Moral Realitivity

[Lancaster]

I think it was Nietzsche who first proposed the idea that morals are relative, or at least he was very influential on the subject. My basic understanding of the idea is that nothing is inherently wrong. It is impossible to call something "good" or "bad," because nothing is good or bad 100% of the time. When I mentioned this to a teacher, who was attempting to claim that lying is "bad," I offered this hypothetical situation:

 

Suppose that there is a man outside of this classroom with a gun. He wants to kill you. I am standing outside the door. He asks me if my you are in the room. If I say yes, he will enter the room and kill you. If I try to negotiate, he will kill me, enter the room, and kill you. If I lie, he will move on to the next room.

 

Of course, this teacher, in much the same way that Machiavelli's contemporaries could not admit that he was correct for fear of appearing immoral, he denied this and went on to insult my character.

 

Now, what are your opinions on moral relativity? Is Nietzsche correct when he says nothing is inherently good or evil? I think so.

[Turtle]

 

Now, what are your opinions on moral relativity? Is Nietzsche correct when he says nothing is inherently good or evil? I think so.

 

Nietzche is relatively correct, as all is relatively fair in love and debate >>> http://hypography.com/forums/philosophy-humanities/9235-alls-relatively-fair-love-debate.html

:cup:

[Buffy]

Read "Billy Budd"....

 

Fathoms down, :hihi:

Buffy

[rocket art]

good and evil is a struggle within each individual [Culturism, III.viii).

[Lancaster]

good and evil is a struggle within each individual [Culturism, III.viii).

 

I'm talking about actions here. Do you mean its up to the individual to decide what's good or evil? What I'm trying to say is that nothing can be labeled "good" or "evil."

[Turtle]

Read "Billy Budd"....

 

Fathoms down, :hihi:

Buffy

 

Better yet, read Balzac's Seraphita, from which it is posited that Melville drew ideas for Billy Budd.

 

Melville's "Seraphita"

[TheBigDog]

There is most certainly both good and evil. It is the basis of civilized society to understand the difference and promote good over evil.

 

Looking at your example, there is a man outside the door with a gun who is demanding answers, and if you answer honestly he will kill you or another person in the room. Preserving yourself against this evil requires you to lie to save yourself or the other person in the room or both. This lie is justified, as it protects you from death. There is nothing morally shaky about this example. This however does not minimize the virtuous and moral nature of honesty in most every part of daily existence.

 

Bill

[InfiniteNow]

What about the ethical dilemma of robbing a pharmacy to save a child? It truly is relative.

[CraigD]

Suppose that there is a man outside of this classroom with a gun. He wants to kill you. I am standing outside the door. He asks me if my you are in the room. If I say yes, he will enter the room and kill you. If I try to negotiate, he will kill me, enter the room, and kill you. If I lie, he will move on to the next room.

Looking at your example, there is a man outside the door with a gun who is demanding answers, and if you answer honestly he will kill you or another person in the room. Preserving yourself against this evil requires you to lie to save yourself or the other person in the room or both. This lie is justified, as it protects you from death. There is nothing morally shaky about this example.

I agree with Bill.

 

Many moral decisions involve choosing the lesser of 2 evils. In many cases, such as Lancaster’s example, our culture provides us with a clear “hierarchy of evils”. While lying is bad, allowing someone to be killed is worse, so the moral choice is clear.

Now, what are your opinions on moral relativity? Is Nietzsche correct when he says nothing is inherently good or evil? I think so.

I think that the phrase “moral relativity” doesn’t usually refer to a “moral hierarchy” such as described above, but to the idea that different cultures, historical periods, and even individuals have different moralities.

 

For example, in 1st Century BC France (Gaul), it was considered moral to kidnap a person from a neighboring village, and offer him the option of slavery or death. Burning alive was considered a moral form of execution of such prisoners. Two thousand years later, such behavior would be considered a crime.

 

To a moral relativist, the meaning of right and wrong has changed over those two thousand years. To a moral absolutists, either the ancient Gauls were wrong, and modern day people right, or the ancient Gauls right, and modern people wrong.

[TheBigDog]

What about the ethical dilemma of robbing a pharmacy to save a child? It truly is relative.

