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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

#321

Post by aionionio »

codexb wrote: post #302
aionionio wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you refuse to engage with a challenging concept and instead talk about something else entirely, you make things easier. Go figure. Strategy helps us decide which actions will help us reach a goal. It does not tell us what that goal should be. It has practically nothing to do with morality. Human societies adopt different means but they also work towards different ends.

The only goal is self-preservation. It's universal. All individual "moral" decisions are based on this one goal.

This is trivially debunked. People regularly sacrifice themselves because they think it is right. You could say soldiers fight to protect their kin, but people sacrifice even out of devotion to ideas like truth and honor. There are people who refuse to kill animals, even ones as distantly related to us as octopuses, because they think it's wrong. There are people who vow celibacy out of religious obligation, like the Shakers who abstained themselves out of existence. These things cannot be easily explained in your framework.

It can't be disputed that morality is partly instinctive. There are those who argue persuasively that morality is largely self-deception, with our alleged values being just a way of rationalizing our instincts. I think you have something of a point. Still, your simplistic version is just plain wrong.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#322

Post by JPws_Prntr_Fngr »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #294
JPws_Prntr_Fngr wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mankind, from civilization to civilization, has largely kept the same set of basic morality regardless of where they are or what religion they possess > murder ... pretty universally seen as wrong I have no idea how you could be even passingly familiar with societies like the Mongols or Aztecs and believe this to be true.

Religions require people to do stupid and harmful things all the time. They are extant to proper morality. People weren't just wandering around those societies and murdering other people in the same group without justification or punishment.

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Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#323

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#324

Post by so_delphi »

cuteboy19 wrote: post #301
wunderland wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is because you are ignorant to the extent of American war crimes?

Of course if one is to learn about war crime denialism, who better to learn from than Cambodian genocide denialist Noam Chomsky? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide_denial#Chom... Here we have a person denying eyewitness testimony of Genocide. Surely we all have to learn from such a great individual

And don't forget about Srebrenica too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_genocide_denial#Denial...

He is garbage!

EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCcX_xTLDIY

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#325

Post by qsdf38100 »

Varqu wrote: post #265

I find it troublesome to listen to the person who claims that Russia is fighting in Ukraine in a more humane way than the US in their wars [ https://civilek.info/en/2023/04/30/noam-chomsky-russia-fight... ]

Regardless of whether it's true or not, the fact that this is what he has to say about this invasion is what I find troublesome. Is it so hard to condemn it? Sounds like a diversion, to get away with not condemning it. But he doesn't have to choose, it's just bad faith. How long will we hear "but, what about Hiroshima?" any time a dictator goes for a land grab?

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#326

Post by _kbh_ »

wunderland wrote: post #268
Varqu wrote: post #265

I find it troublesome to listen to the person who claims that Russia is fighting in Ukraine in a more humane way than the US in their wars [ https://civilek.info/en/2023/04/30/noam-chomsky-russia-fight... ]

Maybe this is because you are ignorant to the extent of American war crimes?

> Maybe this is because you are ignorant to the extent of American war crimes?

I think you may be ignorant to the extent and type of crimes that Russia is committing in Ukraine.

>> “There are examples of cases where relatives were forced to witness the crimes," he added. "In the cases we have investigated, the age of victims of sexual and gendered-based violence ranged from 4 to 82 years."

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#327

Post by [deleted] »

bambax wrote: post #306
simonh wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s not saying we have instinctual ethical views. He’s saying we have a biologically determined interpretive framework we use to evaluate ethical questions. This is what he was talking about when he said we make a leap from scattered data to specific conclusions, and we all do this in a similar way. We all just have different data. However when we have very similar data, such as living in a particular culture, we mo…

> when we have very similar data, such as living in a particular culture, we mostly come to the same conclusions That's not my take from the interview, but in any case this is provably false. People living in a given "culture" don't come to the same conclusions: they come to different conclusions -- usually opposite ones. Politics wouldn't exist otherwise. Or most wars, which are almost always between neighbors shari…

[deleted]

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#328

Post by inquirerGeneral »

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…

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Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#329

Post by noobermin »

bambax wrote: post #306
simonh wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s not saying we have instinctual ethical views. He’s saying we have a biologically determined interpretive framework we use to evaluate ethical questions. This is what he was talking about when he said we make a leap from scattered data to specific conclusions, and we all do this in a similar way. We all just have different data. However when we have very similar data, such as living in a particular culture, we mo…

> when we have very similar data, such as living in a particular culture, we mostly come to the same conclusions That's not my take from the interview, but in any case this is provably false. People living in a given "culture" don't come to the same conclusions: they come to different conclusions -- usually opposite ones. Politics wouldn't exist otherwise. Or most wars, which are almost always between neighbors shari…

How about "similar enough?" People, particular people who've never lived in another culture overemphasize differences within their own culture between themselves and others in their own culture. They often overestimate similarities between themselves and other cultures.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#330

Post by noobermin »

alphazard wrote: post #241
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 only arbitrary in terms of the logical system they are involved in. If they conflict with other axioms, one of them has to go. So the choice of axioms isn't totally arbitrary, even at the level of logic. When it's time to take an idealized theory and use it to make predictions about the real world, we first have to check that the axioms match our sense data. If they don't, it's not an applicable theory. Th…

>Axioms are only arbitrary in terms of the logical system they are involved in. If they conflict with other axioms, one of them has to go. So the choice of axioms isn't totally arbitrary, even at the level of logic.

We aren't logic systems, and neither are systems of ethics. People change their minds and are self-contradictory. Things vary from time to time. Kantian style ethics are a rareity and are almost a caricature people critique to make a point or argument in parable.

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