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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

#191

Post by robotresearcher »

robertlagrant wrote: post #12
boffinAudio wrote: post #4

All culture is a lie which only persists in the re-telling. For example - there is no such thing as "Europe", unless enough people get together and agree that this thing that doesn't really exist, does exist and shall be named "Europe". "Europe" isn't a physical element, it isn't a naturally occurring substance - it is instead a human cultural construct which only persists for as long as the word continues to be used…

> All culture is a lie which only persists in the re-telling. This seems wrong. It's not a lie to give something a name. Why not say "All culture is a truth which only persists in the re-telling", given it is true we call Europe Europe?

This is a much better take, and elegantly expressed by that flip.

Going further: Europe is a dynamical system that is stable enough relative to human experience to have a name. The feedback loop that maintains the system that is Europe includes human behavior, which includes thoughts and speech.

Chemical elements are also dynamical systems, held together without humans in the loop. Everything we have a name for is like this. The truth and reality of helium and Europe is the same at this level of description.

A problem with this level of description is that it is kind of overpowered: if everything can be considered a dynamical system, then we aren't saying much about the differences between things. Analogously, it's true that evolution explains biology. But there's still a useful science of biology - we don't just point to living things and say 'evolution made that' and call it a day.

Hence while I'm pretty confident about the dynamical systems stance being fundamental, there's plenty of room to slice things up further with other concepts. They just need to bottom out successfully into dynamics. Evolution does this, for example. Can morality bottom out this way? Perhaps the theory of iterated games is a connection?

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#192

Post by tety »

31337Logic wrote: post #167

I admire Chomsky but I'm afraid this particular argument isn't very convincing. He merely asserts his position but does nothing (substantial) to defend his position. In what way is moral relativism a logical contradiction? "...even if you’re the most extreme cultural relativist, you are presupposing universal moral values. Those can be discovered.” That's not true at all. I don't presuppose universal moral values. An…

He is attacking extreme relativists who claim all morals are based on culture and culture alone

The fact that all human cultures have notions that can be described as morals, that are biological in nature and connected to physical sensations (disgust, anger, etc) presupposes a universal system.

That universal system can’t be completely siloed from affecting the morals themselves. By virtue of having the same biological underlining there should be some connecting thread between all human morals

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#193

Post by voxl »

mushufasa wrote: post #86

I think what Chomsky is saying here "rhymes" with his theory of Universal Grammar (UG). The UG belief is that there are a finite set of "primitives" of language, and all human languages have grammar syntax that are the permutations of those primitives. This is actually pretty clearly the case for programming languages -- primitives like addition/subtraction, methods, objects, etc. -- are chosen by language developers…

Even if you admit the hypothesis, that there is a finite set of _expressible_ moral statements. That does not impose a universality to a particular selection.

Just like there is not one-true-programming language, regardless of there being a finite number of them, there is not one-true-moral truth.

You could say "well just combine _all_ the programming languages!" and you will have almost everyone hating it (except perhaps you yourself), just like with moral codes.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#194

Post by momirlan »

gadflyinyoureye wrote: post #155
epups wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

in a commune there is no concept of "stealing" because there is no private property

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#195

Post by amanaplanacanal »

I’m not educated in philosophy, except my interest in natural philosophy, so I may be completely confused here.

My sense is that morals are based on values that were instilled in humans in the evolutionary milieu. Half a million years of living as bands of Hunter gatherers. But these values are not completely consistent. For example, we think that stealing from others is wrong, but we also think that not sharing is wrong. These are rules of thumb that evolved in Hunter gatherer societies.

So we have inconsistent values, and which values are most preeminent differ depending on what society we are in.

On top of this are sex roles and sexual morality that were developed because of the needs of agricultural societies, which were very different than what was needed to survive as Hunter gatherers.

So there are a wide variety of moralities that individuals can settle on as they try to make sense of all these contradictory impulses.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#196

Post by ch4s3 »

imjonse wrote: post #179
ch4s3 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bullshit. He unequivocally said that the refugees were lying for the benefit of the US. Chomsky is always quick to shout that anything short of the literal Holocaust isn’t genocide and doubly so if a leftist regime is doing it. He was then and always has since minimized crimes against humanity in one direction.

"Always minimized crimes against humanity in one direction". You haven't read much Chomsky have you? The one key point that comes across from his thinking is how much we (westerners) minimize our crimes even when they are comparable or larger then the enemy. His whole manufacturing consent book is about such examples. And that if you criticize someone it better be your own side, where you at least have a slight chanc…

I've read quite a bit of Chmosky's commentary, that how I knew to reference the old article from his own site.

