Yes, they created the White Album. My original point was that saying that T Clark was saying that morality was somehow created was a straw man, but then I got confused by your reply to that. — Noah Te Stroete

Ah, re "creation." Why would creation be any more of an issue there than it is for music or the other arts?

Again, this is a poor analogy. there is nothing original about morality. About any issue you can have just three basic positions: for, against or indifferent. Music is nothing like that, music, at least good music, consists in creatively original syntheses; so again you use an inapt analogy to try to shore up your inadequate position. — Janus

That's because you probably have an incorrect ontology of meaning, too. You're thinking that someone says to you, "Murder is wrong," for example, and you're simply for it, against it or indifferent to it at that point. But that's not how it works.

You have to understand the sounds you hear or text marks you read first. That involves doing something unique in your own brain. Part of that involves meaning assignments, which is also doing something unique in your own brain. These unique things do involve original syntheses. Then, in order for you to have a moral stance on anything, you have to make a judgment about it, a la making an evaluation--stating how you feel about something, whether you like or dislike it, whether you prefer one thing to another, etc. Otherwise it's not a moral stance for you at all.

(1) You're treating "morality is relative" in the manner of "everything is relative." The two claims are not the same.
— Terrapin Station

Nope, that not everything is relative. — tim wood

That's still missing the point. :eyes:

It can be the case that not everything is relative, yet morality is.

That's still missing the point. :eyes:

It can be the case that not everything is relative, yet morality is. — S

Right. What was his response there anyway? I didn't understand what he wrote.

Right. What was his response there anyway? I didn't understand what he wrote. — Terrapin Station

Actually, in hindsight, I think I might have misinterpreted what he meant there. But if so, it was badly worded. Given the rest of his post, which I've just briefly gone over, it seems he might have meant that not everything about morality is relative. But then, that still misses the point. And it is different from what he was claiming before, where he clearly confused moral relativism for relativism simpliciter, which he has been rightly called out for doing.

It is easy to miss the point if you don't understand what it is that a moral relativist is actually claiming. I for one am only suggesting that morality is relative in the relevant sense which I've explained in this discussion. I'm not suggesting that every single aspect relating to morality must be relative to something in some way. I'm not, for example, suggesting that rocks are relative, whatever that means, just because the judgement that it is immoral to throw rocks at people is obviously relative.

It isn't helpful that a number of people in this discussion do not have a good understanding of moral relativism, yet they nevertheless think that they're somehow qualified to criticise it.

Morality, unlike rocks, only makes sense if you apply an interpretation inline with moral relativism. The interpretation of moral absolutism only appears to make sense on the surface, but it crumbles under analysis. No one has succeeded in reasonably demonstrating the supposed existence of any objective or absolute morality. Instead, predictably, we just get dogmatism and bad logic. Even if this discussion were to continue over another twenty pages, my prediction is that that would still be all that we get from them.

My sole remaining vice. And the only one of all, I’d recommend, it’s only requisites being sufficient funds and proximity to a bathroom. — Mww

Cocaine?

↪tim wood

Philosophy well done. As in all philosophy, subject to critique.

Brace yourself. — Mww

I agree. Good job — Noah Te Stroete

:rofl:

I unequivocally agree. — Noah Te Stroete

You would probably agree that the sea is the sky, so long as whoever said that said it in disagreement with me.

Right, but there's a manner in which it makes sense to say that the Beatles created the White Album themselves, rather than saying that what created it was a complex of societal, cultural, artistic, musical, etc. institutions, as if the complex of societal, cultural, etc. institutions should be getting the royalty/publishing/licensing payments.

The sense in which people (like me) say that individuals create morality is the same sense. We're not denying influences and such, but the influences aren't the same thing as the stuff we're saying that individuals create. — Terrapin Station

You mean to tell me that you don't understand what people are referring to when they say that "the Beatles created the White Album"? Hopefully when people say that you understand at least roughly just what they're saying the Beatles did and didn't do, and you don't respond with, "By regression of causality the Beatles created themselves" or "The Beatles didn't create the White Album. It was actually a complex of societal, cultural, musical, etc. institutions interacting with the Beatles that created it." — Terrapin Station

Exactly.

