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Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

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Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#131

Post by javert »

icebraining wrote: post #100
javert wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other meaning could there possibly be for words like "bad" and "good"?

Really? Self-sacrifice and penance are almost the basis of one the most popular moral theories in the world. Just go ask the closest Christian you might have.

> Self-sacrifice and penance are almost the basis of one the most popular moral theories in the world

You can't make those objective, though. That is my point. (It's not like I haven't actually heard of Christian morality before.)

Ultimately, the only thing that actually matters for any living organism is pleasure. Thus, only pleasure, ultimately, can be good or bad for an organism.

I mean "pleasure" in the broadest possible sense, but it's always either a physical sensation or an emotion.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#132

Post by humanrebar »

jarin wrote: post #123
humanrebar wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I argue that from a practical perspective, our best bet is moral consensus. I took that as the point of the piece -- that there is no moral consensus. That even unalienable truths like, "All men are created equal" are being labelled as opinions and lumped in the same category as one's favorite color or sports team.

I'd argue that "all men are created equal" is NOT an absolute moral truth, which is what I am sure you meant (unalienable means unable to be taken away). It's something I feel very strongly to be true, but it's something we have collectively agreed upon as a society. There are plenty of people who consider themselves to be moral people who don't feel that way.

> unalienable means unable to be taken away

Unalienable rights can be abused, but not taken away. If someone is murdered by a dictator for his opinions, that is wrong regardless of the legality of the action, the power imbalance in play, or the "personal morality" of the dictator. That is, the human right to life was violated.

> I'd argue that "all men are created equal" is NOT an absolute moral truth... There are plenty of people who consider themselves to be moral people who don't feel that way.

The 'absolute' isn't about unanimity. It's about truth regardless of disagreement. That's the way truth works. Some people think humans never visited the Moon. And they're wrong. As were the Boston bombers, as was Ariel Castro, as was Bernie Madoff.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#133

Post by evincarofautumn »

jackson1372 wrote: post #71
evincarofautumn wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that philosophers rarely make use of rigorous logic even though they stand to benefit from it immensely.

Contemporary academic philosophy is full of rigorous logic. Either you're ignorant of what actual academic philosophers do, or you can't recognize rigorous logic when you see it.

Sure, many academic philosophers produce good work, but as many popular articles of this nature are riddled with logical holes and give a poor impression of what philosophy is.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#134

Post by huxley »

marbletiles wrote: post #122
huxley wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be a confusion between a prescriptive and a descriptive stance of moral relativism. You can be a moral relativist and take a pragmatic position that traditions or societal consensus are worth having without disappearing in a puff of logic.

> You can be a moral relativist and take a pragmatic position that traditions or societal consensus are worth having without disappearing in a puff of logic. Not really, because if you believe the relativism you must believe that moral consensus can't be reached. What you are saying is very close to "You can be a climate change denier and take the pragmatic position that we need to change our behaviour to stop the ea…

I think you're talking about a very naive normative interpretation of moral relativism, the fundamental argument, as I understand it, is actually that societies do reach some form of moral consensus, but that this consensus has cultural and historical roots (and possible other contingent factors), it will vary and change over nations and time.

I won't throw a segfault if I take a descriptive moral relativistic position and simultaneously think that honour killings are wrong.

I am logical and well-read enough to realize that most of our Western courts have allowed honour killings but called them "crimes of passion"[1] and until not that long ago that could be a complete defence against a charge of murder. It is still an acceptable partial defence in some courts and some judges apparently advocate its return in others [2].

So by recognizing the moral relativism inherent in that situation, am I normatively obligated to think honour killings are A-OK? I don't think so, I am however apparently outside the moral consensus on that subject, so what do I know.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_of_passion

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9020632...

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#135

Post by Crito »

jackson1372 wrote: post #107
Crito wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moral relativism is not incompatible with not tolerating practices which you personally disagree with. You may simultaneously believe that morality is relative, and not have any particular regard for other systems of morality. You may enforce your system of morality on others simply because you can and because your morality, which you recognize as relative, permits such enforcement. > "Be it so. This burning of widow…

Moral relativism is incompatible with judgements that other's moral judgements are wrong. You can judge someone else's views as wrong while still tolerating them. One other things: > "You don't need to believe that your system is "correct" in some sort of universal way. You merely need to believe that your system will be best for your personal interests." Relativism is not egoism.

> "Moral relativism is incompatible with judgements that other's moral judgements are wrong."

Right or wrong have absolutely nothing to do with it. It can't, because without a universal morality any notion of universal "right" or "wrong" evaporates. This is about refusing to tolerate another culture not because "it is wrong" but rather because it is beneficial to you to do so.

Your problem here is that you seem to be assuming some sort of universal "respect the right of others to coexist" or "live and let live" morality, where you should not stamp out other cultures unless you have determined that they are "wrong". This sort of universal tolerance for other systems of morality does not exist. It really simply doesn't; history would be far less bloody if it did.

