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Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

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Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#151
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_genocide_of_Ukr... Let's also remember a few millions of Ukrainians were starved to death not 100 years ago by Russians. Ukraine is and was the most fertile soil in Europe. Russians sent soldiers to steal food and to ban people from leaving. This is what happens when Russia invades you. People in the west have no comparison.

Some interesting responses here but imo these sound like "worse" but not "far far far worse" conditions to me. A war where lots of people are being killed exploded maimed raped generationally ruined or traumatized - is really horrible either way. It sounds like Russia has somewhat worse intentional practices than us but I don't see what the us did as okay in any sense.

Russians on their TV openly argue for killing "every Ukrainian".

The fact we are even arguing about this is the best evidence that morality is relative...

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the Ukraine stuff is that it falls easily into the same crap position as Varoufakis and others on the left which is basically a) some kind of "realism" about what Ukraine should do [basically surrender] and b) gives credence to much of the crap that Lavrov has put out on the public stage about this war being somehow about American imperialism. Well, duh, everything is about imperialism, but what's mi…

Why is Russia's imperialism far far far worse? What about the us invasion of Iraq is "better" than the Russia invasion of Ukraine?

Ok, let's put it another way so we don't play whataboutisms, which this is what this is veering into:

Would you rather your country and governance be controlled and dominated by Russia or by the EU & the west?

I think most people here, if they're being honest, know that despite all its issues, political and economic life in the Baltic states, Poland, Czech Republic, etc. is better in most respects than life in Belarus or large parts of Russia, or the Russian dominated states that surround it. We can debate why that is the case, but I think that's basically fact. (Yes, I hear the streets of Minsk are very clean and it's a "well ordered" society, but this is the kind of thing we hear about all sorts of authoritarian countries and it doesn't make up for lack of basic democracy and individual freedoms, etc.)

In other words: We are not talking in this concrete instance about whether "the invasion of Iraq is better/worse than Russian invasion of Ukraine", but whether Russian dominance and control of Ukraine is better or worse for Ukrainians than western.

I think on the whole the Ukrainian people have voiced their position on this.

Now, whether life will be better for Ukrainians in a post-Russian-control world, I can't say, because it seems the Putin/Lavrov regime is doing its best to make that impossible by destroying as much of Ukraine's productive capacity and future success as it can. Russian strategy seems to have transitioned -- about last fall -- from "occupy as much as we can and destroy the Zelensky regime and take over" to "retreat to a defensive line and f*ck up as much of the rest of Ukraine as we can, salting the earth to make it clear what leaving Russian domination looks like"

Clearly the US invasion of Iraq is a historic war crime. It should not have happened, and I agree with others that the perpetrators should be held to account. But this isn't a math equation where we balance the one action with the other. We are talking about the physical real lives of Ukrainians, and their ability to control their own country and trade with who they want, and manage their own affairs -- not Iraq.

In other words, it's not US imperialism in the abstract vs Russian imperialism in the abstract, it's in this instance for this real world situation the case that western/EU/US alignment is better in the long run for Ukraine than Putin's.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#154
post #2

I'm not sure I understand the point being made. Chomsky seems to be saying that since we learn the prevalent morality of our culture through sparse data there must be an underlying universal morality. But how does that allow for the fact that different cultures do have different moral codes and that those do change over time?

Regardless of whether there exists any underlying universal morality, why would shifts along cultural and/or time axises preclude it?

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#155
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not stealing, but as I said, stealing from one's friends. Most cultures frown on that.

If you had to qualify it with "most", then it isn't universal. Moreover, I don't think morality is what applies only to your friends.

Well the qualifier could be the writer’s way of stating that he or she lacks knowledge of every society. After a brief search I can find no society that approved of stealing from peers.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky is one of the most internationally-known intellectuals. Most people in my country (Argentina) know him for that, rather than his work in linguistics. ... So I think it's very unfair to say he's speaking "outside of his niche" here.

I don't believe that. I have traveled the world and very few people I know know about Chomsky. I know a lot about Chomsky as someone who has studied parsers and natural languages a lot and I usually ask people I talk with if they know Chomsky so I can explain something I do. People in Argentina knows Chomsky because he has always been Communist and an apologist of marxist dictatorships and regimes while a harsh criti…

Chomsky is not a communist, he's a syndicalist. His views are more nuanced than you give him credit for.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#157
post #9

Moral relativism is the most absurd form of moral realism, which is itself an absurd position. I'd be more interested in an explanation for why so many otherwise intelligent people, who are more than capable of reasoning for themselves and holding well-defended, sensible positions, find themselves attracted to moral realism, a truly mystical belief that offends science, reason, and grade school grammar.

Can you please not post in the denunciatory style, but rather make your substantive points more informatively?

I understand the temptation to put down a view and/or people that you think are wrong, but a comment like this doesn't help the rest of us understand anything; it's just a sequence of boos.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#158
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hunger is subjective. Starvation isn't.

Hunger is pretty objective if your body isn't malfunctioning (and it never is logically, "malfunctioning" body isn't yours). If your body works correctly, you are not free to choose whether to consider yourself hungry, and this is what I understand as objectivity.

What I consider hunger someone else can consider the norm or vice versa. If you define something that depends on the person as objective - then subjective loses meaning.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#159
post #7

I start to dislike Chomsky more and more. His work in linguistic is over my head, maybe it's true, I can't tell. But whenever I hear him speak outside his niche his points are stupid (like this one) or harmful (like his Ukrainian takes). Everybody sees faces in rocks because we have brains fine-tuned for seeing faces. Does it prove that there's something universal in looking like a face or even worse - being a face?…

Since people keep saying he's a genocide denier, I'll drop this link here https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol14/iss1/8/ which explains that it's more a matter of semantics. He hasn't denied mass murders have taken place. He would probably also object to using either "terrorist" or "freedom fighter" since using these words emotively serves to obscure what's really going on.

He argued against stopping it. I don't care how he calls it.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#160
post #51
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which he *never* claimed didn't happen. You are another of those quickly educated on PragerU and similar Youtube channels but who never go to original sources?

No he definitely made the claim. He was quoted saying “tales of holocaust in Cambodia were so much propaganda.” He went on to say that refugees were making up the stories to please the west. It’s in the 1977 article on his own website. Chomsky apologists never seem to be able to admit that he carried water for the worst regimes of the 20th century. To be clear there are nearly 24,000 confirmed mass graves accounting…

Due to little info coming out of Cambodia at the time, from what I read, Chomsky said he underestimated the immensity of the genocide, not that he denied it. Later he acknowledged it, you make it sound he's some sort of Holocaust denier. Funnily Chomsky gets a lot more flack for incorrectly assessing the gravity of the Khmer Rouge killings in the late 70s while the US foreign policy which was intstumental in keeping Pol Pot in power at certain points where it was convenient geostrategically are considered par for the course.
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