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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

#231

Post by tootie »

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 funny, I read "universal" and think about the universe. Would an alien intelligence recognize our morals? Even Star Trek pushed this limit with races like Klingons that honor a good death that earthlings find abhorrent.

Here's a though experiment, if I blew up the entire planet and left no trace of the existence of humans, did I violate anyone's ethics if there's no one around to be upset? In theory I destroyed ethics too.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#232

Post by jumpman500 »

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…

Yea a lot of game theory is built on the arbitrary axioms like that people will follow a given strategy with given information, or that there’s common knowledge. In reality people don’t necessarily follow the axioms of the theory.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#233

Post by westcoast49 »

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…

> If you assert that 'moral relativism is true' that itself would be a relative claim which would undermine the assertion as a universal position.

Moral relativism means that everyone views the world through the lens of their own experiences. And my statement about moral relativism is also, as you point out, viewed through the lens of my own experiences (with that particular topic). But the second statement does not undermine the first one, instead it sort of "recurses" over it.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#234

Post by dotsam »

Flimm wrote: post #168
dotsam wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is a universal moral code, we can never know it for certain. Moral knowledge, as well as all other kinds of knowledge, is always open to criticism and being proven wrong. But nevertheless we can make moral progress, just as we make scientific progress. We can find good explanations for why killing and enslaving people is wrong, even whilst we can point to countless examples where killing and enslaving people…

The idea of moral progress implies that there is objective morality, and that we can improve our knowledge of it. Progress implies a destination, it implies a standard against which the progress is measured, at least in principle.

That is correct. In this is view, all evils are the result of a lack of knowledge, and so moral progress is achieved through the growth of knowledge. All knowledge is fallible and therefore uncertain, so even if we stumbled on objective truth (the destination which we are error-correcting towards), we could never know it for sure.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#235

Post by naasking »

fluoridation wrote: post #226
naasking wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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; }

Math is also composed of arbitrarily chosen axiomatic systems, and yet math is still objective. I'm afraid such trivial arguments aren't much challenge to moral realism, which you'd know if you actually bothered to read anything about it.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#236

Post by naasking »

nico wrote: post #215
naasking wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hence, 1+1=2 is just as relative as anything else we express through language The symbols are relative, the semantics are not.

Well, I can disagree with that, so what can you do then? If you can’t force everyone to agree on the same semantics, you can’t have absolute semantics Of course you are free to believe whatever you want, including absolute semantics, but that is your own personal subjective opinion (even if popular or accepted in the mainstream)

I don't know what "absolute semantics" means. If you mean "objective semantics", then yes that's already objective. If you mean "universal semantics", well there's rarely universal agreement on anything, so I'm not sure why I should find the existence of a few contrarians persuasive.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#237

Post by osti »

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…

Even in math, axioms are kinda arbitrary. They are mostly defined because they can be used to prove stuff that are perhaps useful, in this sense, they aren't arbitrary. But there are infinite sets of axioms out there for the same branch of math, which makes them rather arbitrary.

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/327201/are-there-in...

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#238

Post by jancsika »

lsy wrote: post #217
jancsika wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is meant by moral relativism in this case I think is merely that morals do not come to us handed down by God or Nature as Chomsky claims, but are a constant choice made by people over a potentially infinite range. I didn't get the sense he's saying morals are handed down by nature, rather that the potential range is not infinite. E.g., consider that research where the primate gets angry and starts rejecting it…

But what you are saying is just that the “range” of morality is handed down by nature. And the idea that this range is “naturally” limited is too often used, as it is in your comment, to make an argument from nature’s authority in favor of certain applications of power that may or may not be good for people. What I think relativism does is restore accountability to the individual and the society for moral decisions,…

> But what you are saying is just that the “range” of morality is handed down by nature.

Yes, but for the generous interpretation of what I wrote.

E.g., you can't build a moral system that requires cordoning children off in individual stalls (one child per stall, no direct contact with other humans), feeds and virtually teaches them the rules of the society, then when they reach the age of 18 and pass a test get released into the wild to socialize with other humans for the first time. What we know about child development tells us that this system will be an utter failure.

If you can imagine accepting at least some version of that paragraph as supported by the scientific evidence for how humans socialize, then you agree there are some hard limits on what kind of moral systems humans can thrive under.

If you don't accept there are any limits whatsoever, then you fall into self-contradiction and incoherence which AFAICT is all Chomsky is pointing out.

Edit: clarification. I don't think it's necessary to use the "most generous" interpretation of what I wrote, just a stock generous one.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#239

Post by emptysongglass »

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…

This is really silly and largely a result of our Western desire to turn everything into an impartial science when the experience of life is anything but.

Ethics are not arbitrary. If you do violence to me, that causes me suffering. If you have sex with my husband or my wife without my consent, that's gonna cause me suffering. Both of these things are also highly likely to cause you suffering because most people who are not sociopaths do not enjoy the direct experience of causing someone suffering and suffer guilt for bad actions.

The cycle of suffering is universal to all living things. There's absolutely nothing arbitrary about it.

Don't do things that are shitty to other people does not need a postmodern deconstruction to be understood.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#240

Post by nico »

fluoridation wrote: post #223
nico wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ot…

You can believe whatever you want, assign any meaning you want

I can say that 1+1=2 means it’s lunchtime on the moon

I can also say that 1+1=11

I can’t force you (nor anyone else), to accept or agree with those meanings, but I can definitely assign any meaning I want

No ideas, nor meaning, nor formulas, nor math are objective truth

Just the fact that I can disagree with you right now means there isn’t an objective truth. If there was, then we wouldn’t even be able to disagree

And the universe is not based on any axiomatic anything, maybe your models of the universe are, but those models are just a subjective approximation to whatever the reality of the universe is, which we all perceive and experience differently in a subjective manner

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