Questions for the 2nd Writing Assignment

De Vera, Rosemarie · Posts: 6 Join date: 2008-11-25 Age: 20

C.E. Harris, in his book “Applying Moral Theories,” gave two versions of moral relativism – the classical and the contemporary version constructed by G. Harman. The three theses that support the classical version are the diversity thesis, relativity thesis, and the toleration thesis. On the other hand, Harman’s version of relativism comes up with the concepts inner and outer judgments to give stronger support for moral relativism. However, as what is supposed to be discussed in this essay, there are logical difficulties or problems with moral relativism.

The diversity thesis states that people indeed have different moral beliefs. But, this does not mean that the differences of practices of people in every society are within the scope of morality. This diversity could not explain every difference of practices because sometimes, certain actions are not under morality but actually depends on the circumstances, for instance, the case of the Eskimos. Leaving one of their companion if he/she would cause delay for their group is one of their practices, but this does not mean that it is considered moral but only what is needed by their situation or else, more of them could die. It is for their survival. At this point, it shows that the mere practice of an action is not the indicator of being moral or not.

The relativity thesis, in relation to the diversity thesis, states that the rightness or wrongness of an act is relative or in relation to the group he/she belongs or culture that he/she is used to be. By using relativism as a reason for every action, it seems to serve as an excuse for it. For example, if I am a cannibal, then it is alright to eat humans because it is the practice of our group and someone who is not a cannibal cannot say that it is wrong to it humans. It is moral in our culture to eat humans therefore, who are you to tell me what is right or wrong? This leads to another difficulty of being no place for moral reformers. It is like we should just mind our own business. The only way to change a certain group’s practices if within that group there will be an agreement that they should change, in my opinion. However, it also seems that with moral relativism, it teaches us to be tolerant (toleration thesis) of such actions (eating humans for example) and there will also be no place for moral progress. By being relativists, we allow the traditional practices to continue, because it is their belief, that we could not judge their actions because morality is relative. What are considered immoral for them will only be the ones that they are not practicing. People, who believe otherwise, like us now that eating humans is immoral, do not have the right to change their beliefs, no moral progress. Therefore, eating humans will always be their practice.

If morality is relative, then we should accept every belief and practices of different societies and groups without analyzing their beliefs and practices. But if this is the case, then what is the point of studying morality and providing standards of what is right or wrong, and good or bad, if every society have the right to provide their own set of beliefs or morality? Indeed there are certain cultural and religious beliefs, for example, that we should respect, because some of us come from different cultures and have the freedom to choose our religion. But this “respect” should not be equated as the “right way”. Even every individual have different opinions or beliefs, there must be a point that every one will agree upon, which is the key to solving different conflicts.

manlangit · Posts: 6 Join date: 2008-11-25 Age: 19 Location: Manila, Ph

Moral Relativism is a philosophical view that what is right or wrong and good or bad is not absolute but variable and relative, depending on the person, circumstances, or social situation. Rather than claiming that an action's rightness or wrongness can depend on the circumstances, or that people's beliefs about right and wrong are relative to their social condition, it claims that what is truly right depends on what the individual or the society thinks is right. Because what people think will vary with time and place, what is right will also vary.

The claims of Moral Relativism is quite problematic because it rely on ambigous definition of "society" or "culture" to which moral judgement is relative. The first difficulty that Moral Relativism poses is that it can not resolve comflicts. For example if in a given "society" there is no consensus whether pre-marital sex is right or wrong, the issue of rightness or wrongness of pre-marital sex would be undetermined. Second, Moral Relativism has no moral standard and the notion of moral progress is difficult to understand, much less accept. Like what was mentioned in the reading material, slavery was once acceptable, now we do not find slavery acceptable but most of us would say that the idea that slavery is wrong is better thatn slavery is right. it is hard for Moral Relativist to accept that some of the things today that are considered morally wrong were once accepted by "society". Third, for moral rerlativists, moral reformers are always wrong. Moral paralysis exist because one can not tell another that what he/she is doing is morally wrong. People like Martin Luther King were considered wrong because they mess with the "society's" way of thinking. relativist may say that they are imposing their own "truths" to the whole "society". Fourth difficulty is that a thing can be right and wrong at the same time because to moral relativist the rightness and wrongness of a thing depends on one's "society" or "culture". It implies that if one thinks that abortion is right while the other thinks that abortion is wrong, abortion becomes right and wrong at the time. next difficulty that moral relativist has yet to solve is that it lacks moral standard and is incompatible with universalism. Moral relativist srgues that universalism can be applied to them if and only if the dilemma would be argued in a "society" or "culture" that has members who thinks the same way. For example a group of egoistic people would argue on the issue of same sex marriage. But if the issue would be argued by an altruist and an egoist it would not be resloved.

Moral Relativism has a lot more of straitening to do with their view because their view is somewhat self refuting

Camunay · Posts: 6 Join date: 2008-11-25 Age: 19

In moral relativism, there is a belief that different people have different moral truths; and those differences among them will not in anyway affect each other. If this will be the proper way to address the case, then evaluating the goodness and its counterpart would not affect the judgment of things as a whole. It will not make sense at all. That is what the definition suggests; moral relativism believes that the justification of moral judgments is not absolute; instead, it is relative to an individual or a particular group of people. Things will get muddled. Everything would be in a perfect disorder.

