![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 6 to 30 of 30. Go back in thread:
Posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2005, at 2:27:19
In reply to Re: Everything is relative, posted by Impermanence on March 9, 2005, at 19:43:35
> True, to say "everything is relative" is a universal absolute, therefore an oxymoron (God I love that word lol).
Yes, isn't it great :-)
>Maybe everything else is relative apart from that statement.
But why should there be only one exception?
(It is okay, there is a better proof)>To say morals are relative is also an oxymoron.
I guess you would only be able to say 'my morals are relative' or 'morality is relative to me' or something like that. But that has nasty consequences that you might not want to accept.
> There exists no objective grounds to base morality on sounds better.
Ok.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2005, at 2:31:33
In reply to Re: Everything is relative » alexandra_k, posted by Damos on March 9, 2005, at 20:29:12
:-) That was great.
> I believe that 'absolute' and 'relative' are simply labels/concepts that we use to help us explain our experience of and interaction with reality. Is the use of these very terms 'relative' to our experience?The difference between them might be more a matter of degree..
> It would be so easy to say "I absolutely believe that all moral are relative." But this would simply be me making a judgement based on my experience which includes interpretation, perception and reflection on direct experience and of the indirect experiences of others.Yeah. If everything is relative then even that is relative. It is self contradictiory, therefore necassarily false. So it follows that some things are not relative. What might those things be?
Statements that make claims (assertions) about the world like: 'There is a chair in this room on Monday the 23rd of January 2005' might be the sorts of things that are not relative.
Whether we believe it is true or whether we believe it is false there is a fact of the matter. It is possible to be right and it is possible to be wrong.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2005, at 2:44:01
In reply to Everything is relative, posted by alexandra_k on March 9, 2005, at 2:59:18
Ok. The point of this is that most people (these days) seem to want to be subjectivists about ethics. 'It is all relative' people want to say. There is no fact of the matter. Ethics is a matter of personal choice or a matter of what a society or culture deems to be acceptable and unacceptable. Who are we to judge others ethical beliefs?
This position undermines ethics completely.
So, I shall attempt to refute it.Consider the following claims:
1) The earth is not flat
2) There is life on Mars
3) Vanilla ice cream is nicer than chocolate ice cream
4) Abortion is wrong
5) Torturing babies for fun is wrong1) Is a fact. It is true. If people believe that it is false (like they used to) then these people were simply wrong. Believing it did not make it true - nobody literally fell of the end of the earth.
2) We don't yet know whether this is true or false. But there is a fact of the matter. We just have yet to discover what it is.
3) Is not a fact. It is neither true nor false in itself. It is the wrong kind of thing to be a fact. This statement is a matter of personal taste or opinion, it is relative to the person making the claim.Are 4) and 5) facts like 1) and 2) - or are they more like 3)? Is there a fact about whether they are true or false (like there are facts about 1) and 2) - or is it just a matter of personal preference or opinion?
Consider such things as torturing innocent babies or genocide. Are these things morally wrong, or are they acceptable so long as an individual / culture condones them?
If you think there is a fact about these then well done, you are a moral realist.
:-)
Posted by Damos on March 10, 2005, at 15:54:26
In reply to Re: Everything is relative » Damos, posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2005, at 2:31:33
> :-) That was great.
Thank you :-)
> Yeah. If everything is relative then even that is relative. It is self contradictiory, therefore necassarily false. So it follows that some things are not relative. What might those things be?The sky is absolute. Clouds and rainbows are relative - they are not actually in or of the sky, nor does the sky cease to exist due to there appearance.
Imperperance is a fact (in my opinion). Even something as seeming permanent as the Earth shakes every now and then to let us know she is changing and not to get complacent.
> Statements that make claims (assertions) about the world like: 'There is a chair in this room on Monday the 23rd of January 2005' might be the sorts of things that are not relative.
But if I did not directly experience the existance of the chair in that room on Monday the 23rd of January 2005, the truth of this statement is only relative.
> Whether we believe it is true or whether we believe it is false there is a fact of the matter. It is possible to be right and it is possible to be wrong.There you go an absolute fact: It is possible to be both right and wrong about anything. :0)
P.S: I think you copped a pretty rough go over on the meds board.
Posted by jay on March 10, 2005, at 20:28:13
In reply to Re: Another go..., posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2005, at 2:44:01
> Ok. The point of this is that most people (these days) seem to want to be subjectivists about ethics. 'It is all relative' people want to say. There is no fact of the matter. Ethics is a matter of personal choice or a matter of what a society or culture deems to be acceptable and unacceptable. Who are we to judge others ethical beliefs?
>
> This position undermines ethics completely.
> So, I shall attempt to refute it.
>
> Consider the following claims:
>
> 1) The earth is not flat
> 2) There is life on Mars
> 3) Vanilla ice cream is nicer than chocolate ice cream
> 4) Abortion is wrong
> 5) Torturing babies for fun is wrong
>
> 1) Is a fact. It is true. If people believe that it is false (like they used to) then these people were simply wrong. Believing it did not make it true - nobody literally fell of the end of the earth.
> 2) We don't yet know whether this is true or false. But there is a fact of the matter. We just have yet to discover what it is.
> 3) Is not a fact. It is neither true nor false in itself. It is the wrong kind of thing to be a fact. This statement is a matter of personal taste or opinion, it is relative to the person making the claim.
>
> Are 4) and 5) facts like 1) and 2) - or are they more like 3)? Is there a fact about whether they are true or false (like there are facts about 1) and 2) - or is it just a matter of personal preference or opinion?
>
> Consider such things as torturing innocent babies or genocide. Are these things morally wrong, or are they acceptable so long as an individual / culture condones them?
>
> If you think there is a fact about these then well done, you are a moral realist.
>
> :-)OK...first off...I am not the sharpest of the bunch when it comes to social quantitative data....but I really do love social scientific research. I love the outcome, but I hate going through the stages. I have pulled some of this stuff out from text's, just because I really think you bring up good examples, and allow me to prove my hypothesis:-)A good physical/social scientist knows the place to start is with the scientific method. And you know what that means..it scientific method involves the following steps: doing research, identifying the problem, stating a hypothesis, conducting project experimentation, and reaching a conclusion.
