Moral Relativism vs Moral Subjectivism (Meta-Ethics)
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- čas přidán 3. 02. 2024
- An explanation of the difference between Moral Relativism and Moral Subjectivism, which are often confused, including a definition of mroal universalism and moral objectivism.
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i think i'm going to have to watch that again a few times. impressively condensed! but also very clear
Nice video. Another useful distinction related to the subject of relativism is the one between agent and appraiser relativism
You should cover moral skepticism or ethical skepticism, as well.
Jeffrey Kaplan in his video about Russ Shafer-Landau's map of metaethics proposes another kind of distinction. Are these terms not universally agreed upon, our do I just fail to see the connection?
I think moral statements are not truth-apt because "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong" have no meaning without an end. Without an end, without answering "good for what" or "right for what?", these terms are completely devoid of any definable meaning, and so, a moral statement does not mean anything beyond "I (don't) want people doing this or that". In effect, most human groups' morality helps them to survive, it tends to foster group cohesion and relative inward peace, but it does that regardless of whether it's true.
To me, morality is "The Golden Rule" (which occurs in Multiple cultures). "do unto others, as you would have them do unto you"-Jesus of Nazareth. ""Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself."-Confucius (Kung Fu Tzu). Does it occur in every aspect of every culture? No. It is possible for certain sub-cultures to be morally depraved (any criminal subculture). Also, a close reading of those two quotes, and whether they mean the same thing would be an interesting video.
That's OK that you feel that way, but, just for the sake of offering a difference of opinion and not to argue "You are wrong/I am correct!", If the Golden Rule were to be universal and that is what judges that which is right/wrong, it should be provable in methods which are not Ad Populum (appeals to popularity) Simply saying that most peoples around the world believe in some form of a Golden Rule is no more a proof of its veracity than saying 1000 years ago most peoples on earth believed the universe was < 10k years old QED it was true. The aspects of society are not objectively "morally depraved" as though it corresponds with some essence or state of nature if they do not buy into some form of the Golden Rule, they are at odds with the majorities opinion of what morality is.
Imagine you wake up tomorrow to find 90% of your society and in fact all societies on the planet are pro LGBTQA+. Does that automatically make it moral behavior universally and you a moral deviant if you disagree with it? Mind you, length of time believing in something does not equate to veracity. People the world over believed the earth was the center of the universe for all of known human history until relatively recently (pun intended) So, would you believe yourself a moral deviant if this were to happen (assuming for the sake of this argument that you are anti LGBTQA+ not saying you are. If oyu don't like that, just take any moral you hold and assume you were in the minority the world over starting tomorrow)
The point here is that popularity and length of belief does not infer its veracity or validity as a universal and absolute truth or a correspondence to the state of objective state of nature (ie the speed of light being c in the vacuum of space)
You are simply bootstrapping your moral, normative, prescriptive opinion as a morally objective fact by saying that those who disagree with the Golden Rule are "morally depraved." Again, my moral opinion is no more/less correct objectively than your own; you are not a moral deviant because I find deontological moral claims like the Golden Rule capricious and vacuous at best.
Lastly, hypothetical here, let's say you were correct about the Golden Rule. What if I wanted all other people to speak their personal truth based on their opinions at all times; no lies of any size, little white lies or big black ones. Since I would want others to tell me the hard truth from their perspective at all times on all issues, doesn't that me that I would be moral in telling my hard truth, from my perspective at all times? Now, imagine I was a bigot and a racist and I hated Christians. I would be moral under the Golden Rule in telling black people, gay people, and Christians how horrible they were and wrong whenever I met them, right? I want everyone to tell me their opinion, their truth at all times QED I'm moral in telling mine, right? So me standing up in the public square seeing some kids openly praying to the Christian God Jesus and starting to denounce and belittle them and telling them their savior is false is moral behavior if that's how I honestly feel, correct?
Can somebody provide an example for "objective universalism" and "subjective relativism"?
I'll give a shot.
Someone might claim that the 10 commandments are objective moral duties. It is always wrong to steal regardless of cultural context. I think this would be an example of objective universalism stance.
Another person might view the claim that stealing is wrong reflects an individual's attitude about stealing. This might be an example of subjective relativism.
Would consequentialism works as a kind of objective relativism, given that the prescription it gives for each individual depends on the specific circumstances one finds oneself?
Not quite. The rub with consequentialism is that you need to assert your idea of what makes an outcome good as objective and universally applicable. The is/ought gap always has to be crossed somewhere.
Sam Harris has some talks where he insists he squared that circle with an perfectly objective idea of "human flourishing." It has so many fun holes in it that my meta ethics prof had us refute it as homework.
@timetuner You could say that for any relativist theory. For instance the statement "the right thing to do is that which aligns with one's culture" is a universal principle os it not. Perhaps not objective, but certainly universal.
@@jeremyhansen9197 Moral relativism isn't just that what is good depends on circumstance. It's that the meaning of good itself is defined by cultural context. No universal moral principal. As in its incorrect to say a human sacrifice is wrong if it happened in a culture that takes that to be a good thing.
