Moral and Epistemic Relativism
 

Hiya,

So, instead of flagrantly derailing any more existing threads, I thought I'd start a new one. About relativism, concerning both what is right and what is true.

I'm curious about whether you think that what is morally right or what is true are relative either to cultural context or to individual perspective. Please feel free to treat either topic alone or to discuss both- whatever interests you.

My short answer is No. There are a lot of footnotes and disclaimers, but basically the answer, I think, is no. (Just as a personal aside, I find that this puts me in opposition, often, to those with whom I'm usually most closely politically aligned- that is, the left. )

I'll come back a bit later (after I finish yet another overdue assignment- ugh, what is wrong with me???), I think, and elaborate, but I thought I'd throw this out there now and just see if anyone was interested in the topic.

Thank you!

Emily

I would definitely be interested.....if I knew exactly what you're asking.

Will you put it in simpleton-ese for me, please???

Ha, well, I'm certainly not buying the 'simpleton' claim!

But let's see if I can express myself a little more clearly... I guess I'm asking whether people think that acts are right or wrong in and of themselves (or claims true or false in and of themselves), on the one hand, or whether what is right and what is true vary according to context. Do morality and/or truth mean anything independently of what individuals or societies deem to be right or true?

Hope that helps a bit. Please let me know, though, if not!

Thanks very much,

E

I disagree, what is morally "right" or "true" is entirely relative. Morality is a man-made construct and as such was moulded to whatever belief system it spawned from and, therefore, can only be "true" according to said belief system, but is by no means ultimately true (meaning it cannot exist without that system). Some morals are subjective according to culture or individual, however, others are more pan-human due to the very reason that they concern the survival of the species (a pan-human concern). Therefore, it stems more from the desire to survive (and the desire for those closest to ourselves to survive), a desire which exists in every other species.

I often find it strange the way people in marginalised communities cling to morality as though without it discrimination of marginalised groups would run rampant. I've actually found the case to be quite the opposite. Morality seems to have, at least partially, spawned discrimination in that it passes judgement (or worse) upon any act its own system deems as wrong. That act may be murder, or, on the other hand, it may be sex between two people of the same sex, or sex between two people of a different race, and so on and so forth. Oddly enough both sides, both the "bigots" and the "enlightened" seem to prefer to tout the other as undoubtedly immoral and their own perspective as undoubtedly moral. Why not use reason over moral codes? Who's morality is more moral and according to whom? An extremist who blows up a building or anything else is just as full of moral conviction as those who point at him as the epitome of immorality, the devil in disguise. What makes popular western or left-wing convictions more "true" than any other? Location? The mere fact that one happens to agree?

i think that truth, right, wrong, moral, immoral are totally subjective. if not, how could there be mitigating or extenuating circumstances?

i've long thought that the 'truth' is only what you're willing to believe.

i do make a distinction between true and truth. true would be an observable fact. truth would be more aligned with faith. for me. i don't believe in any universal truths. what works for one or some does not always work for others.

i think that groups of people who agree to live together (societies) make tacit agreements on what is acceptable behaiors and laws are made accordingly. those who are unwilling or unable to abide by those laws used to be banished. now, they're imprisoned.

i'll stop here, before i wander into one of my long time thought processes on social contracts.

Great thread, my egghead side is happy, happy, happy. :D

Thank you for your thoughtful response. You make several good and interesting points.

On one reading, it seems to me that your first paragraph assumes what it seeks to demonstrate. The logic here seems similar to this: Morality does not exist except relative to human cultures. Therefore, morality is relative. If the aim here is to show that an act can be right or wrong only insofar as people judge it to be, I don't think the case has been made.

However, if the crucial point you make in your first paragraph is instead that particular moral codes, developed and upheld by particular cultures, must be remembered to be cultural products -and not, a priori, correct in their moral judgments - I'm with you entirely.

In your second paragraph you make several great points. One of which is that conventional codes of morality have often been used to oppress marginalized groups. What I take from this, though, is that not nothing is right and nothing is wrong, but rather that the codes used to brutalize those who are different simply have it wrong when it comes to evaluating morality; that these codes are wrong about right and wrong.

I would also like to point out that, implicit in your argument, I contend, is the notion that discrimination against target groups is a bad thing. (And yes, I certainly agree :)) But what underlies that assumption if not a moral judgment? Isn't it the case that the tragic consequences you so rightly point out from the imposition of particular codes of conventional morality are to be avoided precisely because they are wrong?