A good scientist is observant and notices thing in the world around him/herself. (S)he sees, hears, or in some other way notices what’s going on in the world and becomes curious about what’s happening. This can and does include reading and studying what others have done in the past because scientific knowledge is cumulative. In physics, when Newton came up with his Theory of Motion, he based his hypothesis on the work of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo as well as his own, newer observations. Darwin not only observed and took notes during his voyage, but he also studied the practice of artificial selection and read the works of other naturalists to form his Theory of Evolution.
For centuries, people based their beliefs on their interpretations of what they saw going on in the world around them without testing their ideas to determine the validity of these theories — in other words, they didn’t use the scientific method to arrive at answers to their questions. Rather, their conclusions were based on untested observations.
Among these ideas, since at least the time of Aristotle (4th Century BC), people (including scientists) believed that simple living organisms could come into being by spontaneous generation. This was the idea that non-living objects can give rise to living organisms. It was common “knowledge” that simple organisms like worms, beetles, frogs, amd salamanders could come from dust, mud, etc., and food left out, quickly “swarmed” with life.
OK..torturing innocent babies.
From my vantage point I am going to guess that people torture baby's due to a childhood of abuse that the now-adult abuser is mirroring. (There is my Hypothesis) My knowledge on this topic comes from my experience of being a social worker for 15 years. (And I could list some references..da da..da..you get the idea.)
First off, I wanted to identify the Independent Variable as being "abusive" meaning there where signs of physical abuse done to the parent who has "abused" their child.(Or whoever.) The dependent variable is the end-product, whether or not abused kids become abusive parent.
Do, I go to Children's Aid Society, and I look up 500 cases where the children/child has been harmed. I copy the parents (or whomever) abusers names down. I then look into the history of the parent (which most CAS's have), and use access to databases of all levels of police, legal and various other institutions at all levels across the country.(Presuming the parent/abuser was born and raised in that country...but CAS's do have international access to databases.
After collecting information on the abuser, and this includes abusers I could not find info on, , I find about 120 cases in which the abuser was themselves abused.
Then I look into 500 cases where the abuser seems to have come from a fairly functional family. (I will define that as being non-abused, but this degrades the research because like above, the abuser or innocent parent/guardian may not be widely represented in the research..limiting it in scope, which obviously could miss data on abusers and non-abusive parents.
So, of the abusers who have not come from an abusive environment (or have never been reported), I came up with 200 cases of what appears to be a non-abusive environment.
My conclusion might be that there seems not to be a strong co-relation between abusive people
and their latter turning to being abusive. So, no, my hypothesis is proven wrong. I go to replicate it. Same results. No, I am not going to graph it all..and blah blah (I am working on a school project...and this post took a bit.)It may not be the most sound example, but there is plenty you can find out using the scientific method in both social and hard science.
Again, this example really wouldn't be good..lacking validity because of it's lack of sample size and I also didn't use a control.Again, I just say the scientific experiment is really a great tool. That is all I wanted to show (mechanism wise...because hyothesis that don't gel to your conclusion can lead into interesting scientific experiments as well.)
Jay
Posted by Impermanence on March 11, 2005, at 3:51:55
In reply to Re: Another go..., posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2005, at 2:44:01
> 1) The earth is not flat
> 2) There is life on Mars
> 3) Vanilla ice cream is nicer than chocolate ice cream
> 4) Abortion is wrong
> 5) Torturing babies for fun is wrong1. Is fact if you choose to believe science as I do but I've never actually been in space or traveled all around the world in a strait line so I can't prove it myself lol.
2. Is a theory, yet to be proven.
3. Is an opinion relative to the person making the claim.
4. Is an opinion relative to the person making the claim.
5. Is an opinion relative to the person making the claim.
Posted by B2chica on March 11, 2005, at 17:34:47
In reply to Re: Another go... » alexandra_k, posted by jay on March 10, 2005, at 20:28:13
this conversation has sparked me. very interesting.
please know that i don't mean harm by this...
ok, everyone is going to hate me on this one but for some reason i have to add. plus i'm used to playing devil's advocate, so here goes. re: torturing babies...child abuse...-what constitutes abuse? state federal laws, based on opinions, guidelines created by people...therefore relative. the laws could be considered absolute but the act or receiving of the act(s) could only be relative.
-the feelings could be absolute cuz here we are, -but technically their relative-based on our thresholds right?? or are they?-how bad is bad before it's abuse. laws have only recently considered neglect abuse. relative?
-what constitutes CSA.
if because of a few 'missing words' your 'incident' was not legally described as CSA but you suffer the same affects- is the term/label relative or absolute? are the affects relative or absolute?b2c.
> OK..torturing innocent babies.
>
> From my vantage point...
> First off, I wanted to identify the Independent Variable as being "abusive" meaning there where signs of physical abuse done to the parent who has "abused" their child.(Or whoever.) The dependent variable is the end-product, whether or not abused kids become abusive parent.
> Jay
Posted by zeugma on March 11, 2005, at 18:48:09
In reply to Re: Another go..., posted by Impermanence on March 11, 2005, at 3:51:55
ok, I'll try this one out: what does' 'relative' mean?
"Morality is relative' puts 'relative' in predicative position. Whereas in the statement '
Relative to the earth, the planets appear to move backwards at times', 'relative' is part of an adverbial phrase, and adverbs are 'operators' such as 'earlier' (this means that event e occurred previous to time t) or 'possibly'. As in, ‘Possibly the next president of the U.S. will be a Democrat.’ This means that there is a possible world, accessible to our own, in which the next President will be a Democrat. ‘Earlier’ and ‘possibly’, then, don’t denote concepts, which are either true or false (assuming bivalence) of objects within a domain, but are rather ‘quantifiers’, which denote relations between sets. Since I am lapsing, as is my wont, into jargon, (and I am also someone who EASILY loses track of what he is saying- IRL half my sentences trail off- that’s why I have a hard time IRL…) I’ll concretize this a bit:1) I got up earlier than usual that morning,.
