Morals

An examination of Moral Relativism vs. Moral Absolutism vs. Moral Pluralism

Doug has a post about hoe lovin' Governor, Eliot Spitzer... it's classic. I gotta give Doug credit for being consistent. Of course, consistently misunderstanding basic definitions, and consistently applying them to people who do not hold those positions.

Doug argues, over and over, against positions that nobody has.. and I find it odd that he does zero research to find out if the very foundation, the basic premise, of the point he is trying to make is right or wrong. People wonder why I "fixate" on him.. and it is in this complete ignorance of what he's talking about that makes him so illustrative. His tone makes him sound authoritative, but the core principle of what he's talking about is flat out wrong.

Example; when I was on his "show", we talked about health care. He's argued, over and over, against a position that nobody has.. at least none of the election candidates. Honest to Gorak, he thought that the "liberals" policy position desired a European style health care system, complete with providers working for the government. Nobody has that position. It is the payer side that is at issue with the Democrats right now. Nobody has put forward policy position on changing the provider side at all.. yet, that doesn't stop Doug from arguing against it, nor stop him from accusing Democrats of having a position that they simply don't have. At it's core, that's a result of ignorance of the issue at hand.

When you are unable to argue effectively on an issue, make up a different position, say your opponents support that position, and then argue against it. That's called a "straw man" argument, and Doug does it constantly. Not only does he do that, but he will not allow anyone to call him out on it, nor counter his argument. That's why he banned me from his blog. He can't have me exposing him for what he is - a liar, on his own blog.

He seemed completely befuddled on the health care debate because in his mind, he was absolutely convinced about the Democrats "socialism" - but, in fact, was completely wrong about the basic premise of his argument. He then shifted his argument against "universal health care" to the idea that it would put health insurance employees out of work. In essence, he was forced to adopt a completely illogical point of view to continue arguing against a policy position he is reflexively opposed to because his initial argument was shown to be completely fictional. In other words, he is forced to argue a nonsensical political point of view because at his core, he is a propagandist, and it doesn't matter what his argument is, or if it makes sense - just as long as it opposes the "other side".

How can a person that doesn't understand the very issue he's talking about be completely wrong, yet so self assured and confident in his point of view? Easy.. that's his very foundation.. he's wrong about the fundamental basics, and make's an argument against that which he doesn't even understand.

Which brings me back to "moral relativism". Doug doesn't really understand what it means, and he's arguing against a position that nobody has. Put aside for a moment that Doug's outrage was never expressed when David Vitter was caught in Pampers with a hooker. After all, Doug is not interested in exploring issues, but is merely a political propagandists.... but let's really get into what he is saying, and ask ourselves how he can write an essay and argue against a point of view that nobody has.

Here is how Doug defines it;

Moral Relativism: A position which proposes that there is no absolute truth, or justification of moral judgements. Moral Relativism rejects morality as defined by religion, and determines that morality is an individual determination.

This is basically correct, but incomplete. For a synopsis of the different moral philosophies, you can read the wiki.

Moral relativism argues that "morals" are subjective and unique to each individuals frame of reference. This applies to any act that a person may carry out. Therefore, a moral relativist would argue that if one person killed another, the act is not immoral because it is not immoral from the killers point of view by definition.

I don't, nor do I know, any person that holds that point of view. But, yet again, Doug is arguing against a position that nobody holds.

Let's look at the polar opposite of moral relativism. Doug writes;

Moral relativism is tainting even the church. For example, many denominations are actually having a difficult time defining marriage as being between one man and one woman, and many religious leaders today are openly supporting homosexuality.

He is arguing a "moral absolutist" point of view. The definition of moral absolutism;

Moral absolutism is the belief that there are absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged, and that certain actions are right or wrong, devoid of the context of the act. "Absolutism" is often philosophically contrasted with moral relativism, which is a belief that moral truths are relative to social, cultural, historical or personal references, and to situational ethics, which holds that the morality of an act depends on the context of the act.

The problem with moral absolutism is that it is entirely dependent on the persons frame of reference, just like moral relativism. What is the actual morality that defines it?

Doug references religion, so I'll use a religious case of moral absolutism to explain why moral absolutism is just as illogical a position as moral relativism.

The example we'll use to illustrate is the Catholic inquisition. In brief, the Catholic church tried and executed large numbers of individuals for the crime of "heresy". In this sense, the Catholic church was being morally absolutist in justifying their acts. The church was absolutely convinced that individuals who did not share their belief system were immoral, and the moral punishment for that crime was torture and death. From the Catholic's frame of reference, their acts were completely moral, otherwise they would have not conducted such inquisitions nor executed so many people in the first place. In fact, they felt they were compelled to act in such a way because of their moral absolutist philosophy that demanded that what they consider to be moral must be what everyone else believes as well. By definition, those that refused the same moral position were immoral and therefore the moral punishment was death - from the Catholic frame of reference.