I whole-heartedly agree with your last assertion, the point that we cannot assume that any particular agreed-upon moral code -e.g., conventional western morality, if there can be said to be such a thing - is correct. I think that that's the great insight behind relativism and I very much agree: We must not assume that familiar moral codes are correct. However, I don't think it follows from this that acts cannot be right or wrong. Rather, what I take from the idea is that we all have a responsibility to examine societal moral codes -especially those of our own society- with the utmost scrutiny.


Thanks again for the engagement. Very much appreciate it!

Emily

I really like this thread.

As I am reading and getting all scholastic (it's been a while) - I keep getting stuck on two things:

1. female castration
2. arranged marriage

I would like to say that I believe that cultural norms make things acceptable that are not acceptable within the confines of my society. But that just isn't true.

I am questioning whether it's more about how those in that society perceive the reality of their situations that changes how I feel about things or do I see it as absolute in it's wrongness and want to "save" people based on what I morally feel is right? Does one have to come first for me to be outraged?

For instance, I watch the tribal shows on the Travel Channel. Fascinating. As I'm watching that show I am not judging them. They do things and believe things to be true based on their society norms. I watch the show and the people in the tribes all seem to be happy with the way their life is....I don't sense that anyone there has a problem with their customs or rituals.

This is not true when I see things about female castration in Asia and Africa. I get outraged, and yet it is a social custom that tribes have practiced for years. I would never have known about the practice if someone hadn't spoken out against it. Would I be outraged if the women who are forced to go through it weren't outraged? If they went under the knife (or piece of glass or dirty can top ugh) willingly or happily even? There is no way to know since I wouldn't have known unless the victims spoke out in horror.

Arranged marriages happen on the tribal shows on the travel channel. Everyone seems happy enough. Some of the guys have multiple wives. I don't judge it. Yet, when I read about Subia Gaur who is 18 (& others like her) and fled for her life from an arranged marriage, I am outraged. So it can't be that I'm outraged about arranged marriages in general, I am outraged for those that are outraged...

lol I hope this makes some sort of sense, but the whole thing is sooo interesting. "Humans have a moral sense. They think they know right from wrong and therefore are able to do right from wrong." - Mark Twain.

Finally, something I feel comfortable speaking to. There are a few threads going here on the planet that are so heated that I do not feel like throwing my hat in the ring would add anything constructive, but on this topic I have something to say.

I look at ethics and morality and the comparison of the two in terms of how the language is used. Context is always the key to meaning. The word "moral" can have different meanings depending on the way it is used and who is using it. The basic context of the use of the word moral is the evaluation of the principles of human action. Sometimes it is specifically used in a religious contexts, but sometimes it is used independently of religion. In the religious context, a deity or religious path (God, or Goddess, or buddhist principles, for example) is brought into the discussion. However, it is a kind of discourse that can be used by atheists as well, and even say, a Christian and an atheist can discuss what is right and wrong and be talking about the same thing.

To say that these two contexts of the use of the word "moral" are mutually exclusive and only one is correct is to fall into the fallacy of reductionism. Reductionism can be defined as the attempt to reduce all explanation and interpretation of experience into one conceptual or theoretical framework. It asserts its own point of view as superior to others. It selects certain aspects of experience from which to draw its conclusions while downplaying the importance of (or in some cases even ignoring) other aspects which do not as easily fit into its theoretical system. I believe that the context in which a term is used has a significant bearing on its meaning.

The word "ethics" is more often associated with the academic study of morality and moral principles. However, the two can sometimes be used interchangeably. To say something is moral, one can also say it is ethical. The nature of language is that it is sometimes, and even often times, not rigidly used in a consistent meaning, but loosely and fluidly related. So one can say that while the word "moral" and the word "ethics" or "ethical" do not always have the exact same meaning, they both have family resemblances. (See Ludwig Wittegenstein's Philosophical Investigations for my source.)

As for the subject of moral relativism, my perspective is that the context of an action is the key to determining whether an action is moral or not. However, this is not the same as relativism as it is often used, including how some have used it in this thread. For the purposes of this discussion, I will assign a particular meaning to the word "moral" which I find to be a common thread in its various uses: to be moral is to actively seek the good, happiness and well-being of others as much as I do my own. I include the concept of "as much as" here because I believe that fairness is a moral concept that is intertwined with the meaning of "moral".

