In any event, what we need to focus on is why you can't get it through your head that relativists/subjectivists have preferences about behavior, inluding preferences about what behavior we should allow socially, and because they're preferences, they're not just going to sit on their hands and ignore them. — Terrapin Station
It seems to me that if one really believed that one can't be wrong about moral opinions, then one couldn't really do much of anything.. — anonymous66
I want to just focus on this for a minute, because it's frustrating that you don't see able to understand it. Why do you think that someone wouldn't try to shape things--culture, legislation, etc.--so that they're closer to their preferences? — Terrapin Station
Is that your answer? — anonymous66
Okay, I'll take your word that some people who identify as emotivists/subjectivists/relativists aren't going to just sit on their hands. What would they do, instead of just sitting on their hands? — anonymous66
Subjective relativism is the view that an action is morally right if one approves of it. A person’s approval makes the action right. This doctrine (as well as cultural relativism) is in stark contrast to moral objectivism, the view that some moral principles are valid for everyone. Subjective relativism, though, has some troubling implications. It implies that each person is morally infallible and that individuals can never have a genuine moral disagreement.
Cultural relativism is the view that an action is morally right if one’s culture approves of it. The argument for this doctrine is based on the diversity of moral judgments among cultures: because people’s judgments about right and wrong differ from culture to culture, right and wrong must be relative to culture, and there are no objective moral principles. This argument is defective, however, because the diversity of moral views does not imply that morality is relative to cultures. In addition, the alleged diversity of basic moral standards among cultures may be only apparent, not real. Societies whose moral judgments conflict may be differing not over moral principles but over nonmoral facts.
Some think that tolerance is entailed by cultural relativism. But there is no necessary connection between tolerance and the doctrine. Indeed, the cultural relativist cannot consistently advocate tolerance while maintaining his relativist standpoint. To advocate tolerance is to advocate an objective moral value. But if tolerance is an objective moral value, then cultural relativism must be false, because it says that there are no objective moral values.
Like subjective relativism, cultural relativism has some disturbing consequences. It implies that cultures are morally infallible, that social reformers can never be morally right, that moral disagreements between individuals in the same culture amount to arguments over whether they disagree with their culture, that other cultures cannot be legitimately criticized, and that moral progress is impossible.
Emotivism is the view that moral utterances are neither true nor false but are expressions of emotions or attitudes. It leads to the conclusion that people can disagree only in attitude, not in beliefs. People cannot disagree over the moral facts, because there are no moral facts. Emotivism also implies that presenting reasons in support of a moral utterance is a matter of offering nonmoral facts that can influence someone’s attitude. It seems that any nonmoral facts will do, as long as they affect attitudes. Perhaps the most far-reaching implication of emotivism is that nothing is actually good or bad. There simply are no properties of goodness and badness. There is only the expression of favorable or unfavorable emotions or attitudes toward something.
Generally, people who claim morals are not objective usually are using the word descriptively — Chany
It doesn't really work as a pure meta-ethical stance because it doesn't handle deviants or extreme minorities in moral opinions very well, but it works as a desciption of morality in a general sense. — Chany
It doesn't look to me like it works as a description of morality in a general sense.It doesn't really work as a pure meta-ethical stance because it doesn't handle deviants or extreme minorities in moral opinions very well, but it works as a description of morality in a general sense. — Chany
People don't act like they believe that morality is like etiquette or fashion. They act like they believe that morality is something so important that differences can't just be accepted (like differences in etiquette or fashion are accepted.)The cultural relativist is stating morality is like fashion or etiquette and varies from cultural framework to cultural framework. — Chany
(if people truly believed that morality was relative, then they would believe that others couldn't be wrong- if morals are relative, then the others aren't wrong. They just hold different views that are right... from the others' perspective. If they accept that the others are right, then by why would they care what they think?). — anonymous66
It doesn't look to me like it works as a description of morality in a general sense.
It doesn't explain the idea of moral progress. Or why people listen to unpopular moral reformers. Or why people even make judgments about morality. (if people truly believed that morality was relative, then they would believe that others couldn't be wrong- if morals are relative, then the others aren't wrong. They just hold different views that are right... from the others' perspective. If they accept that the others are right, then by why would they care what they think?). — anonymous66
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