Would it be morally acceptable to eat an alien?

[Jeff Robinson]

It's nothing like that, and moral relativism isn't stating "position X is both right and wrong", it's saying that ultimately whether position X is right or wrong will always be a matter of perspective for some people. That's always been the case, whether what informs the morality is religious in origin or civic.

Actually, the premise that "position X is both right and wrong" would seem to logically flow from your definition of moral relativism as “whether position X is right or wrong will always be a matter of perspective for some people”. If moral truths are simply relativized to the particular individual* then when individuals hold opposed moral views relativism does not provide any way to adjudicate between them. For example ‘Jeff Robinson thinks eating meat is wrong. Kabbes doesn’t think eating meat is wrong (at least in some circumstances). Because we cannot say that Jeff Robinson or Kabbes are wrong then they must both be right. Therefore eating meat is both right and wrong.’ This is fundamentally incoherent and misunderstands what morality is.

When I engage in mathematic reasoning, it’s to try to get to the right answer, not the right answer relative to me. ‘2 + 2 = 4’ is going to get me places. ‘2 + 2 = 5 relative to my own mathematical truth’ is utterly useless. Moral relativism is equally useless. We use morality to guide us in a similar way we use arithmetic: they are both conceptual toolkits for trying to navigate the world around us. Morality exists to guide our relations with others. If we each lived in our own separate worlds unpopulated by any other sentient creatures morality would be redundant. As we don’t live in such atomized worlds assertions such as ‘this is my (unimpeachable) moral truth’ are as arbitrary as ‘2 + 2 = 5 for me’. This solipsism makes moral relativism the opposite of morality in my opinion.

In most instances people are not moral relativists. They don’t think ‘Jimmy Saville was a scumbag relative to my moral standards but not to the equally valuable moral standards of the pedophile community’, they just think ‘Jimmy Saville was a scumbag’. On Urban heated debates take place because the contributors are not relativists – they think they are right and their interlocuteurs are wrong. It seems it’s mainly on threads about animal rights that relativist arguments emerge. And actually even in these instances I don’t think that it’s relativism that’s doing the work here. I think that what’s really in play is the belief that the interests of animals are not particularly important but autonomy for humans’ individual food preferences is sufficiently weighty to allow for individual human choice in consumption. This is not actually a relativist argument. It’s a moral absolutist position that seeks to uphold the primacy of the universal value of human autonomy.

andysays - I agree that morality is incredibly complex but I reject that that means it is merely a matter of individual/community/group etc preference (not saying you think this - but a moral relativist probably would have to).

* indeed, why stop at the individual? Individuals are often morally conflicted.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I hate to be the one to tell you this, Jeff, but systems of morality have a fluidity to their use that mathematical systems do not.

 

[andysays]

Human autonomy (or certainly one which applies to all humans equally) is not a universal human value.

And morality is not "merely" a matter of individual/community/group etc preference, but it is very much influenced by various social/cultural/economic/political factors. There is no absolute/universal human morality.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

I hate to be the one to tell you this, Jeff, but systems of morality have a fluidity to their use that mathematical systems do not.

So mathematical proofs and theorems are never shown to be wrong then? New ones are not being made? At any rate, the fact that moral belief systems are fluid merely reveals that people's moral beliefs differ over space and time. Why should that lead us to the relativist claim that there is no way to adjudicate between these different beliefs?

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Human autonomy (or certainly one which applies to all humans equally) is not a universal human value.

And morality is not "merely" a matter of individual/community/group etc preference, but it is very much influenced by various social/cultural/economic/political factors. There is no absolute/universal human morality.

I think you're mixing up factual and normative claims here. To say that a principle is universal isn't to say that it is in fact recognised everywhere but that it ought to be. e.g. I think nobody should be subject to slavery but I recognise that many people are.

 

[krtek a houby]

I think you're mixing up factual and normative claims here. To say that a principle is universal isn't to say that it is in fact recognised everywhere but that it ought to be. e.g. I think nobody should be subject to slavery but I recognise that many people are.

I, for one, welcome our new alien overlords

 

[kabbes]

Actually, the premise that "position X is both right and wrong" would seem to logically flow from your definition of moral relativism as “whether position X is right or wrong will always be a matter of perspective for some people”. If moral truths are simply relativized to the particular individual* then when individuals hold opposed moral views relativism does not provide any way to adjudicate between them. For example ‘Jeff Robinson thinks eating meat is wrong. Kabbes doesn’t think eating meat is wrong (at least in some circumstances). Because we cannot say that Jeff Robinson or Kabbes are wrong then they must both be right. Therefore eating meat is both right and wrong.’ This is fundamentally incoherent and misunderstands what morality is.

