Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist
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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
#2I'm not sure I understand the point being made. Chomsky seems to be saying that since we learn the prevalent morality of our culture through sparse data there must be an underlying universal morality. But how does that allow for the fact that different cultures do have different moral codes and that those do change over time?
Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist
#3I'm not sure I understand the point being made. Chomsky seems to be saying that since we learn the prevalent morality of our culture through sparse data there must be an underlying universal morality. But how does that allow for the fact that different cultures do have different moral codes and that those do change over time?
I think he’s proposing a universal moral grammar, or something to that effect. I’m not sure it’s particularly convincing but I can’t say I take a particular side on this.
Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist
#4All culture is a lie which only persists in the re-telling.
For example - there is no such thing as "Europe", unless enough people get together and agree that this thing that doesn't really exist, does exist and shall be named "Europe". "Europe" isn't a physical element, it isn't a naturally occurring substance - it is instead a human cultural construct which only persists for as long as the word continues to be used as intended.
Chomsky, who I think understands this very basic principle very well, nevertheless seems to dance around this fact because its not very savory - it implies that all human life is fiction - and nobody gets paid large sums to make that observation by those cultures inclined to make their own lies persist longer than others - even if its true.
"Perhaps we do have the freedom to speak, think, and act however we wish — but that very freedom, if Chomsky is correct, emerges only within strict, absolute, wholly un-relative natural boundaries."
Essentially, our freedom is expressed as the ability to choose which cultures to perpetuate and which to deny persistence, by simply ceasing to perpetuate the lie that is that thing, in the first place.
Yes, all human experience is a fiction. It may not be obvious now, but I would wager it'll be obvious to every single one of us, one of these days, right in the last seconds of our own lives, when our own individual fallacies cease to persist... if only there were a way for Chomsky to confirm this, when his time comes.
Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist
#5I'm not sure I understand the point being made. Chomsky seems to be saying that since we learn the prevalent morality of our culture through sparse data there must be an underlying universal morality. But how does that allow for the fact that different cultures do have different moral codes and that those do change over time?
I think his point is not that there is an absolute moral landscape or that moral relativism can't exist in abstract. But that morals are so deeply held, that they shape your being and understanding of reality. So on a day to day basis you would feel revolted against something that appears to be immoral in another culture despite being able to logically pare out that it is okay in their system of morality.
Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist
#6I'm not sure I understand the point being made. Chomsky seems to be saying that since we learn the prevalent morality of our culture through sparse data there must be an underlying universal morality. But how does that allow for the fact that different cultures do have different moral codes and that those do change over time?
> He identifies “a tendency to move from the uncontroversial concept of moral relativism” — that, say, certain cultures at certain times hold certain moral values, and other cultures at other times hold other ones — “to a concept that is, in fact, incoherent, and that is to say that moral values can range indefinitely,” tethered to no objective basis.
The existence of a tether is what he’s focused on here, it seems to me.
Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist
#7I start to dislike Chomsky more and more. His work in linguistic is over my head, maybe it's true, I can't tell.
But whenever I hear him speak outside his niche his points are stupid (like this one) or harmful (like his Ukrainian takes).
Everybody sees faces in rocks because we have brains fine-tuned for seeing faces. Does it prove that there's something universal in looking like a face or even worse - being a face? Some objective "faceiness"?
Or just that we have overfitted neural networks in our heads?
You can get hit in a particular way and stop recognizing faces. Or morality.
What Chomsky is saying is that if you include only the people who are "healthy" according to some subjective criteria and take a crossection of their moralities - the result isn't an empty set. Well duh.
Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist
#8I'm not sure I understand the point being made. Chomsky seems to be saying that since we learn the prevalent morality of our culture through sparse data there must be an underlying universal morality. But how does that allow for the fact that different cultures do have different moral codes and that those do change over time?
I think his point is not that there is an absolute moral landscape or that moral relativism can't exist in abstract. But that morals are so deeply held, that they shape your being and understanding of reality. So on a day to day basis you would feel revolted against something that appears to be immoral in another culture despite being able to logically pare out that it is okay in their system of morality.
Ah, I see. So you can understand why another culture holds a particular moral position but you still _feel_ it to be immoral yourself. That makes sense. But how does that tie to the sparse data and acquisition of morality?
Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist
#9Moral relativism is the most absurd form of moral realism, which is itself an absurd position. I'd be more interested in an explanation for why so many otherwise intelligent people, who are more than capable of reasoning for themselves and holding well-defended, sensible positions, find themselves attracted to moral realism, a truly mystical belief that offends science, reason, and grade school grammar.
Re: Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist
#10There almost certainly isn't a universal moral code. For every abominable act you can think of - murder, slavery, even genocide -, we can find examples of human groups that glorified them, usually by evoking religion, group affiliation or a mix of both.