‘Earlier’ here means that there is a relation between the set of events that include the getting up, and the set of events that don’t; here, those are the events arranged on a 24-hour temporal scheme, such that waking up at 4 am would qualify as ‘earlier’, and waking up at 5 am wouldn’t; hence, that there is a specific relation that obtains between two sets of actions. Compare this with (2):
(2) The carpet is green.
This means that an object (the carpet) is included in the set of objects that are green. It does not signify that there is any relation between sets, in the way that the set of actions that include getting up at 4 am relates to the set of events that include getting up at 5 am (viz., that one set is earlier than the other, relative to a 24-hour temporal scheme).
(3) The planets appear to move backwards at times, relative to the earth.
In (3) the phrase ‘relative to the earth’ likewise contrasts one set of appearances (those glimpsed from the earth) with another ( those obtainable from other vantage points); ‘contrasts‘ denotes the type of relation that holds between the sets (viz., that they are not identical).. The statement (4)
(4) The planets appear to move backwards.
Is true when considered from the vantage point of earth, but false when considered from a position outside the solar system. Thus, (4) resembles (1) in that it is ‘relativized’ to a set. (1) is relativized to a particular arrangement of the 24-hour temporal sequence: anything earlier than 5 am I constitutes the set that is ‘earlier than usual’ (note that ‘earlier than usual’ is a predicate) for me. Because the 24-hour sequence itself is an object which is accessible to participants in this discourse, the relativization implicit in (1) does not make it ‘relative’ in the sense intended in (5):
(5) Morality is relative.
Is it fair to paraphrase this as (6):
(6) Morality is relative to what individuals (groups, cultures, etc.) consider right and wrong?
Then, what (5) means is that there are diverse standards of what is considered right and wrong by individuals (etc.), just as we have different standards of what constitutes ‘earlier than usual’ for waking times.
The difference is that there is a 24-hour temporal scheme that we all can use; hence, statements that invoke the temporal scheme are ‘objective.’ There is also a spatial scheme in which we can identify our position as being within (or outside) the earth’s perspective; hence, (3) is also ‘objective.’ (6), however, contains the clause
(7) What I (groups, cultures, etc.) consider right and wrong.
While it is a matter of fact, and hence ‘objective,’ that I consider morality not relative in the same way that the appearance of retrograde planetary movement is, the truth of my belief itself notoriously is not. What this means is that it is true that I hold to the aforementioned belief, but the clausal complement, the ‘oblique’ part, does not contribute to the truth of (6) in the way that there has to be a 24-hour temporal scheme that I adhere to for in order for (1) to be true (hence, the scheme contributes to the truth of (1), in fact without it (1) is unintelligible).What this means is that we cannot infer from such statements as (8)
(8) Everyone thinks that morality is relative
That morality is in fact relative, any more than we can infer from
(9) Blake thought that the earth was flat
That the earth is in fact flat. Statements about morality, I would argue, contain oblique components, and this is how (5), (6), (8), and (9) differ from (1) and (3), which also contain ‘relativized’ elements. That is why a statement such as (5) has to be evaluated in a different way, and why it cannot be straightforwardly true or false in the way that the others can.
-z
Posted by alexandra_k on March 11, 2005, at 20:24:08
In reply to Re: Everything is relative, posted by Damos on March 10, 2005, at 15:54:26
> > Statements that make claims (assertions) about the world like: 'There is a chair in this room on Monday the 23rd of January 2005' might be the sorts of things that are not relative.
> But if I did not directly experience the existance of the chair in that room on Monday the 23rd of January 2005, the truth of this statement is only relative.
Suppose we specify a particular time and place. You say 'there was at least one chair in the room then' I say 'no there was not'. Do you think it is fair to say that one of us was right and the other was wrong - whether or not either of us were in the room? What I am getting at here is the idea that we make claims about the world and those claims can be true or false independently of whether we know whether they are true or false. Some things are uncontroversially true like 'you can buy coffee from starbucks' and 2+2=4. I am wondering if statements of ethics are true or false in a similar way or not. So when I say 'abortion is wrong' my statement is either true or false - and some people are just wrong in their opinion. Whether we can ever find out the fact of the matter is a seperate question from their actually being a fact of the matter. Some facts may be inaccessible to us.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 11, 2005, at 21:02:22
In reply to Re: Another go... » alexandra_k, posted by jay on March 10, 2005, at 20:28:13
Thanks for that. That was an interesting account of the scientific method and how it can be used to falsify / lend support to scientific hypotheses such as 'being abused as a child tends to lead to abusing children'.
If you make a claim like 'culture x believes that torturing babies for fun is morally acceptable' then you can attempt to falsify or lend support to this claim by conducting a survey or whatever.
In asking whether anyone believes it is acceptable or not; whether any culture believes it is acceptable or not you are asking psychological or anthropological or sociological questions that can be answered via scientific method. If you want to know why some people do this then you can attempt to answer that by using the scientific method to falsify / lend support to hypotheses, as you explained.But what we want to know is:
Is it wrong to torture babies for fun?
(not why do people do it - but is what they are doing a morally reprehensible thing to do?)
The scientific method doesn't really apply that one. The study of literature, aesthetics, religion, consciousness (IMO), and ethics transcend available scientific method. Will there ever be a science of ethics? We will need to develop scientific method considerably first...
(The role of thought experiments - those nasty cases considered in the above threads is part of the methodology of ethics. We 'test' a theory by seeing what 'verdict' it delivers if we 'input' a particular situation into the theory and ask what the theory tells us we 'should' do. Then we test the verdict against out intuition as to what is and is not acceptable and either refine the theory or revise our intuitions... and that is how ethical theories progress and our 'knowledge of ethical rights and wrongs' accumulates. But I digress. -Just wanted to point out that there are methods that do sort of approximate or resemble scientific ones... But to consider that it is possible to study ethics 'scientifically' then that kind of presupposes that there will be consensus in the end. That different people studying the same thing independently will hit upon the 'same thing'. That there are universal ethical truths the same way that there are universal laws of nature - even though we might not know what they are yet.)
