from another immoral human who would want to sexually assault you (or the wrath of nosey neighbors that want to stone you for God.) It's very difficult to prove anything in that situation especially since it involves "Gods."
I don't really know how one could prove something is wrong when it comes to morality. I could imagine taking steps and at each step you ask "does this hurt someone?" but even then, going back to the Holocaust example, hurting someone to protect yourself could still be seen as the correct moral choice based on the framework your society is working within (again for anyone else reading, I'm not trying to defend Nazis lol). There are a base set of "facts" about the world that you would base your morality off of and the society you live within defines those "facts."
"The trolly problem" comes to mind as well. Hurting people is wrong no matter what, but we also believe hurting one person is morally correct when the other choice is hurting more people. Morality is so difficult to rationalize in all the various instances in which it arises lol I don't really mean to be arguing, it's just such a difficult topic to say one way or the other is "correct."
On most of your comment I am puzzled in that I disagree but I dont know why. On the rest I dont have good enough replies. I am new to this, maybe I will reply after thinking about it more
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, I appreciate discussions like this.
Morals are human constructs. Human constructs are not objective facts.
I think you would agree there are epistemic norms like 'if we dont have enough evidence for something, we shouldnt believe it" or "if a view has contradictions, we should reject it". These are rules that tell us how we should reason, and they are objective facts we didnt create. Moral facts are just like these but tell us how we should act. An argument to to you is ("companions in guilt" arguments): I think its likely you accept those like the former are objective and not made by us, so you should accept the latter can be so too.
Morals imo aren't created by humans. Some are, but real moral facts like 'the holocaust was wrong' or 'torturing babies for fun is wrong' do exist. They are things to be discovered (not as easily as the obvious ones I listed), not created, just like epistemic norms are.
What is a moral fact? State one please. I would like to hear about this universal moral. Does it apply to the Aztecs or were they universally immoral?