What alternatives to theft were exhausted before that option was taken?

[InfiniteNow]

What alternatives to theft were exhausted before that option was taken?

 

From what I remember when I read it for the first time... all of them. ;)

 

 

So, Craig's answer brings up a question. For purposes of this thread, what IS moral relativity? With the definition he gave, I'm a moral absolutist, but never knew that about myself.

[Kriminal99]

Suppose that there is a man outside of this classroom with a gun. He wants to kill you. I am standing outside the door. He asks me if my you are in the room. If I say yes, he will enter the room and kill you. If I try to negotiate, he will kill me, enter the room, and kill you. If I lie, he will move on to the next room.

 

Haha I used this same example to tell my dad why lying wasn't universally wrong when I was a kid- Except the people knocking were Nazi's and we had jewish ancestors.

 

However since then my views have changed somewhat. Lying is wrong in the sense that it keeps people from using their limited resources in able to make themselves happy and achieve their goals. So on one hand you might say it is better to look the person in the eye and say "Yes, but if you attempt to harm me or him I will fight you, perhaps you will die, and the police will catch you even if you kill both of us". - Perhaps even going on to describe why it is wrong to kill other people.

 

On the other hand since he is trying to kill your professor lying is simply a fighting tactic designed to buy you time until you are in a better position to fight back.

 

Here the idea is that morality goes out the window once actual fighting has occured, since the purpose of morality is be fair to everyone so fighting does not occur. Therefore deception is ok when used as a self defense against physical violence.

 

However the problem with this is it opens the floodgates to using this as a defense of lying all the time. "Well if I didn't lie I would have gotten in trouble, and I think I should not get in trouble because I do not believe I did anything wrong" Analogously the alternative to lying here is that you should look the person in the eye, and tell them why you think you did not do anything wrong.

 

So if everyone was reasonable, then lying would always be wrong. If they initiate fighting with you, where fighting is any selfish attempt to use force to overcome you, then lying is simply a defense mechanism....

 

At the moment I cannot think of/ remember a way to draw a clear line between the two.

[Sacri Sankt]

well, given that people have such limited resources with which to understand the world, lying is unlikely to be what keeps them from being happy. and if it DOES help _you_ become happier, surely its justified?

[CraigD]

What about the ethical dilemma of robbing a pharmacy to save a child? It truly is relative.

What alternatives to theft were exhausted before that option was taken?

As I’ve encountered this – “the Jean Valjean scenario” (From Hugo’s famous 19th century novel, “Les Misérables”, though Hugo’s character steals bread, not drugs, and is sentence to 19 years of hard labor for it) – it’s assumed that the prospective thief has exhausted all honorable options, and is reduced to one of two options: steal, or allow the child to die.

 

This example was, I think, more poignant in the periods and cultures that Hugo and other’s social commentaries address, where oppressive social conditions in the “civilized” world were more common and extreme. Such “moral thought experiments” were not, I think, intended as serious questions. The correct answer, “steal rather than let a child die”, was a given to Hugo and his sympathetic audience. Rather, these commentary were intended as criticism of the wealthy ruling class, who, by the legal policies they instituted, may be assumed to have answered the question “let the child die, rather than defy one's rulers”.

 

Due in part to the influence of people like Hugo, French and other “first world” societies have largely eliminated the conditions of extreme injustice he protested. That we in the 21st century asks for clarification of the example, rather than intuitively knowing its context, is evidence of the success of these reforms.

[Kriminal99]

well, given that people have such limited resources with which to understand the world, lying is unlikely to be what keeps them from being happy. and if it DOES help _you_ become happier, surely its justified?

 

Market Failure: Economics example

 

A simple example:

 

You live in a poor family and you want to save your sister from dying from a hideous disease. Your mom, who is tending to your sister, sends you out with 5 gold pieces (all the money your family has) in order to buy some towels, hot soup some simple medicine etc. Along the way you meet someone who claims to have magic beans that he will sell you for 5 gold that can cure your sister. You decide that curing her altogether is better than purchasing things which might help, so you buy the beans. Of course the man was lying.

 

Now you have used your limited resources inefficiently, because you were ill informed about what you were buying. This is a common idea in economics, but in more general form it applies to everything.