It can be the case that not everything is relative, yet morality is. — S

I did not say that everything is relative.That would be the position of relativists. Mine is that not everything is relative.

Your position is that morality is relative. Let's keep this simple. On your position, two (or more) reasonable people can hold contradictory views and both are right. I agree that often happens. I agree the world's work gets done. I suspect that one side is always wrong - that morality itself is absolute, plowed down to the bedrock of it - but that is an argument for another day. A sketch of it is that in every case one finds a ruling principle that both adhere to, agree with, but that one side breaks. For present purpose, however, it's enough to find one example that is absolute.

Murder. Murder is simple. I say that murder is absolutely wrong. Maybe in some cases understandable, but wrong. Now you explain how murder is not an absolute wrong. If you cannot then your relativism is a dead letter.

Rocks are "amoral", but FGM is a human practice which presumably nearly always concerns operant moral values on the part of humans. — VagabondSpectre

FGM is amoral except in the sense of moral relativism. So you either agree with me about moral relativism, or you're saying something false about FGM.

The example simplifies the structure of moral truth in practice. The wider question is "in what sense can moral decisions be 'true' or 'objective'". The answer is in whether or not they conform to values and circumstance; this is how we improve our existing moral decisions, and but for mutually exclusive values, this is how we actually reach moral propositions that in practice "no one is going to disagree with": the objectivity of empiricism. — VagabondSpectre

You still don't seem to realise that what you're doing is lose-lose.

You either describe something subjective, like my values, in which case we agree, even though at times you seem to act as though we don't. This would just be to preach to the choir.

Or you describe something objective, but which lacks meta-ethical relevance. Comments of the sort about brushing your teeth are not in themselves meta-ethically relevant. You only make them relevant because of your own moral evaluation, which again is subjective. It is not correct to confuse that for objectivity, and it is not correct to confuse objectivity which lacks meta-ethical relevance for objectivity which is of meta-ethical relevance.

That our decisions are explainable in terms of our values, and that they are either in our interest or not in our interest, does not in itself say anything meta-ethically relevant. Do you understand what meta-ethics is about, and what it is not about? It is not simply about values, it is not simply about what's useful to us, it is not simply about what is or isn't in our interest. It is about morality. You need an additional connection, and you can only do that subjectively. Nothing is moral or immoral in itself. That makes no sense.

It can be the case that not everything is relative, yet morality is.
— S

I did not say that everything is relative. That would be the position of relativists. Mine is that not everything is relative. — tim wood

You must not have properly read what you just quoted me saying. Look again. I said that it can be the case that not everything is relative, yet morality is relative.

That's why your point misses the point. You need to argue specifically against moral relativism.

I hope you get this, because it is basic level logic.

Murder. Murder is simple. I say that murder is absolutely wrong. Maybe in some cases understandable, but wrong. Now you explain how murder is not an absolute wrong. If you cannot then your relativism is a dead letter. — tim wood

That's clearly an argument from ignorance, which is a fallacy.

And I feel just as strongly about murder as you do, so don't even try to suggest otherwise. But that still doesn't make it a moral absolute in a meta-ethical sense. On the contrary, it suggests moral relativism.

Now you explain how murder is not an absolute wrong. — tim wood

But you haven't explained how murder is an absolute wrong yet, you just declared it to be the case. Why are you asking @S to explain how murder isn't an absolute wrong for his argument, but you don't see it necessary to explain how it is for yours?

But you haven't explained how murder is an absolute wrong yet, you just declared it to be the case. Why are you asking S to explain how murder isn't an absolute wrong for his argument, but you don't see it necessary to explain how it is for yours? — Isaac

I'll answer that: because he's illogical and because his position is untenable.

Actually, in hindsight, I think I might have misinterpreted what he meant there. But if so, it was badly worded. Given the rest of his post, which I've just briefly gone over, it seems he might have meant that not everything about morality is relative. But then, that still misses the point. And it is different from what he was claiming before, where he clearly confused moral relativism for relativism simpliciter, which he has been rightly called out for doing.