It's perfectly valid to criticize US foreign policy and double so as a citizen. But Chomsky is jut full of shit and a liar. In Invasion Newspeak[1] he claims there was never any American Danchev with respect to Vietnam. Early coverage was actually critical[2], and after the Tet offensive it really went south. Chomsky just totally ignores this, it's inconvenient to his narrative. Moreover, you don't need to call refugees liars to criticize the US. You don't need to "well actually" what happened in Bosnia. Chomsky is a liar and piece of shit.

[1]https://chomsky.info/198912__/

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20091211102035/https://www.museu...

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#197

Post by jmoss20 »

speak_plainly wrote: post #173
31337Logic wrote: post #167

I admire Chomsky but I'm afraid this particular argument isn't very convincing. He merely asserts his position but does nothing (substantial) to defend his position. In what way is moral relativism a logical contradiction? "...even if you’re the most extreme cultural relativist, you are presupposing universal moral values. Those can be discovered.” That's not true at all. I don't presuppose universal moral values. An…

It's a logical contradiction in a simple way: If you assert that 'moral relativism is true' that itself would be a relative claim which would undermine the assertion as a universal position. Further, you end up in a position of equivalence of all claims and generate major contradictions. I will go out on a limb on the universal moral values claim and I think again it's pretty simple: The existence of even the most ba…

> The existence of even the most basic objective truth, such as 1+1=2

You might be surprised that even this is a relatively (sorry) controversial view. Many (most?) practicing mathematicians do not hold it.

Even if it were, then you get the is-ought gap -- the existence of objective / analytic / verifiable / what have you facts doesn't obviously imply anything about moral "facts".

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#198

Post by lamontcg »

speak_plainly wrote: post #173
31337Logic wrote: post #167

I admire Chomsky but I'm afraid this particular argument isn't very convincing. He merely asserts his position but does nothing (substantial) to defend his position. In what way is moral relativism a logical contradiction? "...even if you’re the most extreme cultural relativist, you are presupposing universal moral values. Those can be discovered.” That's not true at all. I don't presuppose universal moral values. An…

It's a logical contradiction in a simple way: If you assert that 'moral relativism is true' that itself would be a relative claim which would undermine the assertion as a universal position. Further, you end up in a position of equivalence of all claims and generate major contradictions. I will go out on a limb on the universal moral values claim and I think again it's pretty simple: The existence of even the most ba…

> It's not clear what universal moral values looks like, like Epicurean pleasure/pain or maybe it stems from thermodynamics, or even just mathematics itself, but it is possible that it could be discovered.

I strongly suspect they come from game theory, although they look more like statistical mechanics in that they govern the bulk behavior of societies and individuals will have widely varying personal moralities (serial killers) just like atoms have widely varying individual velocities. There will also be some society-to-society variation. Plus the game theoretical concerns have probably changed over time (Genghis Khan's army raping and murdering 11% of the world population probably represents an early peak in the selfish strategies of following a powerful leader and subjugating others). And those forces will have shaped our biological evolution and neural wiring as well.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#199

Post by nico »

fluoridation wrote: post #186
speak_plainly wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a logical contradiction in a simple way: If you assert that 'moral relativism is true' that itself would be a relative claim which would undermine the assertion as a universal position. Further, you end up in a position of equivalence of all claims and generate major contradictions. I will go out on a limb on the universal moral values claim and I think again it's pretty simple: The existence of even the most ba…

>If you assert that 'moral relativism is true' that itself would be a relative claim Would it? If we define "moral absolutism" as "the position that there exist moral statements that are true independently of any observers" then we could define the position of "moral relativism" as its logical negation: "there don't exist moral statements that are true independently of any observers". Is that sentence itself a moral…

> he only truths I can imagine that could meet those requirements would have to be really abstract, like 1+1=2

And that is not even universally or absolutely true, 1+1=2 is a set of symbols that need to be interpreted by someone for them to have meaning, it’s a concept made up by people

Hence, 1+1=2 is just as relative as anything else we express through language

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#200

Post by zilchnotta »

"Moral" is a problematic word with religious baggage. If you exclude the words "right", "wrong", and "ethical" from the debate, you make things easier as well.

If you simply use the word "strategy" instead, most heated arguments vanish. Yes, there are foundational social strategies that exist in every successful human culture. It's pretty easy to account for why that is the case, and no reason to oppose the idea that such commonalities exist. And looking at the other side of the argument, "strategic relativism" isn't that inflammatory either, of course you'll find unique and situationally inspired strategies too.

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