Suppose everyone in the world (but you) believed it was perfectly acceptable.
Wouldn't you want to say that all those people are wrong?
I would say that people are attracted to relativism because they believe it promotes tolerance.
But saying 'oh well, if you believe torturing babies for fun is acceptable because ethics is all a matter of personal preference and who am I to judge you' then that is being a little too tolerant IMO.
We need to draw the line...
Posted by alexandra_k on March 11, 2005, at 21:50:17
In reply to Re: Another go..., posted by Impermanence on March 11, 2005, at 3:51:55
> > 1) The earth is not flat
> > 2) There is life on Mars
> > 3) Vanilla ice cream is nicer than chocolate ice cream
> > 4) Abortion is wrong
> > 5) Torturing babies for fun is wrong
>
> 1. Is fact if you choose to believe science as I do but I've never actually been in space or traveled all around the world in a strait line so I can't prove it myself lol.Ok. All you really need to agree with is that there is a fact of the matter. It is either true or it is false. Regardless of whether we have seen it ourself or can prove it ourself. Regardless of whether scientists change their mind - it is either true or false. (current best evidence suggests that it is true)
> 2. Is a theory, yet to be proven.Well... It is a statement. We don't know whether the statement is true or whether it is false. The idea is simply that there is a fact of the matter that we have yet to discover.
> 3. Is an opinion relative to the person making the claim.Yup. 'It is all a matter of taste' (pun intended).
> 4. Is an opinion relative to the person making the claim.
> 5. Is an opinion relative to the person making the claim.Ok. What about if someone tells you this and they are sincere:
'I think it is perfectly acceptable to torture children. Not for any reason other than that I find it enjoyable'.
Do you want to say
1) That is their opinion and they are entitled to it and I cannot say that they are wrong.
or do you want to say
2) torturing children for fun is morally reprehensible whether this person realises it or not that is a bad thing to do.If 1) you are a relativist
If 2) you are a realist (there are at least some universal moral truths).Relativism is typically believed to promote tolerance. But is there such a thing as being a little too tolerant?
Posted by alexandra_k on March 11, 2005, at 23:26:48
In reply to Re: Another go..., posted by zeugma on March 11, 2005, at 18:48:09
That was good Zeugma, I enjoyed that.
So there are shades of relativism (just as there are shades of realism) – to complicate matters slightly 
When you say that x is relative, then you are saying that x is relative to y
Or when you say that something is relative, then you are saying that something is relative to some other thing. So if you say ‘morality is relative’ then you are saying that what is right or wrong (as dictated by morality) is relative to something or other. Where it is relative to an individual, a society, a culture, or whatever.The way things appear is always relative to an observer. If you say ‘x appeared to be yellow or round or flat or whatever’ then it is always legitimate to ask ‘who did it appear that way to?’
The way things are in themselves (reality1) can be equally captured by saying that reality1 is relative to ‘the vantage point of god’ or ‘some observer who is miraculously not constrained by a point of view’ or ‘some objective bystander’ or some other myth.
The point is that we can never access that. An observer is always observing from some vantage point, some point of view. There is no such thing as an objective observer. And what that means is that we can never have knowledge of the way things are objectively in themselves (reality 1). Radical skepticism has shown us that (IMO)So what is left of objectivity?
What is left of the scientific enterprise?It is typically thought that science is about discovering this reality 1 – the way things are in themselves. But that (reality 1) is inaccessible to us as a matter of principle because we (people) are essentially constrained to a point of view and we cannot transcend that to access how things are aside from how they appear to us to be. Surely things are a certain way without an observer present (though there are problems there with the behavior of sub-atomic particles and co). But what is left of the project of science if we can never have access to the way things are in themselves from an objective point of view?
What science seems to be based on is the idea that multiple (trained) observers will agree or converge on their observations. These observations are supposed to be repeatable etc and it is that that shows them to be legitimate. The scientific method is a way of obtaining interesting observations (e.g., to manipulate things and then record what happens). Also about recording the whole process so that other observers can do the same thing and if all goes well observe the same thing themselves. What that method seems to give us, when all goes well, is how the world is relative to inter-subjective (rather than objective) observers.
Science, then, tells us about the nature of the inter-subjective world. How the world really is relative to multiple human observers who engage is systematic observation. I call this reality2. Inter-subjective reality. We can have knowledge of that. The final (complete) science should thus ‘predict and explain all the past present and future nerve hits (or experiences that result from certain kinds of neuron stimulations) of mankind’ (Quine, "Word and Object"). Whether the laws that predict and explain all that are actually to be found in reality 1 is essentially unknowable. There could be two or three or even an indefinite number of systems of laws that predict and explain the same observations of observers and there could be no further fact of the matter as to what the world is ‘really’ like.
But what do we make of the notion of ‘inter-subjectivity’? Is it realist, or is it subjectivist? I aim for the mid-point between both 
If you say ‘morality is relative to people (as moral agents)’ then IMO you have collapsed the distinction between realism and relativism.
You could try to say ‘if people didn’t exist then there wouldn’t be any ethics’
But it is also true that ‘if the universe didn’t exist then there wouldn’t be any science’
Ethics is the science (if I may be so bold) of what moral agents (human beings) should and should not do. If there aren’t any human beings (as moral agents) to act in the world then of course there wouldn’t be any ethics. Ethics is relative to human beings in that sense. But the issue is given that there are human beings (as moral agents) is morality inter-subjective (realist2) or relative to smaller sub- groups of people?The aim of science is often referred to as the ‘final science’. We may well never get there. But the point is that the final science will give us laws of nature that are able to predict and explain all the ‘past present and future nerve-hits of mankind’. I call my inter-subjectivity thesis a variety of realism. But I suppose I could also call it a variety of relativism. Given that I am aiming for a mid-point and all. But the notion is that I would like to do the same thing with ethics. The aim of ethics is thus the ‘final ethics’. We may well never get there. But the point is that the final ethics will give us laws of right and wrong action (at a suitable level of abstraction) that are able to deliver an answer as to whether any given action (in a certain context – which allows for certain sorts of cultural difference) is right or wrong.
