Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

openculture.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 464 posts

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#421

Post by bluGill »

jnsaff2 wrote: post #390
rjbwork wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. I am actually quite a fan of Chomsky, but he is reflexively America bad. You always always have to take what he says with the massive pillar of salt that his default position on everything geopolitics/IA related is "America Bad".

Out of interest, why would you be a fan of a person who is that flawed? Don't you think that their other stuff could also have shortcuts and dishonesty in there?

I do not think there has been anybody ever who doesn't take such shortcuts in their thinking. (that includes me!) As such it isn't a useful criteria for deciding if I should be a fan. Some people do it a lot more than others, and so I will eventually stop listening to those people as I realize I cannot stand it, but it isn't an automatic deal breaker to see it.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#423

Post by epups »

debok wrote: post #400
epups wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do human groups glorifying immorality imply that there is no universal moral code? If the universal moral code exists outside of those groups, then it can be applied to their actions, and we can call them wrong for the thing they glorify. Those groups would also call us wrong. If groups of humans tend to display very different and incompatible moral codes, that's a strong argument against a universal morality.…

> Those groups would also call us wrong. Wouldn't they then also be appealing to a universal moral code in order to call us wrong? If there is no universal moral code, nobody gets to call anybody else wrong (in the moral sense) at all. We are rightfully condemning chattel slavery. However we can't do that if we are not appealing to a universal moral standard. We have no right to claim that the Southern states were wr…

> We are rightfully condemning chattel slavery. However we can't do that if we are not appealing to a universal moral standard. We have no right to claim that the Southern states were wrong, if slavery in the way existed back then wasn't universally wrong.

I really don't understand why you think there is a need for a universal moral truth in order to have a self-consistent moral code. We didn't believe that every human being has certain rights, which is why our ancestors did not perceive chattel slavery as immoral. We now do, and the actions of our ancestors are appalling to our modern perspective, but we cannot at all believe that this means we are "right" and they are "wrong" by appealing to a universal moral code. We can point out that certain moral codes lead to better outcomes (golden rule and all that), we can reason that society is better off enforcing stricter moral standards and we can build societies that enshrine some of these moral rules as laws, all without a universal morality existing at all.

The comparison to physics does not help here. Morality is entirely dependent on a set of subjective beliefs, such as the one I mentioned above about human rights. Physics is not. The world is either flat or it isn't, but two different groups of humans can have diametrically opposed beliefs about, say, veganism and neither of them is necessarily wrong.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#425

Post by mcv »

dllthomas wrote: post #176
mcv wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT does feel a bit like a refutation of his life's work. Because whether or not ChatGPT can think, it certainly has a good command of language without starting out with an inborn sense of grammar. It learns grammar by copying. Just like kids do, I suspect.

I suppose I can grant "feels a bit like", but unless I'm missing something (and to be fair I have not rtfa...) it hasn't actually reached refutation. The observation that there is enough information to determine grammar rules in the training set for an LLM is only very weak evidence that there is also enough information in the much smaller training set for a typical human.

I think it's pretty obvious that there is more than enough information in the training set of a typical human to learn grammar. Because we do. And people in different countries learn different grammars.

Also keep in mind that people get more feedback over their control of language ad grammar while they're learning. We don't just listen, we communicate.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#426

Post by GoblinSlayer »

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.

It's a strange claim that Kant somehow helps with realism. He sees reality as unintelligible noumena, that's agnosticism at best, absurdism at worst.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#427

Post by wunderland »

_kbh_ wrote: post #326
wunderland wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

US has been responsible for similar and worse at a much larger scale, even just in my lifetime. All war is a crime, and the US is always at war.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#428

Post by GoblinSlayer »

naasking wrote: post #235
fluoridation wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

In this sense subjective opinions can be said to be objective to some extent: subjective opinion is brain configuration, and the latter is objective. But moral realists probably mean something else.

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#429

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

boffinAudio wrote: post #410
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're mistaking an arbitrary or relative concept with a lie. Culture is relative and amorphous, but it's not a lie. It shapes our worldview and it's a framework we can apply to our understanding. Just because it is not the unified worldview as everyone has doesn't make it false.

From the perspective of the natural world, all culture is a lie that humans tell themselves in order to create something that doesn't exist. We conjure these things into existence by telling ourselves - and hurting those who don't agree - that the thing is real, even if it isn't. >Just because it is not the unified worldview as everyone has doesn't make it false. This is demonstrably incorrect: Just ask a Russian to…

My favourite ice cream is vanilla. My wife thinks I like chocolate. Is my preference a lie?

Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist

#430

Post by GoblinSlayer »

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…

Sounds like Chomsky thinks moral relativists don't believe in any sort of morality.
Post reply on HN