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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

#221

Post by tivert »

dotsam wrote: post #131
epups wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a big difference between morality and science though. The physical reality around us does not depend on our opinion of it, and we can design experiments to test it. You cannot "prove wrong" a set of moral rules without agreeing to a set of subjective principles first.

Can we agree that solving problems = good? If you grant that, the rest should follow.

> Can we agree that solving problems = good? If you grant that, the rest should follow.

What do you mean by "problems"? And whose problems? My solution might be the source of your problem, and why should I care if it is?

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#222

Post by codexb »

zilchnotta wrote: post #200

"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…

This, exactly. I think most people don't even realize why they feel something is right or wrong or what it even means for something to be "moral"

At our core, everything we feel is based off self-preservation -- for ourselves, offspring, family, mates. Instinctually, the concept of what is "morally right" comes down to "what strategy will ensure my self-preservation best".

Most humans are smart enough to realize that a strategy made up of a lot of win/lose confrontations is unlikely to end well in the long run. Ergo, morality is simply the current best strategy for individual self-preservation given the current state of human knowledge.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#223

Post by fluoridation »

nico wrote: post #212
fluoridation wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"1+1=2" as a string of symbols is open to interpretation, however, both you and I understand the idea that that string of symbols is conveying, and that idea is true objectively.

It’s just an agreement that has been pretty much forced on anyone that has a basic school education I can choose to disagree and doesn’t matter what you do I can assign a different meaning to it No ideas are objective truth, and objective truth is something that can’t even be tested

>I can assign a different meaning to it

I don't even understand what that means. Ideas don't have meaning, they are meaning. What does it mean to assign a different meaning to the idea represented as "1+1=2"?

>No ideas are objective truth

No. Mathematical truths are objectively true. Even if addition itself is false in the universe, in the sense that in some cases you can put one real thing next to another and get other than two real things next to each other as a result, that 1+1=2 is true objectively. It would just mean that the universe is based on an axiomatic system that is more lax than our own.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#224

Post by 0xDEF »

za3faran wrote: post #145
snowpid wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.) Iraq was never annexed by USA. 2.) American govertment never claimed there is no Iraqi culture. 3.) There was no large kidnapping of Iraqi kids. 4.) There are no mass rapes made by the American military. 5.) Iraqis were never forced to forget Arab and learn only English. 6.) Hussein used poison gas on Kurdish people and used Zyklon B filled rockets (yes, same gas like in Ausschwitz) to attack Israel. Hussein occu…

Lots of these are paper arguments. Yeah so Iraq was not "annexed", but the west installed a puppet government to do what they want, and they attempted to brainwash the population with western values. They did the same in Afghanistan, but fortunately they failed miserably and left in a humiliated manner. Maybe the kidnapping wasn't as bad as ukraine, but the hundreds of thousands killed and millions displaced and sick…

>Iraq was not "annexed", but the west installed a puppet government to do what they want, and they attempted to brainwash the population with western values.

This is a lie. There was a legitimate democratic election in Iraq in January 2005 with 58% voter turnout. Because of the Shia majority of Iraq they voted into power a pro-Iranian Shia-dominated government which is the very opposite of a US "puppet government".

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#225

Post by diogenes4 »

riversflow wrote: post #216
scoofy wrote: post #201

I think that the thing that most people don't realize about ethics is the meta-ethical problem that axioms are by definition arbitrary. When we really think about the fact that all of our ethical theories are based on arbitrary axioms, suddenly the teeth to ethics have a deep, serious problem. The only argument we have at that point is that the axioms "feel" correct, and I have no problem with this basis, I consider…

> axioms are by definition arbitrary. That is very reductive view of what constitutes most axioms. Merriam-Websters has:[1] >2: an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth Etymonline has:[2] >"statement of self-evident truth," late 15c., from French axiome, from Latin axioma, from Greek axioma "authority," literally "that which is thought worthy or fit,"... So, no, not arbitrary at all. Which particular…

> So, no, not arbitrary at all.

Nothing you say conflicts with being arbitrary. Axioms are arbitrarily self-evident—they are "arbitrary" because they are the result of some person's judgement, not somehow produced with some other processes, and they are self-evident because they provide the basis for reasoning and cannot be contradicted within reasoning parameterized by the axioms.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#226

Post by fluoridation »

naasking wrote: post #218
fluoridation wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Second, we do just fine testing mathematical laws by checking for consistency without any tests of the sort you're describing. So is there some axiomatic system that can elucidate moral truths, such as the wrongness of stealing, from first principles? >A Proof of the Objectivity of Morals - Bambrough (1969) Quickly skimmed through it, but: awful, just awful. I challenge Bambrough to prove to me that I have two hands…

> So is there some axiomatic system that can elucidate moral truths, such as the wrongness of stealing, from first principles? Read Kant. > Quickly skimmed through it, but: awful, just awful. I challenge Bambrough to prove to me that I have two hands. Clearly you missed the entire thrust of the argument, and Moore's before it.

>Read Kant.