@timetuner That is true of cultural relativism which is subjective, but as as the video points out out you can have object forms of relativism. Hence his religious texts argument.
@@jeremyhansen9197 ok I think I see part of what you're getting at.
"For instance the statement "the right thing to do is that which aligns with one's culture" is a universal principle os it not. Perhaps not objective, but certainly universal."
yes that's a universal principle. But that's an ethical statement, not meta-ethical. There's that sometimes-slippery difference between saying something is good and saying what defines goodness. The Euthyphro thing
Re "objective relativism" and the holy text, how are the words in the holy text not merely representations of the mental states of its authors? This position is still saying that the thing you ought to do is the thing that somebody says you ought to do, just the somebody in this case is whoever the authors of various holy texts are. How is this different from saying that what you ought to do is whatever somebody or some group of people who stand in some relation to you (your society, your leader, your god, whatever) want you to do, except that we've introduced the written record of their commands as a proxy for what they want?
Once it has been written down, its no longer subject to their mental states. The written word is separate from their mind and therefore an objective part of the world.
hello guys can y'all help me give an explanation qbout this for my reporting in school.
MORAL SUBJECTIVISM
• Moral subjectivism is the belief that what is right or wrong is
determined by an individual’s personal thoughts and feelings.
This means that there are no universal moral principles and
any criticism or argument about morality is invalid.
CULTURAL RELATIVISM
• Cultural Relativism is the belief that what is considered right
or wrong is based on the principles and rules of a particular
culture. This means that different cultures may have different
ideas of morality. We cannot judge the actions of individuals
in other cultures.
That’s the thing, if what moral subjectivism says is true, then moral arguments are meaningless. But we have arguments about right and wrong all the time.
Why wouldn't mental states be objective facts about the world? It may be difficult to verify, for example, that Smith intended to drown his cousin for the insurance money, but whether he had the intent is a separate question from whether it's verifiable. Aristotle argued moral responsibility requires awareness and control (although contemporary philosophers usually speak only of control, having folded the two concepts together).
Personally, I think the reason why this distinction is often ignored is because when people realize that moral statements are not based on facts, what reason is there to posit their existence? Couldn’t grounding morality in anything other than facts simply be brushed off as arbitrary and therefore not worth considering?
I would agree and would say this is inevitably why the end of atheism is a completely morality free society because there are truly no morals as they are simply arbitrary if not divined from a higher power. Sure there are moral systems but none are truly practical or apply everywhere
@@Tealdragon204Why would moral commands given by gods be any less arbitrary than those given by humans?
This division gets very messy very quickly, I think. For one thing, every mental state can also be viewed as an objective fact about the world. I am part of the world, and if I think that slavery is a great idea, then it is an *objective* fact about the world (specifically, about me) that I think slavery is a great idea. Every subject can also be viewed as an object, no? Secondly, whether the morality of an action is relative or universal depends on the abstractness of the description. "Do as your Holy book commands you" might seem to be relative assuming that we take it to be picking out some set of commands in some set of (differing) holy books, but it is universal at the more abstract level, since it is a command that applies to everyone. If two people are facing in opposite directions and both follow the command "turn to your left", are they performing different actions? Do they turn in different directions (north vs. south) or the same direction (to their left)? Similarly, everyone may be bound by the same law ("Do as the one God commands"), making it universalist, but the one God may yet command X to do one thing and Y to do something different, making it relativist, if we understand relativism as the view that what is morally right for a person to do differs from one person to another.
You also seem to slide between the idea that relativism is the view that the morality of actions *differ* from one person to another (seen at the beginning), and the view that moral relativism is the view that morality *depends* on who is saying them (seen towards the end). The latter is much more metaethically committal, I think, as it suggests that some aspect of the subject *makes* for those moral differences, not merely that there *are* such moral differences, and so ties relativism far more closely to subjectivism than does your initial characterisation. The example just given of the one true God commanding X to do one thing and Y to do something different seems to satisfy the first characterization of moral relativism, but not so clearly the second characterization, because the difference is not (or need not be) dependent on who is saying it.
You should do what makes you happy as long as you do not cause to another what they consider harm. If you do harm someone, you owe them compensation.
This comment did harm to me. Please compensate me now
@@Tealdragon204 Funny response. But, obviously there is a difference between what one considers harm, and what one claims is harm. As such, the burden of proof would fall upon the accuser.
@@InventiveHarvestAs much as you may consider it a joke. There is no end to what people can find harmful, if you do find the correct people. Some people are truly that fragile. Which is why I think this is more so a normative statement than a positive one
Eventually you would reach a point where freedom of speech was completely trodden upon for the sake of not doing harm to others
Unless of course you refer to only specific types of harm such as physical harm or financial harm etc... But then that must be specified
@@Tealdragon204 I think they would have trouble demonstrating that they were harmed by speech.