It is easy to miss the point if you don't understand what it is that a moral relativist is actually claiming. I for one am only suggesting that morality is relative in the relevant sense which I've explained in this discussion. I'm not suggesting that every single aspect relating to morality must be relative to something in some way. I'm not, for example, suggesting that rocks are relative, whatever that means, just because the judgement that it is immoral to throw rocks at people is obviously relative.

It isn't helpful that a number of people in this discussion do not have a good understanding of moral relativism, yet they nevertheless think that they're somehow qualified to criticise it.

Morality, unlike rocks, only makes sense if you apply an interpretation inline with moral relativism. The interpretation of moral absolutism only appears to make sense on the surface, but it crumbles under analysis. No one has succeeded in reasonably demonstrating the supposed existence of any objective or absolute morality. Instead, predictably, we just get dogmatism and bad logic. Even if this discussion were to continue over another twenty pages, my prediction is that that would still be all that we get from them. — S

Good points.

because he's illogical and because his position is untenable. — S

But it's just such a cliché of a bad argument. "X is the case, now you prove it isn't otherwise I've won"

You would probably agree that the sea is the sky, so long as whoever said that said it in disagreement with me. — S

Ah, Jeez Rick. I already said you are good at philosophy.

Of course not. I'm not denying any outside influence whatsoever. I'm rejecting any suggestion that factors such as the prevalent religion in my society are a primary determinant in my morality. They're simply not. And I know that better than you or anyone else, because I know myself better than you or anyone else. My morality is, as I say, determined primarily by my moral feelings, and not those of society, or of the Tory government, or of the Anglican Church. I am not a sheep, I am an individual. — S

An emphasis on individual action and decision making and rejection of societal, especially religious, influence is your wont. I think that approach is unrealistic, but I don't see any chance of changing your mind. What I do like about the individualistic approach is it's focus on individual responsibility for one's actions. I certainly would never claim that societal influences are all that matter.

You both miss. I am not arguing that murder is absolutely wrong; I am assuming it. You both are free to take any stance you like. The substance is, that if you do not agree with me (more exactly with the view expressed - I take no credit for it), then in essence you're saying that at the least some murder is not absolutely wrong. If that's your position, that some murder is all right, then please say what kind of murder or what circumstance of murder that might be.

And note that "self-defense" or any similar equivocation misses because it is not to the point. Killing is not murder, and the question is to murder. Your problem, given your stance (as I understand your stance) is since morality is relative, then there is no maintainable absolute or universal moral stricture against murder. And if not, then some is ok. Question to you both: is it?

The moral significance is a proposition or a status claimed in a truth context. A world where an action is moral is different to one in which it is not. Which is in turn different from a world without normative significance. In posing these concepts, we are trying to get something right.

These are concepts about the relations of normative meanings. They aren't "just what someone likes" any more than our sun is "just something we think is there."

If that's your position, that some murder is all right, then please say what kind of murder or what circumstance of murder that might be. — tim wood

Murder committed by someone who thinks it is all right.


To qualify - your question doesn't actually make any sense, I've tried to parse it in as best a way as I can as something like "what circumstance could someone use the expression 'this murder was not wrong'".

Otherwise you're asking me to presume absolutism within your question because without doing so, the idea that I have to accept some murders are OK does not make sense.

The moral significance is a proposition or a status claimed in a truth context. A world where an action is moral is different to one in which it is not. Which is in turn different from a world without normative significance. In posing these concepts, we are trying to get something right.

These are concepts about the relations of normative meanings. They aren't "just what someone likes" any more than our sun is "just something we think is there." — TheWillowOfDarkness

So again, the challenge to you would be to present any evidence whatsoever of moral stances, normative stances, etc. being anything other than preferences that people have about interpersonal behavior.

If that's your position, that some murder is all right, then please say what kind of murder or what circumstance of murder that might be.
— tim wood

Murder committed by someone who thinks it is all right. — Isaac

Do you really believe that?

that if you do not agree with me (more exactly with the view expressed - I take no credit for it), then in essence you're saying that at the least some murder is not absolutely wrong. If that's your position, that some murder is all right, then please say what kind of murder or what circumstance of murder that might be. — tim wood

Nothing is absolutely right or wrong. Things are relatively right or wrong, and one of the things that's relative to is individuals. (It's also relative to time, context, and other things, depending on the individual in question).

