This is why everyone hates moral philosophy professors.
Hah! Cool to see Henry pop up on my feed. I knew this guy back when he was a grad student. And as somebody that also teaches ethics, he is dead on. Undergrads are not only believe all morality is relative and that this is necessary for tolerance and pluralism (it’s not), but are also insanely judgmental if something contradicts their basic sense of morality.
Turns out, ordinary people’s metaethics are highly irrational.
I just commented elsewhere in this thread, but isn’t moral realism a thing for this exact situation? Is his post not a self report on his inability to identify a moral framework that fits his students worldview, or at least to explain the harm that arises if one has a self contradictory worldview and help them realize that and potentially arrive at a more consistent view? Seems like this comment section is filled with a lot of people that understand their moral framework more than this professor, but obviously are not in the field. Can you please elaborate on the issues here? Like I think abortions are fine, but I understand that others think it’s murder. I don’t think they’re bad people for that, but I understand if they think I’m a bad person for my views. How we deal with it on a societal level is obviously even more complicated. I don’t see how there’s a problem there.
It seems like ALL is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your comment. Do they really believe ALL morality is relative and are also always insanely judgy if things contradict their beliefs?
I think the issue is that students aren’t consistent. They’ll fall back on relativism or subjectivism when they don’t really have a strong opinion, or perceive there to be a lot of controversy about the subject that they don’t want to have to argue about. But fundamentally, whether there’s an objective and universal answer to some moral question or not really doesn’t depend on whether there’s controversy about it, or whether it’s convenient or cool to argue about.
I think that there are parts of morality that really are culturally relative and subjective, and parts that aren’t. Variation in cultural norms is totally okay, as long as we don’t sacrifice the objective, universal stuff. (Like don’t harm people unnecessarily, etc.). The contours of the former and the latter are up for debate, and we shouldn’t presume that anybody knows the exact boundary.
Your beliefs seem to align with what the students are saying and generally with moral realism.
You just said “I think that there are parts of morality that really are culturally relative and subjective, and parts that aren’t.” so you can view some morality as subjective and some as necessarily universal. That is what most people default to and what you seem to saying is wrong with the students. You state they aren’t consistent, but you’re also not consistent. Sometimes subjectivity is right sometimes it’s not. I’m not seeing a distinction, so please elaborate on it if I’m missing it.
Sounds like “all moral philosophies are equal, but some are more equal than others”
Love your username.
Thanks bro, had read it in Plato but was on a real King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard kick when I signed up for Lemmy (still am).
Not disagreeing that they’re probably just inconsistent.
Is it possible to be consistent about moral relativism & still make firm choices?
What’s it called when morality is construed as systems of arbitrarily chosen axioms & moral judgements amount to judges stating whether something agrees with a system they chose? Is it inconsistent to acknowledge that these axioms are ultimately choices, choose a system, and judge all actions eligible for moral consideration according to that chosen system?
Now that is funny. Its funny because its true.
Can both points not be true? There will be local morals and social morals that differ from place to place with overarching morals that tend to be everywhere.
Not all morals or beliefs have to be unshakable or viewed as morally reprehensible for disagreement.
Unless they mean all their ethics are held that way in which case that’s just the whole asshole in a different deck chair joke.
If you agree that morals are relative and culturally constructed, then you shouldn’t reject differences in morals of others as immoral.
That’s basically just taking a position where you want to be able to change your mind on what’s “moral”, and expect everyone else to follow your opinion on it.
I don’t think acknowledging morals as relative to the culture they exist within exempts decrees of immorality. Relative to their culture, it is. Should they speak from the point of view of a culture that they don’t understand? I personally think it’s a sliding scale where, to the extent it harms other people, it needs to be viewed more objectively just, and where it doesn’t harm, it’s fine being a difference in opinion. The only downside to this is that sometimes you don’t know enough about a topic to know there are victims, and so your prescriptive thoughts can change very quickly about the morality of it. Perspective is important and should always be maximized to avoid this problem.
I wish I could have phrased it that well.
I said that some are but it seems cultures share a couple of them in common like not killing without cause. So in that system there are local morals and global/regional morals.
I’m sure both are true for some people, but I think the irony he’s pointing out is that this belief system recognizes that every individual/culture has different morals, while simultaneously treating individual/cultural differences as reprehensible.
Sounds like someone who was raised in an echo chamber. They recognize other chambers exist, but hate that they do. We’re back to tribalism.
Or someone with strong morals? I think LGBT people deserve to live. I understand that other people do not based on their own moral arguments. I would not want to associate with them. I don’t live in an echo chamber. I recognize and interact with people with different beliefs (even on LGBT issues), but there are certain moral beliefs that make me not desire to interact with people. Is that tribalism or my morality? If I don’t wanna hang out with nazis, I guess that’s tribalism and the outgroup is nazis? Should I stop living in an echo chamber and hang out with more nazis?