So an individual can be wrong. Both with their observation and with their ethical judgement.
A group of individuals can be wrong. Both with the scientific theory of the day or with their ethical system.
In fact, the whole world can be wrong. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an inter-subjective fact of the matter.
With regards to scientific truths and with regards to ethical truths.E.g. ‘Joseph Black saw caloric fluid flow from object x to object y’
Relative to the scientific theory of the day (that heat = caloric fluid) the statement is true.
Relative to the scientific theory of today (roughly that heat =molecular motion) the statement is either false or neither true nor false because caloric fluid doesn’t exist (so he certainly couldn’t have seen it!)
The truth of scientific claims have to be evaluated relative to a theorietical framework.E.g. ‘alexandra_k diverted the train thereby killing someone and that was a morally acceptable thing to do’.
Relative to Utilitarian theory the statement is true (it was the best of the available options).
Relative to Kantianism theory the statement is false (killing people is wrong).But can we compare the heat-fluid theory with modern atomic theory and figure out which is better?
We seem to want to say that the old theory was false, and the new theory is true...
Can we compare Utilitarianism and Kantianism and figure out which is better?
Maybe one of the theories is false and one of them is true...Kuhn "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" says we cannot (in the scientific case) – but I think we need to be able to in both cases to warrant the idea that progress is being made.
maybe most things we say today are (strictly speaking) false - in the sense that very few of them will remain when the final ethics / science agrees.
I have faith that we will converge in the end.
But I wouldn't dare call it a justified belief.I think we got to similar places in the end, but via different routes??
Posted by alexandra_k on March 12, 2005, at 0:35:47
In reply to Re: Another go... » zeugma, posted by alexandra_k on March 11, 2005, at 23:26:48
Sorry. That did turn into an esay rather.
I hadn't really thought about the different ways in which we use the word 'relative'. What I wonder, though is that we might be able to analyse it into a finite number of different senses. Then if you take a statement such as 'morality is relative' then you can assign it a truth value depending on the sense of 'relative' you are talking about. So on some readings it would be true and on others it may be false and on still more neither true nor false - perhaps. I wonder if analysing it in this way would give each reading a determinate truth value.
Posted by Impermanence on March 12, 2005, at 6:22:38
In reply to Re: Another go... » Impermanence, posted by alexandra_k on March 11, 2005, at 21:50:17
You can understand that the idea "killing and abusing babies for fun is wrong" is relative, which It is and still have morals!! I could never hurt another living thing (apart from flies and earwigs). But I don't see someone who does as evil, I believe it's a combination of their conditioning and brain chemistry that causes them to act in such a cruel manner. I don't believe there is such a thing as good or evil, there just is what there is. Nothing is to be feared, it is only to be understood!! I have a deep inner love and respect for all living things but does that make me good? and let's say Hitler evil? I don't think so, if I grew up with what Hitler grew up with and I had his genes (and we know he was psychotic) would I have run around giving flowers to the Jews, I don't think so. Morals really are relative, I know this yet I still have a standard way of treating others because thats how I'm programmed and thats how that programming effects the chemicals in my brain.
Consider this, in India preteen girls are married off to men their perents choose as young as 12. Over here thats absolutely outrageous to most people and a form of child abuse. Yet over there it's completely normal behavior. That got me thinking if it was standard that everybody was abused as a child and it wasen't called abuse it was called experience, if it was as normal to be touched and touch as it was for your perents to wash you, if kids talked about sex the next day in school in the same breath they talked about toys or whatever they talk about. Would there be a problem? If christianity diden't succeed in making sex a dirty and shameful thing and it was a playful thing we were told about as babies would we still feel the same way. I feel sick at the idea of some bastard touching a child but I also understand thats my conditioning and in "my head" it's an evil, dirty thing. If nobody cried about it because it was something every single person went through and took it with a pinch of salt there would be nobody upset. Just like if every single person on the planet was poor and absolutely nobody had one cent more than the next person, would you ever really want any more???
When they used to burn witches it was a family day out. Everybody would gather together to watch them burn alive. The idea of a crowd of people in the western world watching human beings burn and enjoing it makes me feel sick, but they done it. In the middle east they have public executions and torturing all the time. You can download videos (I'll give you addresses if you want) of hundreds of people stoning a man and woman to death for having sex. People getting limbs cut off for stealing, tongues cut out for lying and on and on, I think you know what they get up to over there, and the crowd goes wild. Thats normal, thats their normal and was ours a copule of hundred years ago!!!
Ideas, philosophies, morals are relative to the people and cultures that thought them up over thousands of years. You can know this to be true and still hold morals yourself as a result of your own conditioning.
Posted by Impermanence on March 12, 2005, at 7:31:25
In reply to Re: Another go... » zeugma, posted by alexandra_k on March 11, 2005, at 23:26:48
"An observer is always observing from some vantage point, some point of view. There is no such thing as an objective observer. And what that means is that we can never have knowledge of the way things are objectively in themselves (reality 1). Radical skepticism has shown us that (IMO)"
I don't agree with that, I believe that many truly enlightened people have seen the world as objective observers and I also believe we are all capable of it. It's early for me and I'm too sleepy to type so I'm just going to pull an article off a website to elaborate on my point.
Within the last two years I have come to know a man and his work who run counter to my own simulations and by whom I am influenced beyond previous influences. In 1936, Franklin Merrell-Wolff wrote a journal that was later published as Pathways Through to Space. In 1970 he wrote another book called The Philosophy 0f Consciousness-Without-an-Object.1 In studying his works, and the chronicle of his personal experience I arrived at some places new for me.