And now to the meat of my argument! Although I believe that context is key in dertermining whether an action is moral, I do not believe that morality is relative in its nature. Here is an example to consider: A woman drives down a narrow street in a residential neighbor hood. A small child darts out into the street from behind a parked truck just as the woman in her car approaches said parked truck. There is not enough time for the woman to stop the car and avoid hitting, and ultimately killing the child. Consider scenario #1: as soon as she sees the child, the woman slams on her brakes in an attempt to stop her car, but to no avail and the child is struck dead. Scenario #2, the woman sees the child run out into the street in front of her but makes no attempt to stop her car and avoid hitting the child. In both scenarios, the result is the same. The child is dead. But is there a moral difference between the two scenarios? I say yes. The woman in scenario one demonstrated by her actions that she regarded the well being of the child by attempting to avoid the accident. In scenario two, the woman showed no regard for the child's well being by making no attempt to avoid harming the child. The woman in scenario one was more moral than the woman in scenario two. The intent of the woman in this example is the key to determining whether the action is moral, and not strictly the outcome.

I believe that there are actions in this world that are absolutely wrong in particular circumstances (taking into account the intent). And some actions are morally wrong in any context. Torture and rape come to mind here. Some may disagree with me, but my standard for morality is the regard for the well being of others. Determining what is the best action one can take to reach that goal can be very complicated. Many people can have a stake in different outcomes. War comes to mind when I think about this.

A moral relativist can say that kicking puppies isn't strictly right or wrong, but only in the context of the culture one is raised in. So some people enjoy kicking puppies and if that is a tradition in their culture, then it is not wrong. I say, kicking puppies is morally wrong, period. It shows no regard for the well being of the puppies. I am not a moral relativist.

You can agree or disagree with me. The concept of morality has more than one meaning depending on its context, and more than one standard by which actions are measured. I am only using one particular standard by which to make moral judgements. I realize that the word "judgement" is a loaded word, so I want to clarify that I am using it in terms of whether a particular action is moral, and not whether a person is moral.

I have done a lot of thinking about this over the years, and in my studies as a philosopher in college. I am open to criticism as long as it is respectful, and interested in this dialogue. :)

I'm gonna dumb it down even further.

Now, we all agree that using a ladder to climb onto someone's balcony, steal their cat, and bring their cat home to live with you sounds like the wrong thing to do....right?

Just say that the owner of said cat had a long history of going out of town for weeks at a time and leaving the cat behind, that she had been gone for over a month this time, that the cat could be heard crying and was clawing under the door whenever someone walked down the hall, and the smell of urine and feces coming from the apartment was so bad that it could be smelled in the adjoining apartments. And to add to that several people from the apartment building had called the SPCA and all they did was leave notices on that person's apartment door demanding that she call them? THEN is it wrong to use a ladder to climb onto someone's balcony, steal their cat, and bring her home to live with you? Of course not.

Not that I've done that or anything. (The cat is fine, by the way. Although a little neurotic and clingy, and often breaks into the garbage can for food even though I feed her MORE than what she needs and she is now quite fat. I mean, um. What cat?)

But seriously, of course things like "right and wrong" are totally dependent upon circumstances. Stealing a necklace because you want it is bad, stealing a loaf of bread because your kid is hungry is not bad. Hitting someone over the head with a frying pan because you're annoyed is bad, hitting someone over the head with a frying pan because they are harming you is not bad.

Great posts. Thank you for your contributions.

I love the distinction that those who have posted are drawing between two different ways in which context might be said to matter when we evaluate the morality of an act.

1. First, acts which share a name -stealing a cat, or hitting a child with a car, to use others' examples- should be evaluated very differently depending upon surrounding factors of both intent (illustrated in the child example) and outcome (illustrated in the cat example.) I totally agree! Sometimes, this is what people mean when they say that morality is context-dependent. (I think I might frame it a little differently, and say that these acts, in themselves, are inherently different across these conditions. But that is just a matter of framing, I think...)

2. At other times, when people say that morality is context-dependent, they mean something entirely different; they mean that an act (even when all the particulars of intents and outcomes have been well-specified) has no moral value in itself. Rather, things are right and wrong only insofar as people judge them to be so. It is this sense of context-dependent morality, and not the first, with which I disagree.

Best,

Emily

I find it interesting that you say this. I am wondering if you mean the same thing as I mean when I talk about reductionism. If so, then might that evaluation be a judgement too? What I am getting at is that making evaluations about whether or not something is say, "discrimination" or not, is implying that discrimination is wrong, or at the very least that some people who pass moral judgments on others is hypocrisy, which is a judgment in itself and also implies wrongness. At least that is what I hear you saying, and if I am wrong then please correct me.

