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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

#361

Post by mcpackieh »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #346
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "do unto others as you would have others do unto you. This one doesn't just have edge cases, it has a hole large enough to float an aircraft carrier through it. My grandparents (all deceased at this point) did not want to be treated in the same way I want(ed) to be treated. The much less absurd version is: "treat other people the way they would like to be treated ". Still edge cases, but the holes are much smaller.

Doesn’t work on the context of mental illness.

It breaks down when dealing with anybody who selfishly wants more than they deserve. A child stamps his feet and demands the biggest piece of cake, should you give it to him? Treating people the way they want to be treated rewards greed and selfishness.

On the other hand, treating other people the way you wish to be treated is self-moderating. If I am greedy, the golden rule commands me to be generous to others. If I encounter somebody who's greedy, the golden rule only obliges me to give them whatever I would think myself entitled to.

The golden rule can't make everybody happy, and isn't supposed to. If there is some delta between the way your grandparents expect to be treated and the way you want to be treated, so be it. I don't think this is a reasonable objection to the golden rule.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#362

Post by mensetmanusman »

afwef wrote: post #289
scns wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, since i shed the shackles of religion and am diametrically opposed to simply following leaders, i had to find my own definition of ethically correct behaviour. The question i ask myself: "Is my action beneficial to mankind and nature as a whole?"

That question is not resolvable in any meaningful way. You can justify anything with a rationalization

Yeah, especially if you mix in long termism :)

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#363

Post by mensetmanusman »

afwef wrote: post #292
emptysongglass wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

> 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. Why would someone having sex with your wife cause them suffering?

From all the gunshot wounds?

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#364

Post by mensetmanusman »

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…

Asserting a position is like choosing an axiom, you don’t have to defend it, you are just laying your cards out.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#365

Post by mensetmanusman »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #348
mensetmanusman wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s actually better translated ‘though shall not murder’ for the modern reader.

> better translated ‘though shall not murder’ for the modern reader Which cleverly punts the problem to the language centre of the brain, which gets to decide whether a particular killing was a good kill (execution, enemy combatant) or bad (murder).

It does for a reader, but reading wasn’t common ~4K years ago when it was written. These are communal truths verified through generations of dialog and discussion.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#366

Post by johnnyjeans »

TheHappyOddish wrote: post #280
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... ]

Do you dispute his claim, or do you simply find it distressing? It appears to be an accurate one, so I'm curious to hear a contrary take here.

i dispute it because fundamentally the entire notion of some war being fought in a noble way relative to another is heinous. as though there are good wars which aren't so bad and the soldiers behave themselves. chomsky perpetuating the harmful myth of comparative "goodness" of wars alone is enough to indict his capacity for real thought and compassion, however in the context of the life he's lived and his personality, it goes a little deeper than that. he's using this fantasy of there being "worse wars" as a vessel of reactionary rhetoric. he has taken the worst thing man does and appropriated suffering as leverage for academic blustering. he's far from unique in this aspect, but that's not the point, now is it? this level of soulless disregard for the horrors of reality and willful naivete in an effort to maintain appearances of trite political dogmas is certainly precluded from having any kind of meaningful opinion on morality or ethics, full stop. it's an indication that he simply lacks the intellectual capacity along certain dimensions to even come to grips with the fundamentals.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#367

Post by fluoridation »

pixl97 wrote: post #320
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.

>both you and I understand the idea that that string of symbols is conveying Until the moment we have to take each other to court, then suddenly two different trials with two different juries comes out with conflicting answers.

What are you on about?

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#368

Post by vacuity »

scns wrote: post #257
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…

Well, since i shed the shackles of religion and am diametrically opposed to simply following leaders, i had to find my own definition of ethically correct behaviour. The question i ask myself: "Is my action beneficial to mankind and nature as a whole?"

So, you'll imminently lead a mob to kill executives of companies that majorly contribute to climate change?

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#369

Post by fsckboy »

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

sorry, the axioms of Euclidean Geometry are not arbitrary. They are axioms by the definition of axioms, but not by the definition of arbitrary.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#370

Post by vacuity »

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

"1 + 1 = 2" has a commonly understood meaning that implies a system of axioms and theorems and whatnot so as to be an objectively true statement in that context. You're not being asked to interpret what someone means by "1 + 1 = 2"; you're being asked to examine that string of characters in the context of a specific system that you clearly understand.
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