When a person does something wrong, for example he killed someone, he should be subjected for imprisonment. On the other hand, in moral relativism, there is a huge possibility that he would be freed from the crime he made. That is, if according to his culture, killing is acceptable. The problem starts when he lives in a different place, far different from his own and the new place believes the other way. What is in store for him to do? Do his usual thing and not mind other people’s culture? There develops the big problem with moral relativism. Right and wrong could substitute for each other. This will not help resolve conflicts and could hinder progress for a better moral understanding.

We can not live in a world with such a way of life. Even though we have these differences in our cultures and beliefs, we must at least have something common that will guide our actions towards each other, and that will enable us to decide whether an action is right or wrong, good or bad, for the society as a whole. Yes, I agree that every individual has his own beliefs but he does not live alone. People live with each other and there is a need for them to understand and adapt with their environment in order for them to survive and keep their lives away from such difficulties.

Palma · Posts: 2 Join date: 2008-11-28

In general, moral realism posits that (1) moral beliefs are cognitivist in a sense (2) moral facts do exist; (3) moral judgements are objective, or, there trully is a category of right and wrong; or moral and immoral; and (4) morality exists independent and/or beyond of our own cognition.

Philosophers and academicians say that moral realism should be given credit for in a way that it allows the ordinary rules of logic (modus ponens, etc.) to be applied straightforwardly to moral statements. It is also capable to resolve moral disagreements. For instance, if two moral beliefs contradict one another, realism says that they cannot both be right, and therefore everyone involved ought to be seeking out the right answer to resolve the disagreement.

On the other hand, there are also some criticisms regarding this 'paradigm'. Personally, what I find contradicting about it can be summed up in one phrase: it is ETHNOCENTRIC. The question of "right and wrong in the eyes of whom?" arises. We can claim that we have what we call a "UNIVERSAL CATEGORIZATION OF MORAL AND IMMORAL", but objectively pondering about it makes us say, that in itself can be questionable.

Can we scientifically say that we have a universal dileanation of right and wrong? If so, how are we going to explain the different cultures? Particularly those who may have not been in touch with other societies or groups? Murder, for example, is one of the gravest if the gravest violation of morality in the world. If we believe so, how are we going to explain the practices of the head-hunting tribes? Or other tribes and socities that practice cannibalism?

Aside from murder, there are cultures that practice "first degree marriages", which in many cultures like ours might call it incest. There are also societies that are more tolerant to homosexuality and homosexual marriages and there are those that condone it. Even sentencing death to convicts is viewed differently across countries and cutures.

If we woud really hold on to the claim that there is a black and white in morality and that it exists materially, we would be in constant conflict with the "every day realities" that exists in the different parts of the world. Even with the cognitive paradigm incorporated with the MR, it cannot sufficiently defend MR. If we will remember, cognitivism works around how we attach "meanings" to certain stimuli. And that alone supports the idea that we develop our consciousness based on the base and superstructure that we were born into.

QUILICOT · Posts: 5 Join date: 2008-11-24

The premise of ethical relativism is quite an attractive philosophy, especially to the beginning philosophers.. Ethical relativists believe that there are no moral absolutes, no moral right and wrongs. Instead, right and wrong are based on social norms.

Premise I: There are no moral absolutes, no moral right and wrongs. Instead, right and wrong are based on social norms.

According to Ruth Benedict, morality is culturally relative because values are shaped by culture. Since there are contrasting cultures, temperaments will differ in every culture. Example of these are modern belief of what is human rights or human nature in contrast to ancient practices like slavery, head hunting, cannibalism, practice of homosexuality, etc. Hence, majority of individuals are shaped to the fashions of their cultures, despite the very small number of deviant.

Premise II: Because there are NO moral absolutes, we therefore infer that there is NO absolute truth.

Because there are no absolute truths, it means that ethical relativism itself is not an absolute truth. Hence, the philosophy refutes itself. In Allen Wood’s article on Relativism, “relativism is true for the relativist, while the denial of relativism is true for the non relativist. So when a relativist asserts a proposition, he isn’t asserting that his proposition is absolutely true, but only true to him.” With this, a conflict arises and we are dumbfounded by what is truth and therefore, the universal sense of the word will cease to exist.

Ethical relativism is most difficult kind of relativism because: A. people never agree on ethical questions and B. there is no way of knowing any absolute truth about ethics. But then, with the existence of jus cogens (hard law) in public international law and certain universal truths, e.g. killing is wrong, we see that there is indeed laws that adhere to universal truths and therefore make the relativist’s position doubtful.

To save it from the threat of self refutation, we must hold that two more premises are true and absolute (exempting it from the rule that there are no absolute truths):
i. Ethical relativism itself is not an ethical belief.
ii. Ethical relativism does not share the features of ethical beliefs which make them only relatively true and not absolutely true.
According to Wood, “the relativist’s main reason for thinking that ethical beliefs cant be absolutely true is that they are endlessly controversial and ethical relativism shares this feature with ethical beliefs: people don’t agree about ethical relativism either. Moreover, ethical relativists WANT to treat ethical relativism as ethical beliefs (endorsing to tolerate people with diff. ethical beliefs from our own) making the 2 premises doubtful.”

In conclusion, we see that ethical relativism is inherently flawed. Since a relativist doesn’t absolutely believe that killing is wrong, then it doesn’t believe that killing is wrong which means that it cant be true that killing is wrong. It shows that relativists cant consistently have any ethical beliefs of their own.