I believe that objective reason and moral discourse are different sorts of the use of the Language. As I said in my previous post, "judgment" is a loaded word. What I mean here is that for some people it can have a negative connotation. For example, to pass judgment on someone is to evaluate them harshly and by a narrow set of criteria which are unfair. That sort of thing. But the word Judgement has another meaning too - the act of making considered decisions or coming to sensible conclusions ("considered" here meaning to weigh all available facts first). And yet there is something lacking in this definition too, I think. Having all the available facts does not lead to one inevitable conclusion which reason alone can determine. There has to be another element involved to get from facts to a decision. I would call this element human will, or human freedom. Another way of describing this is to say that the bridging of the gap between facts and conclusions requires a qualitative leap of human will (See Soren Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments for my source).

It is my contention that reason alone cannot speak to moral questions of right and wrong. Moral discourse, while talking about facts, is not really about the facts but about what it means to be a human being. And further, that even the most extreme moral relativist cannot escape this human element, this qualitative leap. To say that there is no true morality, only objective facts is to make such a leap. The facts themselves cannot do this, only a human with a free will can. This is what Kierkegaard means when he says that Truth is subjectivity (see Soren Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript for my source.).

I would be happy and very interested to hear what you think Ender, and what the rest of you think as well. :)

i like context.

I need to post this to get the ball rolling or I will never post (I am somewhat shy of posting things of substance and I have to just do it)

At a very basic primitive level I think that acts are right or wrong in and of themselves. Not all acts, of course. I believe that for us as a species the acts that are “right” are the ones that preserve our survival both as an individual and as a species. As well as acts that preserve our individual autonomy (meaning that if I think it is right to enslave people because it will help me be a more viable human creature (viable meaning more likely to produce more successful offspring to adulthood and subsequent breeding) that is wrong because it takes another’s autonomy.)
Outside of this very simple idea of right and wrong everything else is a cultural/societal imposition.

My ideals of right and wrong are not based in a belief of a “higher standard” outside myself either by an idea of a deity or of some natural law written on our hearts. My idea of right and wrong hinge on autonomy and species preservation.

Somewhere mixed in here is also an idea that individuals who cannot choose for themselves, children, individuals who are mentally incompetent, delirious, unconscious etc have the right to be protected by society until they are able to make autonomous choices or in the event that they cannot make autonomous choices to be given as much leeway as possible stopping short of the destruction of another or self harm.

Oh, Emily, what have you done! Now you've got me started! My short answer is no, I don't think that many (perhaps most) questions of either moral (or ethical) and epistemic importance are relative. Like you, this puts me on the opposite side of people who are otherwise my natural political allies.

From a moral standpoint, it puts me at odds with people who are very well-meaning but come profoundly different answers on questions related to, say, how to answer the religious right. I believe that once you open the door to 'whatever you believe is true actually is true' you have just muted your moral voice.

Epistemic relativism is even more problematic for me and I have positively made a pest of myself on these (and other) message boards by insisting that while we can express whatever opinions we wish to, none of us are entitled to a different set of facts. According to epistemic relativism, if you *genuinely* believe that the Sun orbits the Earth then no one can really say you are wrong. However, I strenuously disagree with that idea because it is simply objectively true that the Sun is the gravitational center of this solar system and by any reasonable definition of gravity coming out of physics, it dominates its little area of warped-spacetime.

I have a LOT more I could say about this but I'll read through the thread before continuing on. I'd say "don't get me started" but it's too late for that now. :)

Here's the problem that I see with saying that morality is relative. Since you talk about marginalized groups, let's talk about some of the things that have happened to marginalized groups which have, at other times and in other places, been considered moral. Let's do the heavy one first and talk about slavery. If what you are saying is true, that morality is relative, then there are times, places or worlds in which American-style chattel slavery is morally acceptable. I would argue that slavery is immoral because it reduces a human being to a mere object and that it is wrong to reduce human beings to mere objects. I would say that this is grounded in our basic humanness, people WANT to be self-determining and self-actualizing and slavery prevents both by its very nature.

Now, if morality is, in fact, relative then the above may not be true. If that is the case then one can imagine a population that has the misfortune of being enslaved becoming adjusted to that condition and, in fact, becoming happy within that condition. I would argue that I am not aware of any such population EVER having existed. My ancestors coped with being slaves, they had moments of happiness--the birth of a child, say--but these were moments of happiness that occurred despite the condition of being enslaved.