So as mentioned above, murder isn't wrong to someone who has the opinion that it's not wrong.

Because moral stances are only opinions that individuals have, that makes any particular moral stance not absolute.

Do you really believe that? — tim wood

Yes. If my position were that some murder was all right, then the kind of murder that might be would be murder committed by someone who thought it was all right. I'm not sure what more we could ask of someone committing a murder that was all right. Do you understand what moral relativism is? It doesn't mean that I think everyone else's behaviour is right. It means I think what I think about it. They think something different.

Or do you mean that the Allies were morally justified in fighting Hitler but other wars lacked moral justification? — Noah Te Stroete

I just meant that was the one example where we can come close to blaming it 100% on one party. Even that situation had additional factors.

I can comfortably say that no war ever fought NEEDED to be fought. But that is far different than claiming them to be objectively morally wrong. Are the defenders as culpable as the attackers? Did everyone involved even have a choice? What if the attackers are fighting against an injustice (perceived or real)?

don't know why FGM came about, but I find it unlikely that it was a result of a cabal of child molesters, who the rest of the community had mysteriously put in charge, coming up with a new way of mindlessly injuring innocent children. So I simply presume they had a reason. By what I know it's an aboniable practice, the difference is, I'm prepared to accept that I don't know all the facts. — Isaac

How very humble of you.

If someone offered to cut off your daughters clitoris, would you be interested to know about the boons and benefits she would receive as a result?

FGM isn't unique to any one ethnicity, nor is it a culturally dominant practice in any of the major ethnic categories. I can't possibly be attacking non-westerners specifically because it's not a western/non-western distinction. It is a practice with varying prevalence across some parts of north Africa, some Middle Eastern countries, one South American country, and a few Asian countries.

As I revealed to you before, It is practiced out in the world for a myriad of confused reasons ranging from "because the elders demand it", to "it will benefit their health and correct their behavior". In some cases they literally have no record or recollection of why they ever began doing it (they might as well be doing it for aesthetic reasons alone). You don't know all the facts, but at what point do the facts you do know become sufficient? (for instance, the fact that female circumcision is painful, dangerous, performed on a child incapable of giving consent (and who usually resists), and limits their ability to have a gratifying sex life as an adult).

What more data are you waiting for? Do you think it slows the spread of STI's or something? That victims of genital mutilation are made more subservient to their future husbands, which justifies the initial harm? Is it that we have to respect a parent's right to decide how and why to raise their children, because a parent knows best?

Give me something that will help me understand why you're not willing to condemn the practice of FGM as immoral. I get the "amorality à la -S" angle, but given that we're discussing FGM in the moral context of agreed upon values (individual health and social health), from our perspective, why can you not morally condemn FGM?

No, that comes from the fact that every example you picked paints non-westerners (or detractors) as stupid and/or immoral — Isaac

The anti-vax movement is a western movement led by mostly middle aged stupid white people whose actions are immoral (their race, age, and nationality doesn't matter to me, it is merely happenstance). (I thought that went without saying). The first example I brought up was vaccines, which you rejected, so I moved on to FGM because I thought you wouldn't deign to question our ability to know whether or not is is a harmful practice. (After that I moved on to eye gouging and human sacrifice, where you finally caved).

Your attempt to portray me as racist (or what? fantastically arrogant? I think I'm better than everyone else or that I'm morally flawless?) is quite unreasonable, which makes me wonder whether or not you are arguing from emotion instead of reason. Perhaps you feel that it is too mean for me to condemn the culturally significant practice of FGM, because what does that say about the human beings who practice it? So you've convinced yourself I must be even more than arrogant... (I guess this is my fault for thinking that condemning the mutilation of a child's genitals is an "enlightened" thing to do. By using that one contentious word, I showed my entirely racist hand). It's a good thing I didn't bother condemning MGM as well, else I'd also be an anti-semite! (Did you know hundreds of male babies die every year due to circumcision related complications?)