Wolff had been through the Vedanta training, through the philosophy of Shankara; he knew the philosophy of Kant and others of the Western world; and he spent twenty-five years working to achieve a state of Nirvana, Enlightenment, Samadhi, and so forth. In 1936 he succeeded in this transformation and with varying success maintained it over the subsequent years. He is an amazingly peaceful man now in his eighties. Meeting him, I felt the influence of his transformation, of his recognitions, of some sort of current flowing through me. I felt a peace which I have not felt in my own searchings; a certain peculiar kind of highly indifferent contentment took place, and yet the state was beyond contentment, beyond the usual human happiness, beyond bliss, beyond pleasure. This is the state that he calls the state of "High Indifference." He experienced this at his third level of recognition, beyond Nirvana, beyond Bliss. His perceptions in this state are recounted in The Philosophy of Consciousness-Without-an-Object.
In his chapter "Aphorisms on Consciousness-With- out-an-Object" Merrell-Wolff expresses his discoveries in a series of sutra-like sentences, The first one is: "Consciousness-without-an-object is." The culmination of the series is that Consciousness-without-an-object is SPACE. This is probably the most abstract and yet the most satifying way of looking at the universe which I have come across anywhere. If one pursues this type of thinking and feeling and gets into the introceptive spaces, the universe originates on a ground, a substrate of Consciousness-Without-an-Object: the basic fabric of the universe beyond space, beyond time, beyond topology, beyond matter, beyond energy, is Consciousness. Consciousness without any form, without any reification, without any realization.
In a sense, Merrell-Wolff is saying that the Star Maker is Consciousness-Without-an-Object. He does not give hints to how objects are created out of Consciousness-Without-an-Object. He does not give hints to how an individual consciousness is formed out of Consciousness-Without-an-Object. The details of these processes were not his primary interest. His primary interest apparently was in arriving at a basic set of assumptions upon which all else can be built. In this sense he is like Einstein, bringing the relativity factor into the universe out of Newton's absolutes.
If we are a manifestation of Consciousness-Without-an-Object, and if, as Wolff says, we can go back into Consciousness-Without-an-Object, then my rather pessimistic view that we are merely noisy animals is wrong. If there is some way that we can work our origins out of the basic ground of the universe, bypassing our ideas that the evolutionary process generates us by generating our brains--if there is some contact, some connection between us and Consciousness-Without-an-Object and the Void, and if we can make that contact, that connection known to ourselves individually, as Wolff claims, then there is possible far more hope and optimism than I ever believed in the past. If what he says is true, we have potential far beyond that I have imagined we could possibly have. If what he says is true, we can be and realize our being as part of the Star Maker.
It may be that Wolff, like all the rest of us, is doing an over-valuation of his own abstractions. It may be that he is generating, i.e., seif-metaprogramming, states of his own mind and those of others in which the ideals of the race are reified as thought objects, as programs, as realities, as states of consciousness. It may be that this is all we can do. If this is all we can do, maybe we had better do it and see if there is anything beyond this by doing it.
If by getting into a state of High Indifference, of Nirvana, Samadhi, or Satori, then one can function as a teaching example to others and it may be that if a sufficiently large number of us share this particular set of metaprograms we may be able to survive our own alternative dichotomous spaces of righteous wrath. If righteous wrath must go as a non-surviving program for the human species, then it may be that High Indifference is a reasonable alternative.
Setting up a hierarchy of states of consciousness with High Indifference at the top, Nirvana next, Satori next, Samadhi next, and Ananda at the bottom is an interesting game, especially when one becomes capable of moving through all these spaces and staying a sufficient time in each to know it.
This may be a better game than killing our neighbors because they do not believe in our simulations of God. At least those who espouse these states claim that these states are above any other human aspiration; that once one has experienced them, he is almost unfit for wrath, for pride, for arrogance, for power over others, for group pressure exerted either upon oneself or upon others. One becomes fit only for teaching these states to those who are ready to learn them. The bodhisattva vow is no longer necessary for those who have had direct experience. One becomes the bodhisattva without the vow. One becomes Buddha without being Buddha.
One becomes content with the minimum necessities for survival on the planetside trip; one cuts back on his use of unnecessary articles-machines, gadgets, and devices. He no longer needs motion pictures, television, dishwashers, or other luxuries. One no longer needs much of what most people value above all else. One no longer needs the excitement of war. One no longer needs to be a slave to destructive thoughts or deeds. One no longer needs to organize.
Krishnamurti's story of the Devil is pertinent here. Laura Huxley furnished me with a copy of it. The Devil was walking down the street with a friend, and they saw a man pick something up, look at it carefully and put it in his pocket. The friend said to the Devil, "What's that?" The Devil said, "He has found a bit of the truth." The friend said, "Isn't that bad for your business?" The Devil said, "No, I am going to arrange to have him organize it."
So it behooves us not to organize either the methods or the states which Wolff describes so well. It is better not to try to devise groups, techniques, churches, places, or other forms of human organization to encourage, foster, or force upon others these states. If these states are going to do anything with humanity, they must "creep by contagion," as it were, from one individual to the next.
God as Consciousness-Without-an-Object, if real, will be apperceived and introcepted by more and more of us as we turn toward the inner realities within each of us. If God as Consciousness-Without-an-Object inhabits each of us, we eventually will see this. We will become universally aware. We will realize consciousness as being everywhere and eternal. We will realize that Consciousness-Without-an-Object in each of us is prejudiced and biased because it has linked up with a human brain.
Posted by B2chica on March 12, 2005, at 11:38:15
In reply to Everything is relative, posted by alexandra_k on March 9, 2005, at 2:59:18
Jung once stated that
'wherever the psyche is set violently oscillating by a numinous experience, there is a danger that the thread by which one hangs may be torn."..."the pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong."i just found his profound insight pertinant to this discussion of absolute/relative/ethics/right and wrong...
B2c.btw, this is one of the most interesting discussions i've seen in a long time. it's great to see/hear all these ideas and to know that i'm not the only one that contemplates all this stuff. there's so much of this in my head i feel like it's going to explode sometimes.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 12, 2005, at 16:29:30
In reply to Re: Another go... » alexandra_k, posted by Impermanence on March 12, 2005, at 6:22:38
>I could never hurt another living thing (apart from flies and earwigs). But I don't see someone who does as evil, I believe it's a combination of their conditioning and brain chemistry that causes them to act in such a cruel manner.