I think we cling to morality because we are human beings.

Might that not be putting the cart before the horse? Might it be that humans will find some reason to discriminate and will then backfill in the why of it, usually wrapping it up in the moral language of, say, taboo or uncleanliness?

I don't know about putting those two into the same moral bucket. One (murder) clearly harms others by its very nature while the other doesn't. I think that before society proscribes any given act 'X' it should always ask itself "is there some compelling reason why this should be sanctioned".

Well, that last question is the one I like to pull out on relativists, quite honestly. If all knowledge is relative and if all morality is relative, might it NOT be true that, say, Fred Phelps is correct and that all queer people are Satan-spawned demons bound for Hell? If whatever one believes is true is actually true then the only reason we might have for telling Phelps that he is full of it is that we disagree. For myself, I want a firmer intellectual foundation than "I don't like what you say and therefore what you say is wrong" to stand upon. Something similar applies to moral relativism. I would argue that, for instance, slavery is wrong--not wrong in the West, not wrong amongst the Left, not wrong when it's my ancestors but okay when it's your ancestors. Rather, I would argue that slavery is wrong because it violates something central, core and non-negotiable about human beings--namely that we belong to ourselves. That is true for my ancestors and it is true for everyone reading this post.

I warned you Emmy!
 

"...ordinarily, we think that on a factual question like the one about American prehistory, there is a way things are that is independent of us and our beliefs about it--an objective fact of the matter, as we may put it as to where the first Americans originated. We are not necessarily fact-objectivists (emphasis original) in this sense about all domains of judgement. About morality, for example, some people, philosophers included, are inclined to be relativists: they hold that there are many alternative moral codes specifying what counts as good or bad conduct, but no facts by virtue of which some of these codes are more 'correct' than any of the others...These sorts of relativism about value matters are debatable, of course, and still debated. However, even if we find them ultimately implausible they do not strike us as absurd. But on a factual question such as the one about the origins of the first Americans, we are inclined to think, surely, there is just some objective fact of the matter. We may not know what it this fact of the matter is, but, having formed an interest in the question we seek to know it..."

Paul A Boghossian -- Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism

I quoted him at length because I think this goes to the core of the matter (and, quite honestly, for the purposes of this discussion I want to keep to the issue of epistemology, in part, because it's the more tractable problem). I have often wondered if people who claim that all knowledge is relative and socially constructed *really* believe that or are they saying something that they haven't thought through all the way. If the former, then one might expect folks who believe that to, say, walk off of tall buildings. If all knowledge is relative, if there really isn't a world 'out there', then gravity should be culturally constructed as well. Yet, in all cultures, and in all times, human beings have been subject to 1-G of gravity. It wasn't until, what, 1962 or 63 that a human being ever experienced weightlessness for any length of time. Our bodies are products of 1-G of gravity pulling on us and 14.5 psi pushing us down from the weight of the atmosphere.

Now, some might claim that there are other, equally valid explanations for why things fall to the ground when dropped that doesn't invoke Einsteinian gravity but I think this is a kind of dodge. Take the two models (whatever they might be) and determine which of them is best able to deal with the behavior of various systems subject to the model. For example, the Einstein model of gravity allows us to account for things like gravity lensing where a star appears somewhat out of phase from its actual location relative to us because the light from that star is bent around a large gravitational mass (and yes, the universe really does work like this. It's been confirmed numerous times from observations taken during eclipses). The only model of gravity that can explain this is Einstein's. Newton's model can't although, for most ordinary purposes, we use Newton and not Einstein. The reason being is that Newton's approximations work well enough for the kinds of purposes we typically apply gravitational physics to. However, there is an exception--GPS. Because satellites are in motion and because the Earth is *also* in motion, GPS satellites have to take into account relativistic effects or else the GPS would be off--now, for your TomTom the amount of error isn't going to matter very much (I believe it's a matter of feet) but for military and aircraft navigational applications a few feet is all the difference in the world.

No other system of knowledge can account for this--the fact that other cultures don't *have* this problem is irrelevant here. Once a culture reaches a certain level of technological sophistication, they will have a problem that looks very much like the GPS problem and the solution will have to take into account relativistic effects. That's what I mean when I talk about a world 'out there'.

Do people who believe in strong epistemic relativism think that the Earth has existed for ~ 4.5 billion years? Do they think the universe has existed for ~ 14.5 billion years? If so, who was constructing the knowledge?