People that do not believe in universal morality are still very capable of acting only in their own best interests, at the expense of others. Egoism is not incompatible with moral relativism.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#136

Post by Crito »

emsy wrote: post #114
Crito wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have just successfully banished the word by stripping it of any legitimate usage. Since it was quite a useful word that will undoubtedly be missed, why not being it back with a simple redefinition. We could redefine it as "close enough to true that only a philosopher would object" . Then we could continue to use the word, despite the obnoxious objections of philosophers. Epistemology may be all very neat and inte…

Of course I'm not nitpicking on every usage of the word, but I think it's everyone should at some point think about what knowing and reality actually is. It doesn't matter most of the time, but there are moments in history when someone wants to tell you that 2+2=5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_%2B_2_%3D_5

> "Of course I'm not nitpicking on every usage of the word"

It is great that you aren't. The issue is that the author of the article was nitpicking a non-controversial use of the word. His son's responses to him suggest to me that his son was sick of his philosophical shit and just wanted to deal with the world pragmatically. Most people have little patience for epistemology, and I find it hard to blame them.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#137

Post by marbletiles »

huxley wrote: post #134
marbletiles wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can be a moral relativist and take a pragmatic position that traditions or societal consensus are worth having without disappearing in a puff of logic. Not really, because if you believe the relativism you must believe that moral consensus can't be reached. What you are saying is very close to "You can be a climate change denier and take the pragmatic position that we need to change our behaviour to stop the ea…

I think you're talking about a very naive normative interpretation of moral relativism, the fundamental argument, as I understand it, is actually that societies do reach some form of moral consensus, but that this consensus has cultural and historical roots (and possible other contingent factors), it will vary and change over nations and time. I won't throw a segfault if I take a descriptive moral relativistic positi…

I think you're talking about the anthropological meaning of moral relativism (and we probably agree there). But the rest of us are talking about the philosophical sense. There's a very good overview of that here: http://www.iep.utm.edu/moral-re/

Among other things, one of the potential consequences of metaethical moral relativism is that you and I can't actually say anything meaningful to one another about honour killings beyond "I feel they are bad" or "I feel they are good".

Or to put this a slightly different way: your culture (apparently) thinks honour killings are OK. You disagree. On what grounds? If a moral statement is true relative only to the consensus belief of a culture, and your culture says honour killings are right, then you must necessarily be wrong to disagree. (See 4f in the link for more on that).

If you reject that, as it sounds like you possibly do, then you reject philosophical moral relativism. You can keep the anthropological one, though.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#138

Post by jackson1372 »

icebraining wrote: post #110
jackson1372 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moral relativism is incompatible with judgements that other's moral judgements are wrong. You can judge someone else's views as wrong while still tolerating them. One other things: > "You don't need to believe that your system is "correct" in some sort of universal way. You merely need to believe that your system will be best for your personal interests." Relativism is not egoism.

Moral relativism is incompatible with judgements that other's moral judgements are wrong. How so, as long as you accept that those meta-judgements are still subjective?

Under moral relativism, you can accept that other people have different moral tastes, just as you can accept that other people have different tastes for food. But you cannot accept that such tastes are subject to normative assessment, making them 'right' or 'wrong' in any meaningful way.

So a moral relativist can say something like "I dislike your approval of female genital mutilation", but this is not a claim about the rightness or wrongness of the approval of female genital mutilation. It is instead a claim about their own sentiments. This is just like saying "Well I don't like sushi" in response to a friend saying that they like sushi. You'r not saying that them liking sushi is wrong.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#139

Post by proksoup »

arxpoetica wrote: post #77
grumpy-buffalo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please explain why you think this guy's questions are stupid? They seemed like good questions to me. His son's school's definitions of "fact" and "opinion" seem to not be mutually exclusive, which seems to contradict the implicit assumptions in the exercises assigned to the students.

I rather liked the article.

I found myself nodding in agreement with the school and it's separation of values/morality/opinion from facts/truth.

It's all just words, lines we use to divide, but they seem to be drawing nice solid lines --- whilst the parental unit that wrote the article seems remarkably confused about the factualness of his own beliefs.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#140

Post by proksoup »

grumpy-buffalo wrote: post #15
proksoup wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I meant was, his son's blank stare is exactly my reaction as a 30 year old adult --- I can't comprehend how this guy doesn't comprehend how stupid his questions are.

Could you please explain why you think this guy's questions are stupid? They seemed like good questions to me. His son's school's definitions of "fact" and "opinion" seem to not be mutually exclusive, which seems to contradict the implicit assumptions in the exercises assigned to the students.

Oh, I took the school's definition as mutually exclusive --- and I assumed the son did as well.

I didn't see how it was not --- and so the line of questioning seemed to be willfully ignorant of that mutual exclusivity.

We have "not ripe" and "ripe" apples. Is this apple "ripe"? But see this part of it here isn't ripe! So it's both ripe and non ripe --- ergo, you were taught wrong to distinguish between ripe and not ripe!

blank stare == (are you really that stupid dad?)

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