Moral relativism treats every moral judgement as equal. If you're a moral relativist, and someone attempts to murder you, you just have to say, "Okie dokie! Go ahead and murder me!".
Also, you're basically condoning the holocaust. Why would you do that? You vile bastard. — S
Oh yeah, also, passionately expressing a strong objection to murder is like casually saying, "I like cheese puffs". — S
.......
I am using the term "morality" as a rigid designator....
What counts as "moral" behaviour follows from one's notion of morality.....
It always refers to codes of acceptable/unacceptable behavior....
Is morality the sort of thing that can exist in it's entirety prior to language acquisition? If we follow current convention, it cannot, unless the written rules for acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour are not existentially dependent upon common language. They are by definition existentially dependent upon common language use. So, according to current convention. No. Morality cannot exist in it's entirety prior to common language. That would fail to draw the distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief. It would relegate all moral thought/belief as metacognitive in it's nature. But it's not. All deliberate oppositional change in one's original adopted morality is......
language is not required for thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. It is required for thought/belief about unacceptable thought, and/or belief.....
So here we must make some sort of decisions. Some may include.....
1. Deny....; 2. Deny...; 3. Admit.....; 4. Reject....
5. Come to the realization that the written rules of conduct consist entirely of and/or are otherwise underwritten by thought/belief statements.....
If all thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour counts as morality, then morality - in rudimentary form - is not existentially dependent upon common language.....
What is it (Kant’s a priori practical reason) doing here? — creativesoul
If the candidate had but one teacher or set of teachers all of whom held the same sort of unshakable certainty, and whose belief system actually glorified and looked fondly upon continuing to hold that belief even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary...
In these cases it ain't so easy to change one's mind. — creativesoul
Let's say hypothetically that the whole world is sat round a table deciding what 'The Law' should be........
(Herein is the groundwork for universality, re: the whole world, implying each and every moral agent)
.......and I propose "No one can murder me, but I can murder whomever I choose". You might say then that is not a very rational suggestion because if everyone adopted it my first desire.....
(It is not a desire, it is to be a law. If adopted, there is no possible desire to do anything but what the law demands)
..... (to not be murdered) would be logically frustrated by my second (that I may murder whomever I choose).
OK. The irrationality lies in the inherent contradiction. If the law became universal, was adopted as spoken by the whole world, the second part of the law is moot, because every single member adopts that no one can murder me. Therefore, you could never murder anybody.
I suppose the notion of universality incorporated in the maxim is in itself not irrational, but it is so improbable in its adoption that rather than irrational, it is the more rationally negligible.
Yes? No? — Isaac
Basic functional society is enough and that requires that we get the social environment right, not moralise. It's like trying to talk a cog into playing the right role in a machine rather than just putting it in the right place for it to do so. — Isaac
If we follow current convention, it cannot, unless the written rules for acceptable/unacceptable thought, — creativesoul
let's say that Joe has a love of a particular part of the Amazon — Terrapin Station
That which is moral is always a rational determination, so “one should not kill” is just one more in an constant barrage of them.
— Mww
Fine, but not only a rational determination, the subjective feeling that some law exists (I wouldn't put it that way myself, but I'm trying to use your terminology), must come first, and it is this which makes morality relative. — Isaac
Re "rigid designation," the whole idea of that isn't really worth bothering with in my opinion. — Terrapin Station
That’s fine. I think it worth bearing in mind, nevertheless, that any discipline predicated on non-contradiction demands something like it. — Mww
So for me the separation of thought from feeling and the privileging of one over the other, as expressed in formulas like "Reason is, and ought to be, slave to the passions" betrays somewhat simpleminded thinking. — Janus
My understanding is that Kant grounds the practical belief in human freedom on the universal fact of moral responsibility. — Janus
Is this what you were referring me to? — Mww
(It is not a desire, it is to be a law. If adopted, there is no possible desire to do anything but what the law demands) — Mww
The irrationality lies in the inherent contradiction. If the law became universal, was adopted as spoken by the whole world, the second part of the law is moot, because every single member adopts that no one can murder me. Therefore, you could never murder anybody. — Mww
Rather Utopian, though, isn’t it? Idealistic? You’re asking for something history has never given — Mww
Even if dialectic on how to improve social environment so it becomes right, what is that besides moralizing? If it isn’t moralizing, then we’re open to arguing such things as economy, boundaries, relative judicial systems, etc., in order to arrive at social environment right-ness. And all those have at their base, morality. — Mww
Interesting. How would you put it, and how does it make morality relative? — Mww
This is what you wrote:I'm physically capable of murder? - Well, that definitely could be the case for some and not others. — Isaac
I did not misquote you, because I was not quoting you at all. Here is what I wrote:But there's nothing irrational about saying I don't want anyone to murder me, but I shall murder whomever I please. — Isaac
Yes, that just means ability. Had it been in my mind to reference a permission, I'd have written "may." But you're off on a riff that is not even tangentially related to what I asked.if it is reasonable that a) you don't want to be murdered, but b) you can yourself murder as you desire, then.... — tim wood
But that's not what anyone is doing. Oh, wait! You're doing it, but it stands as a non sequitor to the argument, or any understanding of the argument. The whole question goes to reason, not to law or anything else.Secondly, even if one were to get around the 'can' issue. Let's say hypothetically that the whole world is sat round a table deciding what 'The Law' should be, — Isaac
Desire? Are you incapable of reason and stuck in desire? Here is how my post reads:Thirdly, the desire to avoid being murdered, and the desire to murder are not necessarily equal, — Isaac
I am sure you understand this. Why do you write as if you do not? I do not question what you can desire. I question whether you can reason.Not if you restrict yourself to expressing desires. How about as a matter of reason? Seem reasonable to you? Not, what do I want, but rather what is, at the least, non-contradictory? — tim wood
As a psychopath, or even as Issac, you can write any anything you want. You can even presume what you want about its rationality. I can presume 2+2=72. But none of this is what my post was about. You're a smart guy, how did you miss that? Or did you miss it?Fourthly, there is the issue of granularity. Even if, despite all that, we remain committed deontologists, but nonetheless psychopaths. We can simply re-write our law. I {people called Jim born on 15th July 1965, with brown hair, blue eyes and an evil mustache} may murder whomever I please, but no one without those credentials may murder me. Now, if I presume that is rational, then I may presume everyone else would reach the same conclusion, which is fine by me. — Isaac
It's hard to fit my world view into the language of your deontology. I talk about numerous desires, within a particular social dynamic leading to rules, but rules no more strict than the rules of grammar. I'm trying to translate that into your language so we can see if there's any common ground, but you might have to meet me in the middle, it's not going to work if you want every proposition translated into Kantese, some just don't translate, there are presumption contained within the language that I just don't hold to. — Isaac
Last things first. Kant is how all the above even happened. You couldn’t have thought any of that without the machinations in your head. The ideas are yours, the words are yours, the very thesis is yours, and very well may have nothing whatsoever to do with Kantian philosophy. The formulation from one to the other to the other are......ooooo yeah........necessarily a product of Kantian a priori practical reason. Can I get an a-MEN, BROTHER!!!!! — Mww
If the candidate had but one teacher or set of teachers all of whom held the same sort of unshakable certainty, and whose belief system actually glorified and looked fondly upon continuing to hold that belief even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary...
In these cases it ain't so easy to change one's mind.
— creativesoul
If that is true, then it follows necessarily that lacking any evidence whatsoever, what was not so easy becomes impossible. — Mww
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