 

General dating example

 

For instance a girl is attracted to you and you are attracted to her. Some guy that likes her tells her that you have herpes, and that you are out of shape, and that you are a sociopath or have poor social skills etc. Now the girl has a limited pool from which to choose a mate, and with less competition the guy that gets her does not have to be as intelligent, mature, unselfish etc. Instead of giving the girl what she wants, he can just lie to make her think what she wants doesn't exist and she has to choose him.

 

Illusion that a lie makes someone happy example

 

Let's say that you are a girl that is a bit overweight. You have a drop dead gorgeous model looking girlfriend that you hang out with. You go out together and try to pick up guys. The guys always flirt with your friend and ignore you, or perhaps talk to you but about how they like your friend, etc. You pretend like it is just random which one of you the guys like at first, saying something like "its what is on the inside that counts". But it keeps happening over and over. This makes you more and more angry that your lie is constantly being disproven. You want the guys to like you too, and you think they should etc. Then one day someone just tells you that you are fat. And at first you fly off the handle, and they just have an attitude like "no hard feelings, I just like girls that stay in shape".

 

So then the girl starts going to the gym and soon looks pretty good herself. Then the guys flirt with her too! Now she is happy and nothing ever happens to deviate from her view of things, what was previously her lie, because what she believes is true.

 

So which is better? Believing that being fat doesn't matter, and getting mad every time someone doesn't flirt with you so you don't feel bad about your weight? Or getting in shape and then having more people be attracted to you?

[Agememnon]

Many moral decisions involve choosing the lesser of 2 evils.

 

I agree whole-heartedly with this idea. "Moral Relativity", I think, is more of a long-term observation or it differs between separate cultures. I believe that on the individual basis that there ARE morals that are seen as good or bad. For instance, the big one, killing. Killing is not something people consider "moral" or "good". It is done, however, as a lesser of two evils. If someone is threatening your life, other's lives, or will cause a major detrimental effect on you, be it economic, emotional, social, ect., then killing could be seen as "justified" in the mind of the one committing the act, but still seen as bad.

 

One thing that I feel people get mixed up on when discussing the the ideas of moral relativity is that many people look at "bad" things as being "good" under the roof of moral relativity. There is no bad and there is no good when dealing with this subject. It is personal preference. "Good" and "bad" are now replaced with "detrimental" and "beneficial".

 

Another thing, there are (accepted) morals placed in and agreed upon within cultures for a reason. If you justify lying, for instance, by saying that there are no "good" or "bad" things so this is not "bad" (lying is accepted as a bad thing) then you are also accepting that others can rationalize their lies in the same fashion. This creates trust problems, conscience or unconscience. Not only that, it is socially acceptable to be socially moral, so if others feel that you do not have "good" or "bad" boundaries, you will be classified under "not trustworthy". "What is preventing him from hurting/killing/raping me?" and "Will they not appreciate the 'good' things that I do for them? (this is not necessarily exactly what they are going to thing because everything is situational so the severity of distrust would depend upon your relationship with the person.

[rocket art]

I'm talking about actions here. Do you mean its up to the individual to decide what's good or evil? What I'm trying to say is that nothing can be labeled "good" or "evil."

 

As I mentioned before the perception of such good and evil is within every individual, where the root of dilemma may lurk within, rather than outside the individual. Therefore one may not be 'good' in acting the politics of making himself smell 'good' at the expense of labeling the other fellow outside of him as 'evil', just as Bush & Co. are trying to portray Iraq or Iran, as example, for imperialism and oil greed.

 

I believe that a Balance perspective may be the key, rather than suppression at the pretext of Order (Culturism, VII, v). It seems the moral perspective of society is manipulated for an agenda, in this case of 'mercantile morality', in which its credibility may be in question considering the situation wherein other aspects that may pose as threat to the system are supressed in the guise of "moral order" (passion of human phenomenon vs. order of economic machinery).

 

I remember a Hindu saying that stated something like: "There is a Lie that tell of nothing but truth."

 

I may add up there are many sides in every issue and no side can claim monopoly of truth. The side that claims monopoly of truth will speak a 'Lie that tell of nothing but truth.'