Okay. We can distinguish between the person on the one hand and the behaviour or the act on the other. I am not saying that some people are 'good' or 'bad' I am saying that some acts or behaviours are morally 'right' or 'wrong' or 'good' or 'bad' if you like. I am not interested in *why* they do what they do (a causal explanation of the act) rather I am interested in whether their act is 'right' or 'wrong' in the moral sense.
>I don't believe there is such a thing as good or evil, there just is what there is.
Yes. I have said the same thing before :-)
But 'good' or 'bad' 'right' or 'wrong' emerges relative to our interests. And aren't the interests of human beings (on certain levels of abstraction) similar enough for us to be able to consider some acts 'right' or 'wrong' - 'good' or 'bad'?>Nothing is to be feared, it is only to be understood!!
Judging an act to be immoral doesn't imply that we cannot understand it. That we cannot sympathise with the person who does it. But that does not alter the act being wrong.
>I have a deep inner love and respect for all living things but does that make me good? and let's say Hitler evil? I don't think so, if I grew up with what Hitler grew up with and I had his genes (and we know he was psychotic) would I have run around giving flowers to the Jews, I don't think so.
Once again, we can distinguish between the act and the person. Giving a causal explanation doesn't preclude our considering the act to be wrong. Consider 'annihilating 6 million Jews was a morally bad thing to do'. That doesn't commit us to saying that Hitler was an 'evil' person but it does commit us to saying that that action was morally unacceptable.
>Morals really are relative, I know this yet I still have a standard way of treating others because thats how I'm programmed and thats how that programming effects the chemicals in my brain.
But we can distinguish between what people do in actual fact to and what people should do to behave according to morality. Sometimes people do things that are immoral. Consider lying, breaking promices etc etc.
> Consider this, in India preteen girls are married off to men their perents choose as young as 12. Over here thats absolutely outrageous to most people and a form of child abuse.All hangs on what sorts of things count as 'child abuse' and that is a slippery notion. Thoughout history different things have counted and not counted as abuse. I guess it might be a universal moral law that 'abuse is a wrong thing to do' but figuring out which acts count as abuse is a very hard matter indeed. I guess we look at the CONSEQUENCES of the acts, typically. If someone is traumatised and suffers because of it then it was wrong. If it works out for the good of the individual (as it may well do in at least some cases in india) then it would be morally acceptable.
Ian Hacking has written a book called ""Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality Disorder and the Sciences of Memory". The last chapter or two look at memory and definitions of abuse. He addresses the questions you are asking. You might be interested to read what he has to say (you might disagree!). It is an interesting account anyway.
But it important to make another distinction: Just because people do do things doesn't mean they are morally acceptable things to do. People do murder lie cheat swindle steal rape maim etc. But we typically consider these acts to be morally wrong. Figuring out just what counts as an act of murder, lying, cheating etc is a further question. And there are difficulties as you pointed out.
> Ideas, philosophies, morals are relative to the people and cultures that thought them up over thousands of years. You can know this to be true and still hold morals yourself as a result of your own conditioning.
So what we consider right and wrong is just what we have always been told is right and wrong. But can't we break free from that via questioning the accepted standard? And can't people simply be wrong? I would say that torturing an innocent child for fun is morally reprehensible despite a particular individual or even a particular society condoning it. With respect to what acts count as torture I define that as something intended to cause intense pain and suffering and the very point here is that the only motivation for doing that is 'for fun'.
I think that is wrong.
Whether anyone else agrees with me or not ;-)
Posted by alexandra_k on March 12, 2005, at 16:45:55
In reply to Re: Another go... » alexandra_k, posted by Impermanence on March 12, 2005, at 7:31:25
Consciousness is always conscious of something.
To be conscious of space (for instance)is to be conscious of space.
But you can focus your attention on something so completely that it becomes everything - I do have sympathy with the notion but it does (IMO) need to be explained fairly carefully.But none of that is currently part of the scientific method and so it follows that science cannot access reality 1 and all that is left is intersubjectivity...
All consciousness is intersubjectivity.
How the world is aside from consciousness is unknowable to us as a matter of principle.
In fact the scientists are sort of concluding that the world isn't one way or the other without consciousness - though stuffed if I understand how it is they can measure that!
Posted by alexandra_k on March 12, 2005, at 16:47:43
In reply to Jung once said..., posted by B2chica on March 12, 2005, at 11:38:15
> Jung once stated that
> 'wherever the psyche is set violently oscillating by a numinous experience, there is a danger that the thread by which one hangs may be torn."..."the pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.":-) Do you know where he said that (I am interested in the context in which it occured). I haven't read any Jung - unless you count the beginners guide to...
> btw, this is one of the most interesting discussions i've seen in a long time. it's great to see/hear all these ideas and to know that i'm not the only one that contemplates all this stuff. there's so much of this in my head i feel like it's going to explode sometimes.:-)
me too...
Posted by zeugma on March 13, 2005, at 15:27:16
In reply to Re: Zeugma, posted by alexandra_k on March 12, 2005, at 0:35:47
it sounds like you like Habermas as much as I like Armstrong :-)
I wonder if this has any bearing on the problem. But I think that a strong case can be made that moral terms, and hence judgements made using them, *are* holistic. But if they are holistic, then no two people mean the same thing when they use a moral term. Because no two people have the same relation to the culture in which they live, and it seems that this relation conditions how people use their moral terms and judgements that involve their use.
-z
Posted by alexandra_k on March 13, 2005, at 23:44:22
In reply to holism » alexandra_k, posted by zeugma on March 13, 2005, at 15:27:16
> it sounds like you like Habermas
Who? (I am serious). No way. Did someone else beat me to it? No way. No fair :-(
> I wonder if this has any bearing on the problem. But I think that a strong case can be made that moral terms, and hence judgements made using them, *are* holistic. But if they are holistic, then no two people mean the same thing when they use a moral term. Because no two people have the same relation to the culture in which they live, and it seems that this relation conditions how people use their moral terms and judgements that involve their use.... But then it would seem that we couldn't even communicate about ethics :-(
Don't we need to go with 'standard meaning' or something like that...?