It's like "exporting democracy" with a gun. One country kills citizens of another country in order to impose what they consider to be "moral" on the other society. Those on the receiving side might not agree with what the aggressor considers an absolute moral truth.

Does that make sense? I hope I'm explaining that clearly.

So.. Doug is truly a moral absolutist, because he is convinced that what he considers to be "moral" is absolutely moral outside of any context what-so-ever. He argues there is no frame of reference for an individual's morality, as a polar opposite to a moral relativist who argues that all morals exist in each individual's frame of reference.

The fundamental problem with moral absolutism is that an absolutist's morals are entirely subjective to themselves, even if they don't think so (based on the bible!!), and they believe that everyone else should agree with their concept of what is morally right, and morally wrong. They can't even fathom that their definition of right and wrong may be completely illogical, as is demonstrated in the case of the Catholic inquisition. Doug thinks he gets his morals from the Bible.. but so did the Catholics. See the point?

So.. that leaves me.. and a large number of people who share my philosophical point of view on morals. How is it defined? Moral pluralism.

Doug, when you argue moral philosophy of many liberals and Democrats (but by no means all), please use the correct term and definition. You just sound like an idiot when you can't get basic definitions correct.

So.. what's moral pluralism?

Moral pluralism acknowledges the co-existence of opposing ideas and practices, but accepts limits to differences, such as when vital human needs are violated. Moral relativism, in contrast, grants the possibility of moral judgments that do not accept such limits.

An example of value-pluralism is the idea that the moral life of a nun is incompatible with that of a mother, yet there is no purely rational measure of which is preferable. Hence, moral decisions often require radical preferences with no rational calculus to determine which alternative is to be selected.

Again, a moral relativist argues, essentially, that there is no immorality because anyone that holds a view considers it to be moral by definition. I don't know anybody who believes that. I think most people are moral pluralists.

The majority of us understand how to make a judgment of "right" and "wrong" rationally, and independent of a religious context. For example, you don't have to be a religious person to understand that murder or theft is morally wrong. We understand how to assess the impact of an act and determine if such an act is effectively destructive or positive, or even neutral. We understand societal norms play a roll in that decision making process that people use when making those judgements, and that history has evidenced that those societal norms change.

Remember, inter-racial marriage was illegal in certain parts of the United States until 1968. Those that enacted those bans on inter-racial marriage were moral absolutists who thought their concept of a "moral" marriage did not include inter-race relations. They were wrong, just as Doug is wrong.

Doug is absolutely convinced that at this point in time, at this place in history, in this condition of humanity, he (and other's just like him) alone understands the true meaning of morality and those that do not agree advocate immoral positions. He fails to understand the long history of those that held that same absolute belief, that were later shown to be were actually immoral.

And all of this is a long winded journey to the fundamental issue that Doug has.. gay marriage.

A moral absolutist, such as Doug, would argue that same-sex marriage is wrong because they, alone, are the arbiters of what is moral, and they say that it is wrong.. end of story. A moral relativist would argue that same-sex marriage is moral, or not, depending on a person's point of view.. so if some guy wanted to marry a rock, that's fine because marrying a rock is moral from that person's point of view. A moral pluralist would make a judgment about the implications of same-sex marriage in terms of it's effect on the human condition.

In my morally pluralistic mind, I have judged the implications of same-sex marriage and determined that there is no negative effect to people who don't have a same-sex marriage, and there is a large positive effect for those people that do.. therefore, same-sex marriage is a moral point of view. In short.. who does it hurt? Nobody. Who does it help? Gay men and women who want the same rights and benefits as anybody else to improve their lives. That's hugely a moral positive.

So, Doug.. will you stop calling people who are not moral relativists by that name? Is that possible for you to do? I doubt it, because, again, Doug is not so much interested in philosophy or exploration of ideas, judged by their proper conventions.. but rather he is putting forward an agenda.. defined by moral absolutism. In fact, he is THE definition of moral absolutism, which is of course a very dangerous philosophical ideology... because those people are absolutely convinced that they are the arbiters of what is right and wrong, and they are the tools by which those morals are to be ingrained in everyone else.

I've said before that if Doug had been born in Saudi Arabia, he'd be an Islamic terrorists. I'll say now that if Doug had been a medieval Catholic, he'd have presided over heresy trials. His intellectual flaw is his own self certainty, based on a set of "morals" handed to him instead of using a rational thought process.

Finally, now that we understand the different philosophical definitions, how does a Moral Pluralist view Gov. Spitzer's behavior?

Well, what are the implications for his act? His wife has very negative reactions.. his family very negative.. his constituents a net negative. Therefore, the act was not moral.

But.. what if prostitution was legal (say he was in Nevada), and that he was unmarried, or his wife didn't care or encouraged it, and he had no kids, or they didn't care. Would then paying a woman for sex be immoral? Nope.. it would be no more than a business transaction.. payment for goods... or just like a massage, except it ends in an orgasm.. and an orgasm, in and of itself, has no positive or negative morality. It's just a biological function.

There.. now you know the concepts of morality.. go forth you Moral Pluralists!