/lit/ - Literature

>>6325042
>naive moral relativists

>>6325045
>what anime is this?

>>6325052
I don't know, I just saved it from a smug reaction pic thread

>>6325042
/lit/ - literature

The only objective morality is empathy.

"Morality is relative" Is this statement morally objective?

>>6325231
No, it's tautological.

>>6325045
>Naive moral realist who just doesn't get it

>>6325231

"Morality is relative" isn't a moral statement you retard

see is-ought

>>6325042
Justify murder, child sexual assault, and other extreme cases.

>>6325244

There is no need to justify anything you retard.

You can do these things and there is no metaphysical thingy that will fuck you up. We need to make the things to fuck up those guys. If we don't do anything then there is no punishment for being 'immoral'

And how we decide which is moral or immoral depends largely on our beliefs. A african tribe where rape isn't immoral is a totally different perspective than the western society.

>>6325264
>he thinks justice is about punishment and not about prevention

>>6325042
>implying St. DFW wasn't a moralist

http://www.popmatters.com/feature/139756-the-ferocious-morality-of-david-foster-wallace/

>>6325279

If you can think of a literal start of the *justice*, it was simply a guy that did something that other powerful and influential guy didn't like, then he punished it for doing it, and made everyone think it was right to do so.

>>6325244
Moral relativism doesn't mean "everything bad is good". If you think of it that way, you're still framing the relativist perspective within moral realist thinking. Relativism is meta-ethical; it describes the relationship between moral statements and objective reality, concluding that no moral system can objectively prove superior to that of another person or culture. This does not necessarily translate to normative ethical beliefs; what the moral relativist would prescribe on a subjective level, just like someone who claims music quality is subjective can still have a favorite album.

For example, I can recognize that the concept of "murder" (which I will take to mean "illegitimate killing") has zero universal ground between individuals and cultures. A Jainist might consider a Westerner to be morally abhorrent because he does not wear a facemask to prevent him from breathing in and killing tiny insects. Cletus the Redneck might be okay with the death penalty, vigilante justice and military aggression, but consider abortion to be murder. If both of these people went back in time and spoke to an Aztec priest, he would think of them as selfish and cowardly for not practicing human sacrifice. The priest would be considered a vicious savage by a nationalist in Nazi Germany, who probably thinks of Indians as untermensch worthy of slaughter, but agrees with the Jainist on some points about animal welfare.

The above examples are stereotypes, but you get the idea. There are thousands of different cultural concepts of ethics that agree and disagree in counter-intuitive ways to someone from another culture, and that's not even considering individual differences where someone may detract from the morality of the collective. Across history, very few of these moral systems manage to survive centuries into the future without at least major overhaul to fit changing social norms, so even within a framework like "Christian ethics" you have a modern idea of Christianity that resembles very little of 1st century early Christians and isn't even consistent between different denominations and countries. Given how many platforms there are to stand on, how can we possibly detach ourselves from our ingrained biases in order to step back, qualify the criteria for moral objectivity that would serve as common ground in debate, and then codify the perfect moral system which we declare will last unchanging for all time and never run into logical conclusions that conflict with our moral intuitions? It seems ridiculous.

>>6325264

One can make certain "moral" propositions with truth values relative at the level of different groups, but constant and applying categorically within these groups. I accept a limit to differences though and wouldn't go as far as to justify rape within an african tribe, however I'd recognize the that seemingly conflicting lifestyles can be both moral while bound by certain level of obligations origining in their purpose etc. Meta-ethical relativism a shit.

>>6325231

this was a troll post

>objective geometry

May as well just make the leap to full moral nihilism. Bite the bullet and admit that there is in fact no limit, moral propositions are meaningless statements that have no grounding in objective reality and that things just happen, and that's all there is to it.

>itt: edgy teenagers

>>6325512
Oh look, it's the retard who hasn't read anything about ethics but has a knee-jerk reaction to call relativists edgy teenagers because /pol/ has convinced him being a reverse contrarian is where it's at.

>>6325554
I don't have a big problem with relativism (or error theory, or various other forms of moral anti-realism) per se. Harman's stuff isn't terrible, for example. But I think people, like OP and some others in this thread who think the idea of objective morality shouldn't be taken seriously and can be dismissed without non-question-begging argument are likely to be edgy teenagers.

>>6325606
The OP is a shitposter. He doesn't constitute the whole thread. You've contributed nothing to the discussion yourself.

>>6325279
>he thinks any human legal system is effective at preventing crime.

>>6325554
>reading anything about ethics
>thinking relativist arguments are convincing

Pick one.

>>6325834
>durrr, u are le wrong xD

I'm not even mad at OP but i got banned the other day for criticizing Derrida and the mods wont ban this type of shit. can someone pls explain.

>>6325264
>You can do these things and there is no metaphysical thingy that will fuck you up.
Entropy. Those behaviors are not sustainable.

>>6325379
Then you're arguing culturally moral relativism not moral relativism

>>6327541

I really like your axioms, please keep using scientific assumptions to prove or disprove statements

>>6327569

Yeah, play with your words all what you want, our point that moral is from culture and it isn't present in reality as an entity

>>6327541
>there is no metaphysical thingy that will fuck you up
Since when did a civilized society start basing what we ought to do and what is morally permissible based off of whether or not you will get "fucked up." That seems like a rather strange argument to make, anon.

>>6327735

>implying the disgust and guilt you feel when you see something *wrong* is not just a form of fear

there is your *fucked up*

>objective Truth

>>6327780
You know that it exists, you know that it exists before anything else, you know that you cannot deny either of these things. and you know that everybody else knows the same thing.

Moral isn't relative, it's arbitrary. Just arbitrary rules that govern how humans interact. Then, to some degree our usual moral of helping each other, reciprocation and shit is written into our genes. And of course some rules would lead to more successful societies than others. The moral we have is not objective, it's just hardwired into us and is working really fine. That doesn't mean there can't be other good (working) morals out there.

>>6325379
Anon, you don't believe in god; do you?

>>6327786
I'm not that clever a man and I don't see the obvious well, so when you make statements like that it just hurts my head. I can't comment much on what other people think, but I know my own thoughts and I just haven't put together these details that you take for granted. Why don't you just show me why all those things you said are true instead of just stating them?