Coggins7 wrote:
I've studied ethics, and there are no standard definitions in anything like the settled, pat manner you are trying to foist here.
No you haven't. At least not beyond how you studied evolutionary biology or climate change. If you studied metaethical theory, you apparently didn't learn material that should've appeared on one of the first tests. And yes, the definitions I offered are relatively standardized. That would be the exact opposite of you calling them idiosyncratic to me. You know how the StoP defined the terminology like I expressed it? Yeah, that kinda goes a long way to establishing this. This is a common Coggins gambit. You claim to have studied something, then offer assert your opinion as if it held more merit for being well-studied, when in reality you are offering nothing more that insults while betraying ignorance to those who actually have taken some time to study the subject. Then you quote an article from a source like WND and we all laugh and laugh.
Philosophy is about interpretation; it is about thinking and reflecting, not pat standard definitions that can be wielded against a philosophic opponent whom you cannot refute on the hoof using your own intellectual apparatus.
Well, then. I guess Coggins is an atheist. Did I mention that I define "atheist" as not an evangelical Christian? After all, there are no pat, standard definitions of atheism in the philosophical community. Wait, there is something approaching standard understanding of the term, and my use of the terms is inane. If your attempt to blame atrocities on secular moral relativism comes from redefining moral relativism in an imprecise, circular fashion disconnected from how it is actually understood in formal discussion, then you don't have much of an argument here Coggins.
Moral relativists do not accept the existence of moral truths. A truth is not relative but absolute (unless "truth" is defined and understood as nothing more than individual perception of what is true).
Take this proposition: Viewing torturing babies as wrong is consistent with my cultural attitudes towards baby torturing.
Is this something can be true or false. Is it something that can be true?
What's that? It is? Is one type of moral relativist position to argue that a statement like, "Torturing babies is wrong" as an expression of the above proposition? Oh yeah, that's why moral relativists accept the existence of moral truths. Thanks for helping me "do philosophy" here.
Go right ahead. I'd rather ague the merits of the case.
See next post. I'm not sure what "case" you are going to be arguing with, as all I'm going to do is quote formal sources defining terms in the manner I did to establish that my use of the terms is anything but idiosyncratic. I think I'll use the Blackwell guide and its references as I recommended above.
"Divine command theory" is not the view I express nor is it the view expressed by the Church. Divine command theory claims that an action, or obedience to a command of God, becomes obligatory and required for no other reason that that God has commanded it. This is not the doctrine of the Church, nor do most LDS believe it. Some commandments are to be obeyed in faith not knowing beforehand the outcome, but this is not divine command theory, but acting in faith based upon experience with a being who manifests himself in our lives through our actions and choices. Faith is action and experience.
Divine command theory is the view that moral truths or knowing them is contingent on the will of God.
The Church teaches that we obey God, not just because he commands, but because the Gospel is a lawful, ordered system of growth and progression in which following divine commands tends to greater happiness, development, and enlightenment.
I'm aware that the LDS faith can be interpreted in terms of a secular utilitarianism expressed here that God just so happens to follow and is measured by. You are the one who feels the need to argue against it, but denying that such secular views are "absolute" because they do not have God underwriting their truth. Either you are now contradicting yourself or your arguments above were not supporting what wanted them to.
No...a relativist thinks his own moral facts exist, and nothing more, and that implies a denial of moral facts inherent the external universe in which he is embedded that transcend his own subjective preferences regarding them.
That's not quite right. As for why, perhaps reading my above example will explain it. You seem to think relativism means that one believes whatever moral sentiments one has are "facts." That's just off. Moral relativists think that when someone expresses a moral claim, they are expressing a claim about how something accords with a particular groups norms. Do you understand the difference?
Communist, fascist, and otherwise collectivist dictatorships have been described and elucidated as manifestations of both, but as your reading and education does not include conservative or libertarian scholars, I wouldn't expect you to have run across any such references. Here's a few:
I am a libertarian. I read libertarian sources almost daily.
An ideology that was nonchalant or equivocal about the activities it enjoyed or prohibited would be no ideology at all... Ideology and modernism were to each other as an immovable object to an irresistible force." Susser assumes that ideology follows a standard of certainty while the modern age follows a standard of relativism--their modes of thinking remain completely alien to each other. As Kipling said, "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet..." Thus, the question of how Eastern ideology can survive in the epoch of Western relativity loses its intriguing appeal.
My answer, if only preliminary and partial, is quite different. Far from being antithetical to post-modernism, ideology supplies a unique forum for the post-modernist interplay of all conceivable ideas. Paradoxically, Soviet Marxism, the philosophy least expected to be involved in postmodernist debate, can provide an explanation. The ideology of Soviet Marxism has always enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most conservative and anti-modern system of beliefs of the twentieth century. Totalitarianism was assumed to exclude the sort of relativism that flourished in Western culture and laid the basis for the transition to the postmodernist condition. However, glasnost' and perestroika have shed new light on this ideological system which, if regarded in the process of its formation, reveals a stunning example of relativism inscribed into totalitarian thinking. Totalitarianism itself may thus be viewed as a specific postmodern model which came to replace the modernist ideological stance elaborated in earlier Marxism. The difference between classic Marxism, which is recognized as a breakthrough in philosophical modernism, and Soviet Marxism in its Stalinist and especially Brezhnevian versions, can be described precisely in terms of the modernist-postmodernist relationship. The latter tended to absorb and assimilate the former, eventually overcoming classic Marxism's original system of historical certainties and utopian beliefs.
This quote didn't make an argument that would support you Coggins. It made an assertion re: relativism in absent argument that would support you. It is just defining relativism in terms of not being as ideologically rigid as Marxism demanded - a certain moral flexibility if you will. That's not relativism in the metaethical sense you were describing above. It is really just talking about abandoning the certainty of utopia for some ugly, complex realities that allowed a lot more means, quite awful ones, in pursuit of justified ends. At least that's what I can gather, as this passage suffers from lack of clarity.
I have made no such claim. The history because they are both the most productive justifications for its abandonment as well as the most likely philosophical harbor once it has been abandoned.
By all means feel free to provide some evidence for this.