I might be wrong about vaccines and FGM, that's true, but in so far as my detractors share my starting values, and in so far as they have no evidence/reasoning showing the utility of their moral decisions which I show (with evidence/reasoning) to be harmful (contain anti-utility), I get to carry on as if I'm right, even to the point of arrogance, until someone offers be better evidence and/or better reasoning. I'm not interested in being absolutely right, I'm interested in being usefully right. In the case of FGM all the good evidence points in one direction.

No, you picked examples where modern Western civilisation has some moral superiority to claim over non-westerners. — Isaac

This clearly factually inaccurate. My original example was against anti-vax parents. Please discontinue this disingenuous line of attack, else I'll turn up the petty psycho-analysis in kind.

Maybe you didn't even realise you were doing it, but from the middle of a culture whose everyday activities are literally damaging the future of humanity, the fact that you looked further than just out of the window for your examples of objective, scientifically proven moral wrongs is telling. — Isaac

How in the world could you ever expect me to guess that you understand (or "trust"?) climate science if you don't even trust the statistics showing the boons of proven vaccines (or if you think it's too complicated for most people to learn about)?

Something is very backwards here... Climate change is more controversial than vaccines. I avoided climate change specifically because of the enduring denial that comes out of conservative camps (which would despoil the context of my example, much as your anti-vax and pro-FGM (pseudo)rhetoric has achieved). If you want to take this particular tangent in an anti-modernity, anti-western, anti-industrial, or even anti-enlightenment direction, that's perfectly fine, but you'll have to clarify the point you wish to make. Are you saying that modernity/industry isn't worthwhile given the effects we've had, and will continue to have, on the climate?

So you have personally conducted research? Looked at the actual data set for the trials of the latest vaccine? Personally checked the records on which the epidemiological data is based? Because if not, then your trust in the people delivering you this information is faith. — Isaac

A careful read of my posts will reveal that I've only ever lauded the benefits of "proven" vaccines, which means vaccines that have undergone clinical trials. When it comes to vaccines that have been in widespread use for long periods of time, we have real world experience to go by (data gathering and statistical analysis has to be trusted on some level, but it can also be "tested" through repetition, which mitigates our need for faith based trust).

The specific science of vaccines is well beyond me, but the science of statistical analysis is not, which indicates with overwhelming strength that those well-known vaccines we use to fight once common and deadly diseases actually work.

We're dealing with much harder ones where the facts of the case or the complex social/political circumstances make the way forward difficult to see. It doesn't help to come along claiming to have the answer like it was a maths sum. — Isaac

Framing it closer to a maths sum is probably more usefully persuasive (for change) than framing it closer to a sacred cultural artifact which we would be racist to condemn. In any case, I'm saying we can use evidence and reason to rationally appeal to their existing values as a means of persuasion. I don't have any grand illusions that everyone can easily be persuaded; I'm just identifying what I believe is the most effective vector of persuasion.

And here we go again with the tiresome flag-waving for Western civilisation. Have you noticed the continued reliance on fossil fuel despite the fact that scientific consensus is that it is destructive to our society? Have you noticed that micro-plastics are now in every environment in the world and the scientific consensus is that they could be harmful? Have you noticed that careers continue to become more stressful despite the fact that the World Health Organisation consider stress to be a major factor in 80% of all disease? Any of that sound particularly rational?

We've got where we are because of a series of improvements whose short-term benefits could be directly seen and whose long-term consequences were barely given a moment's thought. That's not rational argument, that's seeing money in the minefield and going to pick it up and hang the consequences. — Isaac

I don't exactly see why I should have to defend the whole of western society. I'm happy with the goal posts at "better off now than we were before". We have new problems, but that's life; we solve one problem and it creates a new one or a new one just emerges on its own. Relatively speaking we're better off than before by almost every measurable metric (lifespan, health, comforts). Maybe the west will bring about the destruction of all humans, but until that happens we're in the utilitarian black.