Aren't you begging the question towards moral relativism (to a culture)?
Posted by B2chica on March 14, 2005, at 15:28:55
In reply to Re: Jung once said... » B2chica, posted by alexandra_k on March 12, 2005, at 16:47:43
yes, fricking AWESOME book too.
called: "memories, dreams and reflections" by C.G. Jung.
he autobiographied it when he was like 83 or 86 or something.i just got done with chapter 6...THE BEST!!! this is me! (scary thought, but true).
Enjoy
b2c.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 14, 2005, at 16:01:54
In reply to Re: the book is... » alexandra_k, posted by B2chica on March 14, 2005, at 15:28:55
Thanks. I will have to put it on my list...
Must do thesis eep.
But then I shall read that and some books that gg suggested to me a while back. :-)
Posted by zeugma on March 14, 2005, at 16:29:09
In reply to Re: holism » zeugma, posted by alexandra_k on March 13, 2005, at 23:44:22
> > it sounds like you like Habermas
>
> Who? (I am serious). No way. Did someone else beat me to it? No way. No fair :-(He's an interesting philosopher, who does a lot of work on 'inter-subjectivity.' I wish I had one of his books on hand (I don't, but it's lying around here somewhere). I didn't follow up on Habermas because he's too difficult. Philosophy of math is a lot easier :-)
>
> > I wonder if this has any bearing on the problem. But I think that a strong case can be made that moral terms, and hence judgements made using them, *are* holistic. But if they are holistic, then no two people mean the same thing when they use a moral term. Because no two people have the same relation to the culture in which they live, and it seems that this relation conditions how people use their moral terms and judgements that involve their use.
>
> ... But then it would seem that we couldn't even communicate about ethics :-(
>
That's the standard objection brought against holist theories of meaning. It does seem to me, though, that when one makes evaluative statements, one is presupposing a norm that is in fact the norm only for oneself; i.e. that the terms are idiosyncratic and relativized to the individual (or culture etc.)This is a lot more clear in the case of aesthetics. Is aesthetic realism a plausible position? I once heard a philosopher say that denying aesthetic realism is just an excuse for bad taste :-)It hurts a lot less to say that is aesthetics is relative (to an individual, culture, etc.) than to say morality is. More on this below..
> Don't we need to go with 'standard meaning' or something like that...?
>
What would be the 'standard meaning' of ethical terms? An action is 'good' depending on the criteria each ethical system applies to it; thus, Kant would not countenance lying under any circumstance, while Mill would say that it is the consequences that follow the act of lying that determine its ethical value. Ethical terms, like aesthetic terms such as 'beautiful' or 'ugly', certainly imply attitudes towards actions or individuals, but it is not clear that the dictionary helps us determine which objects are beautiful or ugly, much less evil or good.> Aren't you begging the question towards moral relativism (to a culture)?
>
Yes. But suppose that we say that ethics is not relative to culture. It can be relativized to cultures, in the same way that appearances are relativized to locations; but I'm skeptical that there is a moral framework like the spatiotemporal framework that allows us to relativize while preserving determinate truth-values. If there were one, though, do you think it would be 'inter-subjective'? Do you think that it would be the relations between subjectivities that would ground the framework, or could the framework be constituted in some other way?In other words, assuming that we don't have access to reality1 (absolute reality, as seen by God or a 'perfect observer') what would constitute access to reality2 in terms of ethics?
-z>
Posted by alexandra_k on March 15, 2005, at 1:39:26
In reply to Re: holism » alexandra_k, posted by zeugma on March 14, 2005, at 16:29:09
> I didn't follow up on Habermas because he's too difficult. Philosophy of math is a lot easier :-)
Hmm. Maybe that one is relative ;-)
> when one makes evaluative statements, one is presupposing a norm that is in fact the norm only for oneself; i.e. that the terms are idiosyncratic and relativized to the individual (or culture etc.)This is a lot more clear in the case of aesthetics. Is aesthetic realism a plausible position? I once heard a philosopher say that denying aesthetic realism is just an excuse for bad taste :-)It hurts a lot less to say that is aesthetics is relative (to an individual, culture, etc.) than to say morality is. More on this below..I still like the 'mid-point between realism and anti-realism' idea... Surely we want to say that the ceiling of the cistene chapel has more artistic merit than this:
:-)
(That is my pic of a face - see?) - and that that is a fact.
> What would be the 'standard meaning' of ethical terms?
Hmm.
> Ethical terms, like aesthetic terms such as 'beautiful' or 'ugly', certainly imply attitudes towards actions or individuals..
Ah. An expresivist or emotive theory of ethics. To say 'murder is wrong' just means 'I disapprove of murder'?
> Yes. But suppose that we say that ethics is not relative to culture. It can be relativized to cultures, in the same way that appearances are relativized to locations; but I'm skeptical that there is a moral framework like the spatiotemporal framework that allows us to relativize while preserving determinate truth-values. If there were one, though, do you think it would be 'inter-subjective'? Do you think that it would be the relations between subjectivities that would ground the framework, or could the framework be constituted in some other way?
> In other words, assuming that we don't have access to reality1 (absolute reality, as seen by God or a 'perfect observer') what would constitute access to reality2 in terms of ethics?IMO convergence... Convergence is the key... The way the scientists are supposed to converge on the 'final science' I have faith that the ethicists will converge on the 'final ethics'. Can't give you reasons... But I have faith. So it will be an inter-subjective convergence and then that framework will apply to all humanity. In the same way that there could be an indefinite number of final sciences that predict and explain all the past present and future nerve hits of mankind I would expect that there could be an indefinate number of ethical theories that we could converge on... But I think they would agree with respect to what acts are right and wrong.
Well. I am just dabbling in ethics really... But I like to think this might be true.
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Social | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.