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October 24 - December 19, 2016
We want to have our cake and eat it too.
“Who are you to judge?”
you have no right to make moral judgments about individuals or society.
“I certainly do have a right to make moral judgments. I am a rational human person who is aware of certain fundamental principles of logical and moral reasoning. I think I’m qualified.
“Your claim that I have no right to make judgments is itself a judgment about me. Your claim, therefore, is self-refuting. ”
For to deny the existence of universally objective moral distinctions, one must admit that Mother Teresa was no more or less moral than Adolf Hitler, that torturing three-year-olds for fun is neither good nor evil, that giving 10 percent of one’s financial surplus to an invalid is neither praiseworthy nor condemnable, that raping a woman is neither right nor wrong, and that providing food and shelter for one’s spouse and children is neither a good thing nor a bad thing.
Ejemplos de las consecuencias lógicas de seguir la línea de razonamiento del relativismo moral.
one can certainly be a moral objectivist and not believe in God,
theistic universe— a universe in which God exists—best accounts for the existence of objective morality.
the extinction of the idea that any particular thing can be known for sure.
We have entered an era of dogmatic skepticism.
“Students feel safer as doubters than as believers, and as perpetual seekers rather than eventual finders.
“is the freedom to devote ourselves to any values we please, on the mere condition that we do not believe them to be true.
When we abandon the idea that one set of laws applies to every human being, all that remains is subjective, personal opinion.
When morality is reduced to personal tastes, people exchange the moral question, What is good? for the pleasure question, What feels good?
Instead of morality constraining pleasures (“I want to do that, but I really shouldn’t”), the pleasures define morality (“I want to do that, and I’m going to find a way to rationalize it”).
The notions of human respect and dignity depend on the existence of moral truth.
“That’s a preemie born at nineteen weeks,” she said. “We don’t do anything to save them unless they’re twenty weeks. ”
If there is no truth, nothing has transcendent value, including human beings. The death of morality reduces people to the status of mere creatures. When persons are viewed as things, they begin to be treated as things.
“Because of the composition and the lighting.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if some of the leading artists in a civilization see a man urinating in another man’s mouth and see composition and lighting and do not see their civilization being pissed upon, we are in trouble.
We’ve cut our eye-teeth on the philosophy that life’s most sublime goal is to be happy and that virtually any means justifies this self-serving end.
We take pride in our tolerance, yet tolerate no one who doesn’t share our moral open-mindedness.
“We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.
The first suggests a moral obligation; the second an obligation based on reason.
There are two kinds of oughts, and there are two ways to be wrong about something. We can be wrong by being irrational, or we can be wrong by being unethical. Morality deals with the second.
moral wrongs are the kinds of things for which punishment seems justified.
a man who beats his wife is not simply incorrect; he’s immoral.
When there is a rational wrong, we correct the error. When there is a moral wrong, we correct—or punish—the person.
It is true for me, the subject, but not for the object, the ice cream itself. The ice cream doesn’t “taste”; I taste it.
As a subject, I’m communicating a belief that I hold about an external, objective truth.
we’d adjudicate between our two opinions by examining the object itself.
we believe the truth to be objective or “out there,” not subjective or “in here.
moral absolutism holds that a moral rule is true regardless of whether anyone believes it.
We don’t invent morality; we discover it like we discover multiplication tables.
These injunctions apply not just to actions but to attitudes and motives as well.
If a specific act is wrong for one person, then it is equally wrong for another.
How does a relativist make a moral decision? He decides for himself whatever he thinks is best.
If a thing cannot be distinguished from its opposite, then the distinction between the two is meaningless.
Another way to assess the validity of a moral system is to see what kind of person it produces.
Those who are relativists do whatever they want, and doing whatever one wants is not morality.
Morality is doing what’s right, not necessarily what’s pleasant.
What legacy? Her point of view. How does she ensure this? By passing laws.
The only place of true neutrality is silence. Speak up, give your opinion, state your view, and you forfeit your claim to neutrality.
All laws force someone’s viewpoint.
Moral neutrality seems virtuous, but there’s no benefit, only danger.
This leads to anarchy.
Just Say No’ and ‘Just Do It’ without recognition of a moral reality to decide which to do when.
I realized that I would never want this woman on a jury. I would never want her as a social worker, as an employee of a bank, as a teacher, as any kind of medical practitioner, or in any branch of law enforcement. I would not want a person who thinks like this in any position of public trust.
In reality, if she was awakened in the middle of the night by the plaintive screams of a young child being tormented by her neighbor next door, I’m sure she would be horrified by the barbarism. Her moral intuitions would immediately rise to the surface and she’d recoil at such evil.
Society Does Relativism is descriptive only, merely reporting on the way cultures appear to act. It is not prescriptive or normative