No, this goes back to what I said above about certainty. I completely agree that rational arguments have greater or lesser strength (for those who have already agreed to use rationality as a thinking tool). But I strongly disagree with the granularity, the exactness, you claim is possible when such arguments become complex. My position can be summed up as;

Given the complexity of the physical and social environment in which decisions have to be made, the vast majority of calculations can only be assessed so broadly that we end up with a very large group of options for all of which the most we can say is "yes, that broadly makes sense".

Your argument is like claiming to judge which is the higher mountain to the micrometer without any measuring equipment. We can all see the difference between a mountain and a hill, but from there it's just guesswork as to which is tallest. — Isaac

I get what you're saying, but I don't agree it reasonably applies to FGM and vaccines. From where I stand, they're both clearly foothills, and I can even see/fathom why the crowds gathered at their base mistake them for a high peak.

Asking "what should we do" in the context of all possible actions is overwhelming. But in comparing just two specific actions, or even comparing one action against its negation, we can still make useful relative statements about "superior and inferior decisions". It is far easier to say (to persuade) that something is morally superior than to say it is morally obligatory, (positive moral obligation might be incoherent) because we would have to establish that one particular action has a higher utility than all other possible actions, but often times we can quite confidently say that something is immoral (morally inferior), because all we need to do is show that not doing it has higher relative utility than doing it.

It's not that i think non FGM and being pro-vaccine are of extraordinary utility; I think that FGM and intentionally avoiding vaccines are direct or sufficiently proximate sources of harm, which directly controverts our fundamental moral values.

FGM is amoral except in the sense of moral relativism. So you either agree with me about moral relativism, or you're saying something false about FGM. — S

Are you talking about the practice/concept of FGM or the act of FGM? I'm not following why we need relativism to escape the amoral descriptor. I thought what is or isn't amoral was a meta-ethical distinction.

You still don't seem to realise that what you're doing is lose-lose.

You either describe something subjective, like my values, in which case we agree, even though at times you seem to act as though we don't. This would just be to preach to the choir.

Or you describe something objective, but which lacks meta-ethical relevance. Comments of the sort about brushing your teeth are not in themselves meta-ethically relevant. You only make them relevant because of your own moral evaluation, which again is subjective. It is not correct to confuse that for objectivity, and it is not correct to confuse objectivity which lacks meta-ethical relevance for objectivity which is of meta-ethical relevance. — S

It's my meta-ethical definition which describes in what way moral decisions can be objective, relative to values.

I'm eschewing subjective feelings about what morality is from a meta-ethical standpoint (by defining it as values serving strategies) so that we can have a consistent/objective discussion about how to compare and evaluate competing moral decisions or frameworks. It can't just be subjective feelings all the way up and all the way down; reality needs to be inserted somewhere.

If I've given you the impression I'm defending any sort of meta-ethical absolutism then I have miscommunicated. I am however, though not overtly, defending a kind of meta-meta-ethical distinction that I don't yet have the right language for: ethical frameworks are all in service of some sort of value, but predominantly they are arranged to serve a certain range of nearly universal human values, and they continuously adapt toward more optimal values-service. The broad "convergence" of moral decision making which is oriented toward the same ends induces us toward the idea that some ethical and meta-ethical frameworks are more universally applicable than others; it implies that there are some moral frameworks that will be more agreeable and persuasive to our moral decisions and intuitions at large. Broadly speaking, ethical frameworks which account for methods, costs, and results (empirical matters) tend to be the most widespread and communicable. Reason based moral arguments might not always persuade individual proponents of X, Y, or Z moral framework, but they have stuck around because they're objectively effective at promoting human welfare per our environments, and they transmit well because they are based in shareable empirical fact-checking behavior rather than subjective whim.