Nah. And either way following such a reasoning would just tell you whether a statement meets a condition defined by an arbitrarily chosen axiomatic system. Whether someone chooses to call that moral or not is still subjective. Look, I can do it right now:

bool is_moral(string s){ return false; }

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#227

Post by lossolo »

riversflow wrote: post #216
scoofy wrote: post #201

I think that the thing that most people don't realize about ethics is the meta-ethical problem that axioms are by definition arbitrary. When we really think about the fact that all of our ethical theories are based on arbitrary axioms, suddenly the teeth to ethics have a deep, serious problem. The only argument we have at that point is that the axioms "feel" correct, and I have no problem with this basis, I consider…

> axioms are by definition arbitrary. That is very reductive view of what constitutes most axioms. Merriam-Websters has:[1] >2: an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth Etymonline has:[2] >"statement of self-evident truth," late 15c., from French axiome, from Latin axioma, from Greek axioma "authority," literally "that which is thought worthy or fit,"... So, no, not arbitrary at all. Which particular…

What OP likely intended is that our Western axioms, such as considering human life as the most important value, may be arbitrary because there are other cultures where it holds a lower position in the hierarchy of values.

In Western cultures, the belief in the intrinsic value and sanctity of human life is often considered a foundational and self-evident moral principle. It underlies many ethical and legal frameworks, including principles related to human rights, the value of individual lives, and the importance of protecting life.

An axiom, in this context, is a fundamental and self-evident belief or principle that serves as a basis for other beliefs and actions within a particular culture or belief system.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#228

Post by dotsam »

throw0101c wrote: post #184
dotsam wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I mean is: solving problems is good. Solving scientific problems is good, solving moral problems is good. If you do not think solving problems in general is good, you will not think solving the killing animals moral problem is good. The only way to solve problems is to create knowledge. We need to create good explanations of what is there, what it does, and how and why. The only we know to create knowledge is th…

> What I mean is: solving problems is good. Solving scientific problems is good, solving moral problems is good. If you do not think solving problems in general is good, you will not think solving the killing animals moral problem is good. Not necessarily universally: one can have a philosophy / worldview where dealing with your problems is a way to spiritual enlightenment and getting rid of the problems / suffering…

Even gnostics have problems they have to solve in their day to day lives, and the only way to solve them is by creating knowledge.

Appeals to the supernatural or dogma are bad explanations, and they should be criticised and improved upon. They are bad explanations because they are not hard to vary, and can be easily modified or replaced by any other supernatural or dogmatic entity or force without affecting the phenomenon they are supposed to explain. They are essentially arbitrary and unfalsifiable assertions that do not increase our understanding of reality.

Also note, you never get rid of problems, there are always more. New knowledge creates new and better problems. Running out of problems would itself be a problem.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#229

Post by rufus_foreman »

I must not be getting it.

"how does a person acquire his or her culture? You don’t get it by taking a pill. You acquire your culture by observing a rather limited number of behaviors and actions, and from those, constructing, somehow, in your mind, the set of attitudes and beliefs that constitutes culture."

If you grew up in a different culture, you would have different attitudes and beliefs.

That's...moral relativism, as far as I understand it. What am I missing?

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#230

Post by mcpackieh »

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #187
reedf1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point is not that there is an absolute moral landscape or that moral relativism can't exist in abstract. But that morals are so deeply held, that they shape your being and understanding of reality. So on a day to day basis you would feel revolted against something that appears to be immoral in another culture despite being able to logically pare out that it is okay in their system of morality.

I don’t think it’s that radical in a sense but trying to argue it is. When you think about it though, we kind of know that e.g. the founders of the U.S. had some sort of guilty conscience going on with regards to slavery. So we have folks like Washington freeing the slaves in his will, which of course his wife walked back on, and he probably had an idea that she might do that too. And yet people are able to jump thro…

> we kind of know that e.g. the founders of the U.S. had some sort of guilty conscience going on with regards to slavery

From where did that secret sense of guilt come?

Maybe there was no sense of guilt at all and it was all performative, cynically done for the sake of his reputation. But perhaps the arguments from contemporary abolitionists were secretly eating away at him from the inside, inspiring a real sense of guilt. I think that is congruent with the theory that some small kernel of universal morality exists in all humans capable of feeling empathy, derived from that innate empathy instinct. People can be conditioned to ignore it, and this explains much of the variability in human morality across cultures. A slave owner can ignore that part of his mind that empathizes with the slaves because ignoring it is socially and financially convenient. Some can be needled and prodded into acknowledging it, while many go their entire lives with this empathy buried and ignored. But however ignored, that kernel of universal morality still exists in them. It's universal to humans because we're all the same species of social ape evolved to have instincts which facilitate social cooperation, particularly empathy. This morality is universal in the sense that all humans have the theoretical ability to access it within themselves, but actually doing so obviously isn't universal.

(Actual psychopaths, if such people even exist, may be the exception. If they truly lack the ability to empathize they would be unable to tap into this otherwise universal morality. Furthermore, the empathy instinct is not as perfect as might be wished; in almost all people empathy is felt more strongly for people who are close (socially and geographically.) Less empathy is felt for people who are distant or "other". Innate empathy has limits, and therefore universal morality is woefully flawed and incomplete.)

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