When I engage in mathematic reasoning, it’s to try to get to the right answer, not the right answer relative to me. ‘2 + 2 = 4’ is going to get me places. ‘2 + 2 = 5 relative to my own mathematical truth’ is utterly useless. Moral relativism is equally useless. We use morality to guide us in a similar way we use arithmetic: they are both conceptual toolkits for trying to navigate the world around us. Morality exists to guide our relations with others. If we each lived in our own separate worlds unpopulated by any other sentient creatures morality would be redundant. As we don’t live in such atomized worlds assertions such as ‘this is my (unimpeachable) moral truth’ are as arbitrary as ‘2 + 2 = 5 for me’. This solipsism makes moral relativism the opposite of morality in my opinion.

In most instances people are not moral relativists. They don’t think ‘Jimmy Saville was a scumbag relative to my moral standards but not to the equally valuable moral standards of the pedophile community’, they just think ‘Jimmy Saville was a scumbag’. On Urban heated debates take place because the contributors are not relativists – they think they are right and their interlocuteurs are wrong. It seems it’s mainly on threads about animal rights that relativist arguments emerge. And actually even in these instances I don’t think that it’s relativism that’s doing the work here. I think that what’s really in play is the belief that the interests of animals are not particularly important but autonomy for humans’ individual food preferences is sufficiently weighty to allow for individual human choice in consumption. This is not actually a relativist argument. It’s a moral absolutist position that seeks to uphold the primacy of the universal value of human autonomy.

andysays - I agree that morality is incredibly complex but I reject that that means it is merely a matter of individual/community/group etc preference (not saying you think this - but a moral relativist probably would have to).

* indeed, why stop at the individual? Individuals are often morally conflicted.

Since you are using mathematical arguments, I have to ask: do you have formal study in logic? And set theory?

 

[andysays]

I think you're mixing up factual and normative claims here. To say that a principle is universal isn't to say that it is in fact recognised everywhere but that it ought to be. e.g. I think nobody should be subject to slavery but I recognise that many people are.

But to simply say it like that is to make it purely an individual whim of yours.

Why is it that morality around, for example, slavery has changed over human history? Is it simply that there are now more properly moral people like you about, or is there perhaps something about particular kind of societies producing a particular kind of morality based on, I don't know, lets pluck a crazy example out of thin air, the kind of social and economic relations practiced at that time?

As far as your and my underlying moral principles go, this discussion on the morality of what we eat suggests that my position is that we have obligations to other creatures on the basis that they are capable of moral choice, and you're saying we have them on the basis that the other creatures are sentient.

It's not possible to prove, in the way you might a mathematical axiom, that one of those is "right" and the other is "wrong". Both of our positions may be logically consistent, in that they follow from our respective first principles, but unless either of us can demonstrate that our own first principles are correct, and the other's are incorrect (and I don't think either of us can do that), then we each have to settle for them being right for us rather than right in any more absolute sense.

In these post-enlightenment, post-religious dogma times, that's the best we can hope for.

 

[kabbes]

You don't prove an axiom. You take it on faith, for want of a better word. Then you derive your other positions logically from that axiom.

In that sense, morality is very much consistent with other logical derivations.

 

[andysays]

You don't prove an axiom. You take it on faith, for want of a better word. Then you derive your other positions logically from that axiom.

In that sense, morality is very much consistent with other logical derivations.

That'll teach me to use big words I no longder remember the meaning of

 

[kabbes]

That'll teach me to use big words I no longder remember the meaning of

I still agreed with your general point though!

 

[NoXion]

I wholeheartedly disagree. Saying that position X is both right and wrong is about as coherent as arguing that Nottingham is both North and South of London.

Nottingham is defined by humans as North of London because pretty much everyone on Earth agrees which pole is which.

An alien has a 50/50 chance of seeing it differently, all other factors being equal.

So even in geography which has definite features which one can point to on a map, there are arbitrary elements which are not necessarily universal.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Nottingham is defined by humans as North of London because pretty much everyone on Earth agrees which pole is which.

An alien has a 50/50 chance of seeing it differently, all other factors being equal.

So even in geography which has definite features which one can point to on a map, there are arbitrary elements which are not necessarily universal.

That's all very well and good, but a navigator who responds to question 'should we go north or south?' with the answer 'these are arbitrary elements which are not necessarily universal' is about as helpful as the moral relativist is in debates about what the right thing to do is.