Your meta-ethical definition focuses on the very fact that there is no "objective moral 'truth'" as a starting point that defines it ontologically as a realm of relative subjective truth (where truth conforms to values and beliefs). My own meta-ethical definition focuses on what it is moral activity is attempting to do more holistically: it's not just serving values, it's trying to serve them well. Under my view also, moral "truth" doesn't necessarily point to anything meaningful beyond the existence of relative values. And like any proposition designed to navigate uncertainty (any strategy), there are no "true or false" decisions to begin with, only "statistically better and worse decisions" (though there is an objective truth to the ramifications of our decisions, even when we're lucky we can only approximate it with strong induction). Even if a decision is 100% guaranteed to be the worst decision, it could only be "false" if we went out of our way to frame it as a truth statement (it is false that X move will create the desired outcome)., Though we cannot access truth with objective certainty (as Isaac will never let me forget), we can indeed often approximate it with objectivity. (e.g:if Isaac was "objective" and gathered facts, then he would come to realize that FGM has no meaningful benefit to individuals or society.)

Nothing is absolutely right or wrong. — Terrapin Station

You completely miss the boomerang effect of this, don't you. And it's not trivial. Indeed it's a linchpin of your argument. Like this:

1) If nothing is absolutely right or wrong, then no moral proposition is absolutely right, or wrong.
2) Nothing is absolutely right or wrong.
3) No moral proposition is absolutely right, or wrong.

But 2) is just an unsupported claim. The syllogism is valid, just not true. But why would you care, after all, nothing is absolutely true or false? You can have what you want. Btw, does everyone benefit from this argument of yours? Or does it only work for you?

You both miss. I am not arguing that murder is absolutely wrong; I am assuming it. You both are free to take any stance you like. The substance is, that if you do not agree with me (more exactly with the view expressed - I take no credit for it), then in essence you're saying that at the least some murder is not absolutely wrong. If that's your position, that some murder is all right, then please say what kind of murder or what circumstance of murder that might be.

And note that "self-defense" or any similar equivocation misses because it is not to the point. Killing is not murder, and the question is to murder. Your problem, given your stance (as I understand your stance) is since morality is relative, then there is no maintainable absolute or universal moral stricture against murder. And if not, then some is ok. Question to you both: is it? — tim wood

That is a terrible argument which confuses normative ethics and meta-ethics. This error has been pointed out multiple times, and yet you still make it.

You're asking me normative ethical questions about murder, so obviously I'm going to answer from my perspective, and I've already told you that I feel just as strongly about murder as you do. Nope, no murder is okay or alright. That is obviously my moral judgement, as you're asking me, and not someone else. It is relative and subjective. Not absolute, not objective.

If you ask a murderer, you might get a different answer. And moral relativism just words that as saying that murder is okay for him.

And yes, morality is not absolute. Murder is wrong, just not absolutely wrong in a meta-ethical sense. Before asking me a silly question about murder, remind yourself that I feel just as strongly about it as you do. But I am capable of distinguishing between normative ethics and meta-ethics.

You need to be a lot clearer about the context in which you're asking whether murder is okay. The context matters, and my answers vary depending on the context. I make sense of ethics through moral relativism. If you ask me to set that aside and interpret as per moral absolutism, then the question is either nonsensical or implies a falsehood. It's a bit like asking whether the present King of France is bald.

Murder committed by someone who thinks it is all right.


To qualify - your question doesn't actually make any sense, I've tried to parse it in as best a way as I can as something like "what circumstance could someone use the expression 'this murder was not wrong'".

Otherwise you're asking me to presume absolutism within your question because without doing so, the idea that I have to accept some murders are OK does not make sense. — Isaac

Exactly. I typed up my reply before having read yours, yet we both point out some of the same key problems. Great minds think alike.

It is a real shame that Tim's reply completely ignores your explanation and jumps straight into a question about your answer full of his own implicit misguided assumptions. What he's really asking is, "Do you really believe that, given all of my misguided assumptions, and completely disregarding the explanation you've put time and effort into producing?". Isn't philosophy supposed to encourage critical thinking and open-mindedness? Some people on this forum do not display these qualities to anything close to the standard that I would like to see. It's like in that other discussion on political correctness, where some people just showed up to reinforce the simplistic view that political correctness is good, without sufficient application of critical thinking, without thinking outside of the box. Maybe this forum should be more like an academy, and members should display suitable ranks, with members who merely parrot simplistic views uncritically being of a lower rank.

Some people here should go off and spend some time reading the moral philosophy of Nietzsche and Hume, even if only as a task to encourage thinking outside of the box.