It does feel as though you lose something when you lose the 'Wrong' and end up with just a 'wrong'. What exactly is it that we lose, and why are we so reluctant to give it up? — shmik

We lose the ability to call on a power greater than ourselves that we can legitimately appeal to the other to recognize. Otherwise, we are left only with the sort of subjectivity that we feel has led our opponent astray. We point to a stable platform from undeniably shaky ground rather than merely invite the other over to our side of the fault line.

Of course, it only has any effect if they accept the premise that there is something stable to rest on.

I don't know. That's kind of saying nothing. Maybe there's more to it than that...

Maybe there's more to it than that... — Baden

Yeh, one of the reasons that I was thinking specifically about condemnation is that people are often not trying to convince anyone of anything at all. It's not as if people are constantly arguing with those who don't think Nazis were that bad. It seems like they lose something even if they cannot (objectively) condemn the Nazi's privately.

Wouldn't you say that the "power" of logic resides, at least to some extent, in all of us, and that this could be the undeniable authority we could refer to, in making a decision on some issue?

It seems like they lose something even if they cannot (objectively) condemn the Nazi's privately. — shmik

I get you now.

Do you mean the power of "reason"?

Doesn't it seem that certain norms are shared regardless of the society. I am specifically thinking of Justice. It seems that regardless of where one looks there is some conception of what is just and what is not just, what is fair and what is not fair.

That the perversion of law, of codified justice, made the Nazi travesties possible. The Enabling Act of 1933, enabled Hitler to bypass parliament to pass laws he want to pass.

It seems to me that a society can't be 'moral' without laws that provide for just solutions, the concept of Justice is/may be supra-normative.

One concern that comes up when speaking about relativism is that it doesn't allow us to condemn Nazi Germany. — shmik

I don't think it disallows anything, it merely allows that while I condemn them as bloodthirsty, racist bigots, they also condemn me a a weak-willed degenerate defender of parasites.

And of course all of us like to claim that God, evolution, science, common sense, justice, motherhood and apple pie are on our side, though these things do not generally express an opinion.

It seems that regardless of where one looks there is some conception of what is just and what is not just, what is fair and what is not fair. — Cavacava

How about if we look at Nazi Germany?

The concept of Right and Wrong were flattened out for ardent Nazi Party members, ardent SS operatives, and like kinds: The Fuhrer's wishes are the only fact that matters. The further a German was distanced from this black hole, the more one could exercise one's own sense of right and wrong. It was the task of the Gestapo and National Socialist Party to make sure that no one felt that they were too far from the wishes of the Fuhrer, or your local Gestapo operative.

For whatever reason personal condemnation isn't enough there has to be something else, some truth or objectivity which is on our side. — shmik

You're using "relativist" in place of "subjectivist" there. They're not the same thing. Relativists can think that morality is relative to cultures, for example, but not to individuals. So for those sorts of relativists, it's not personal condemnation, but cultural. Anyway, subjectivists do not think "personal condemnation isn't enough." They rather realize that personal condemnation is what moral condemnation IS, regardless of what anyone believes or wants to believe about it.

Another thought would be that without a Wrong we could never settle a moral discussion as there is nothing but conflicting opinions butting up against each other. — shmik

Without a Wrong, or a Right, I don't see how one could settle on one's own decision, never mind settling a dispute with someone else. There has to be some agreement on what it is that is most important.

If we pile up all the moral abstractions-with-or-without-concrete-consequences that we cart around with us, one or two of those values is going to end up at the top of the heap -- the thing that we reference most often to settle decisions within our own minds, or attempt to settle with others. What is most Right? For some it is Security. For others Wealth. Comfort. Motherland or Fatherland. Art. Peace. Knowledge. Victory. Sex. Independence. Food. Love. High Status. God. Liberty. Visible Success. Survival. And so on--one or two being most compelling for individuals.

People employ reasoning, but they are driven by emotions. The thing we really value the most is the thing that has the strongest emotional power. That thing is going to determine what we feel is most Right most of the time, and (I think) will drive our reasoning.

Love, Art, Peace, or Knowledge might be the thing we profess to value most, but it is more likely to be something like High Status (relative to one's peers) or Survival and Security that drives us. There is likely to be a difference between what we say is the most important value (like Love and Truth) and what really drives our behavior (like Sex or Comfort). A jarring difference would be the normal human situation.

So, we may reasonably object to everything the Nazis (or Communists, or Republicans) represent, and pronounce them Wrong, but what really makes us hate them as WRONG is that they are a threat to our own secure orderly life, our survival, and liberty to do what we feel like doing. Justice may not figure that highly in our motivation.

yes

The consequence of godlessness is an inability to assert universal rights and wrongs. This is the case despite the fact that the godless do in fact assert universal rights and wrongs. They just have no basis for doing it, which is a problem for the godless. Of course, being god fearing offers up a whole different host of problems, but it at least explains why there are god fearing folks.

My initial naïve conception of what is going on is that people feel like their views would be impotent without this foundation. But, their views are impotent anyway — shmik

I usually avoid ethical chats because for me, people often feel that expressing an opinion to other people is some sort of ethical act - when mostly it's just sounding off. Ethics are about how one lives and what one expects of others.

It does feel as though you lose something when you lose the 'Wrong' and end up with just a 'wrong'. What exactly is it that we lose, and why are we so reluctant to give it up? — shmik

I'd say that we should look into the justification of violence. An in-group has standards for how members can treat one another. If a speaker for the group as a whole argues that the group should take something from another group, simply because it has superior might, then this leads to cognitive dissonance. Why shouldn't the members of the in-group secretly adopt this policy within the group?

So we project God or rational universal principles that justify or sanctify greed-driven violence.

Another factor is perhaps that the individual wants to rewrite the luck of his birth and superior position in terms of something else. He wasn't just lucky. He's a higher being, closer to Right or at least farther from Wrong.

One concern that comes up when speaking about relativism is that it doesn't allow us to condemn Nazi Germany. — shmik

Does it prohibit us from bombing them in the name of our household gods? Maybe we have to distinguish between an abstract relativism and a gut-level active investment in ideas of what reality "should" look like. "We want things this way. That's enough."