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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

#331

Post by x86x87 »

afwef wrote: post #282
alphazard wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're assuming a logical system, but these "axioms" aren't like math, trying to find a contradiction is itself a moral judgement. So you're just arguing in circles. None of the grounding in reality is actually connected to moral judgements in the sense of proving them wrong or right.

I would say math has the same problem. Math is based on a bunch of axioms.

Here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompletenes...

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#332

Post by ekabod »

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…

If we consider that a person is a data point with its own properties (family, wealth, education, upbringing environment,...); the idea of a universal framework that handles these properties for ethics is still valid.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#333

Post by noobermin »

3abiton wrote: post #309
tjrgergw wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, Choamsky is the ultimate "america bad" man. He practically invented it. "America bad" people are also "Russia not so bad" people. These are highly valuable people for Russia propaganda, of course. They're literal useful idiots.

Is he a moral relativist?

He is definitely not a "moral absolutist" in that he can avoid his own biases and habits. That too is a non-existent kind of individual / moral system that no one really is.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#334

Post by cryptonector »

lsy wrote: post #164

It's weird to hear Foucault described as "amoral" when he himself claimed to be a moralist [1]. 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. But to assert that the morals don't come from God is not to say that morals are not valuable or worth hav…

Lenin claimed to be the most moral because he had just one moral value: the good of the Party.

One can claim to be moral while being amoral, and Lenin is the perfect example.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#335

Post by noobermin »

lsy wrote: post #164

It's weird to hear Foucault described as "amoral" when he himself claimed to be a moralist [1]. 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. But to assert that the morals don't come from God is not to say that morals are not valuable or worth hav…

His shots at Foucault and other philosophers always struck me as being some poorly justified dislike of them. Sometimes, that's all it is deep down.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#336

Post by yeahwhatever10 »

krapp wrote: post #307
tjrgergw wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes Or just a top 5: - Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Battle of Okinawa (and just the habit of American soldiers on Okinawa to rape and kill the locals in general) - No Gun Ri massacre, Korea - The use of Agent Orange in Vietnam - My Lai massacre, Vietnam (really, most of the Vietnam War and Korea. Americans really do like killing Asians in the most viol…

Grasping at straws using the A-bomb and Battle of Okinawa as examples. The carpet bombing of Laos and Cambodia would have been better.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#337

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

simonh wrote: post #242
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…

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…

>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.

I thought this was entirely obvious to everyone until I read GP’s to comment.

We act in a way that keeps the majority of us alive and reproducing. We have done OK at that so as a society, we keep doing it that way.

Sure, ok, that’s “relative”, but also obvious and doesn’t invalidate the idea that we know which things are good/ethical beyond how they feel.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#338

Post by Willish42 »

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... ]

> Chomsky explained that he was not only referring to the fact that Russia is fighting in Ukraine in a more humane way than the US in Iraq: "I am not only referring to this, it is obvious." UN inspectors had to be withdrawn as soon as the invasion of Iraq began, he says, "because the attack was so severe and extreme ... This is the American and British style of war." Chomsky adds: “Let's look at the victims. I only know the official numbers… the official UN numbers are about 8,000 civilian casualties [in Ukraine]. How many civilian casualties were there when the US and Britain invaded Iraq?”

The implications here are clear what he meant. Everything else in that headline is spin. This feels exaggerated IMO

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#339

Post by krapp »

yeahwhatever10 wrote: post #336
krapp wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes Or just a top 5: - Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Battle of Okinawa (and just the habit of American soldiers on Okinawa to rape and kill the locals in general) - No Gun Ri massacre, Korea - The use of Agent Orange in Vietnam - My Lai massacre, Vietnam (really, most of the Vietnam War and Korea. Americans really do like killing Asians in the most viol…

Grasping at straws using the A-bomb and Battle of Okinawa as examples. The carpet bombing of Laos and Cambodia would have been better.

I don't think either is grasping at straws, but fine. It's a sizeable list however you choose to sort it.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#340

Post by zilchnotta »

aionionio wrote: post #264
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…

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.

It's not a challenging concept, it's a mistaken distinction. Using those specific words, just confuses the issue with ancient religious dogma.
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