Moral relativists who love Edahn

[Kiddo]

Cultural relativism- the ability to view the beliefs and customs of other peoples within the context of their culture rather than one's own.

Human beings innately have rights.

i.e. children have certain rights, women have certain rights, elderly people have certain rights, regardless of their circumstantially allotted "cultural" background.

It is morally wrong to intentionally hurt another person and infringe on their individual rights.

None of these ideas existed before the Enlightenment.

The nazi's were wrong.

The Nazis believed they were fighting for their survival. At that time it was believed the "Jewish race" controlled everything and the best and brightest were leaving to live in America. To protect the genetic purity of the German people, they felt they had to go to war and eradicate threats to the bloodline.

slavery is wrong.

Slavery was practiced for centuries within countless lands. Not until the Enlightenment did people develop ideas that it might be wrong.

rape is wrong.

Rape was an expected part of marriage in many ancient countries.

murder is wrong.

If I go to war and kill the enemy then I am a hero. If I am at home and I kill one of my enemies then I am a murderer.

 

[SillySapienne]

Everything is right and everything is wrong, depending on the point of view.

And why is the death penalty wrong? Whatever happened to "an eye for an eye?"

Uber, if you kill my mother, it is then *right* for me to kill yours?

 

[SillySapienne]

Cultural relativism- the ability to view the beliefs and customs of other peoples within the context of their culture rather than one's own.



None of these ideas existed before the Enlightenment.



The Nazis believed they were fighting for their survival. At that time it was believed the "Jewish race" controlled everything and the best and brightest were leaving to live in America. To protect the genetic purity of the German people, they felt they had to go to war and eradicate threats to the bloodline.



Slavery was practiced for centuries within countless lands. Not until the Enlightenment did people develop ideas that it might be wrong.



Rape was an expected part of marriage in many ancient countries.



If I go to war and kill the enemy then I am a hero. If I am at home and I kill one of my enemies then I am a murderer.

Uh, human beings have a nasty historical record, your point?

Something isn't moral because it is practical, or fashionable, or widely accepted.

no

no

no.

 

[The Ü™]

Uber, if you kill my mother, it is then *right* for me to kill yours?

I think it would be right of you to kill me. But to equalize suffering, then yes, you do have a right to kill mine.

 

[nemo]

An eye for an eye and the world goes blind.

 

[Wandering]

Truth itself makes it true.

But none of us has official access to truth. So how is anyone supposed to know who holds the "truest" opinion? Everyone believes their own opinion is the one best approximating, or even equalling, truth.

 

[The Ü™]

An eye for an eye and the world goes blind.

That analogy never made sense to me. I have no idea what it means.

 

[Wandering]

Something isn't moral because it is practical, or fashionable, or widely accepted.

True. But something isn't immoral just because you, one human being, happen to disagree with it, either

 

[6sticks]

Moral relativists are cowards. Culture is always secondary to human life. Regardless of where it happens, genocide is wrong. I have no respect for anyone who denies this.

 

[Kiddo]

Uh, human beings have a nasty historical record, your point?

Something isn't moral because it is practical, or fashionable, or widely accepted.

no

no

no.

My point was within the context of a culture or situation, the crimes that have been committed change considerably.

If I kill to protect myself, then that is self defense. From the Nazi perspective, they were killing to protect themselves.

If I go to war and kill the enemy then I am a hero. If I am at home and I kill one of my enemies then I am a murderer.

And at the same time, if an idea does not exist beforehand, how could it be said the actions were wrong beforehand.

Slavery and rape existed in cultures long before the conception of "innate individual rights".

Morality is also subjective to the situation.

If a man was unfairly put in a situation for which he could not feed his family, would it be wrong for him to steal to feed his family?

 

[Ivy]

It's possible to both acknowledge that an act violates your concept of morality, and recognize that it is accepted within another culture. Recognition is not approval.

 

[SillySapienne]

Oh, and fetuses are not human beings.

Infanticide can in certain instances be morally right, i.e. in less developed nations where birth control is neither used nor known, where families subsist on agriculture and the death of the infant increases the general fitness of the older young.

Suicide isn't inherently immoral.

 

[SillySapienne]

If a man was unfairly put in a situation for which he could not feed his family, would it be wrong for him to steal to feed his family?

Sure it would be wrong, but it would also be *worth* it.

 

[SillySapienne]

It's possible to both acknowledge that an act violates your concept of morality, and recognize that it is accepted within another culture. Recognition is not approval.

Word!!!

 

[Wandering]

Moral relativists are cowards. Culture is always secondary to human life. Regardless of where it happens, genocide is wrong. I have no respect for anyone who denies this.

You are expressing your own values. Can you tell us why anyone else should share them, though?

I happen to think that genocide is wrong too. But I can perfectly understand why some people would think otherwise, without losing any respect for them.

If I condemned people for believing differently than I do, then I would be no better than those who would kill me for believing differently than they do.

 

[Wandering]

It's possible to both acknowledge that an act violates your concept of morality, and recognize that it is accepted within another culture. Recognition is not approval.

Exactly.

Edit: well done Ivy !

 

[nemo]

Yeah, this is something I've actually devoted a great deal of energy to intellectually justifying.

I understand that different cultures have had different power structures and concepts of right vs. wrong, blah blah blah

But I do think there are some absolutes hidden in there. The Nazis (lol Godwin'd) may have justified genocide, but there are many accounts of Nazi guards and so on that were so traumatized by what they'd done that they developed mental illnesses. They seemed to intuitively know what they were doing was wrong.

A psychologist came and spoke at my university, he wrote this book on the topic:

"Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing" James Waller

And he talks in great length about the psychological damage done to the people who commit those atrocities, regardless of how justified they feel it is.

 

[SillySapienne]

Grrrr... I understand ignorami too, but that doesn't make their actions any less horrendous.

 

[SillySapienne]

CaptainChick has been writing her sociology book, in her head, "Would you be a Nazi?" for four years now. lol.

 

[The Ü™]

But I do think there are some absolutes hidden in there. The Nazis (lol Godwin'd) may have justified genocide, but there are many accounts of Nazi guards and so on that were so traumatized by what they'd done that they developed mental illnesses. They seemed to intuitively know what they were doing was wrong.

The moral code of learned religious doctrine could have had something to do with that, too.