The concept of an echo chamber when used in this casual way is so reductive. “People hang out with other who and consume media that aligns with their beliefs”. That’s not inherently a bad thing. It becomes bad when they are unable to recognize other beliefs exist and unable to accept at least some of them as valid alternative perspectives.
But the point is that, if you follow moral relativism (which the hypothetical students in the post do, as they insist morality is relative), then you must acquiesce that cultures which hate queer people are valid and acceptable, because doing otherwise would not be moral relativism. Or, take another example, slavery. Is it okay for any culture to practice slavery?
And if you don’t agree that it is valid and acceptable on a philosophical level, well, you can just follow a form moral universalism. Which is more appropriate if you do think some sets of morals are simply more ethical than others, such as, for example, not allowing slavery
It’s not so much about whether different moral standards exist or not, but more whether different standards for morals in and of themselves are acceptable/ethical.
The fact that they didn’t use “moral relativism” explicitly suggests to me that like most general philosophy classes, they are probably moral realists and the OP is just being cheeky about it, or legitimately for some reason completely unable to present moral realism as a subject of discussion.
I don’t agree with your characterization of moral universalism here, but regardless it’s clear that they are either bad at their job or posting for the memes because it’s literally their job to be able to establish what a cohesive view would be and why that is important, so it’s weird to act like clowning on their students for having a selfcontradictory view is anything but an admission of failure on their end.
The context is important - “morals” covers both “I think drinking is/isn’t an inherently morally irresponsible activity” and “I want to gas minorities”, and one of those has slightly higher stakes. You can understand the latter often happens because small town america might not have ever met minority groups, or somehow figures the small immigrant community with delicious food is “one of the few good ones” - that doesn’t make their “morals” any less reprehensible.
I think we agree/are saying the same thing? I’m saying that talking in absolutes about echo chambers being bad is reductive. To me, the important distinction between an actual echo chamber and being a normal person with beliefs and opinions, is the ability to recognize that sometimes others have different beliefs/opinions and that those may be equally valid. Like I said I’m anti nazi, but also that normal people (which I’m sometimes classified as) are able to accept some differences. So I’m not ok with nazis, but I think it’s ok to fast for lent if you want even if I don’t. So, we’re both saying context is important?
Not all morals or beliefs have to be unshakable or viewed as morally reprehensible for disagreement.
The tweet suggests the sample group disagrees with this statement.
I think you’re expressing the general consensus: people get a lot of their morals from their environment, but there’s some stuff that’s universal/non-negotiable; and we should be able to find common ground with that.
At least, I think that’s the general consensus. I’ve gotten into trouble with that assumption though.
Even if all morality is subjective or inter-subjective I have some very strong opinions about tabs vs spaces
As I have learned today: “tabstospaces”: true
Tabs. F alignment for aesthetic purposes
Morality is, and always has been, built entirely upon empathy. Understanding how someone else feels and considering the greater implications beyond yourself is the fundamental building block to living a moral life. If you’re willing to condemn the world to your shitty code just because the tab key is quicker, you’re a selfish monster who deserves hyponichial splinters. See also: double spaces after a period.
This is gonna get out of hand.
ANNNND
Fuck you, nuh uh
Morality is, and always has been, built entirely upon empathy. Understanding how someone else feels and considering the greater implications beyond yourself is the fundamental building block to living a moral life.
Stoning people to death for mixing fabrics was based on morality too.
Nah, the probibitions against mixed fabrics, and who can be considered holy, and how to pray and to whom, all of those are edicts designed to exert control. It has nothing to do with morality.
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Oh no, my half remembered example of overly violent reactions to breaking moral traditions might not be literally accurate!
Did religions include extremely harsh punishments for breaking moral codes? Yes. That is the point even if the details aren’t exactly right.
You can hold to an ethical code while breaking your moral code. This seems to be an example of that, and my frustration with ethics codes of many professional societies/organizations. You can be entirely ethical yet still spend your life crating efficient life ending tools.
The correct answer is to map tab to spaces in your IDE.
My morality is built on furtherment of mankind technologically, with weights assigned to satisfaction and an aversion to harm. Here are some examples on how to apply this logically and without any emotion, empathy included:
- It’s kind of like not really believing in human rights but supporting them anyways because the people who oppose human rights are destructive and inefficient.
- Humans are animals. We must act according to our basic wants and needs in a way that maximizes our satisfaction, or else we are acting against our own nature. However, we must do this in a way that causes no harm, or we have failed as a collective species.
- Diversity is a must because exclusivity is a system which consistently fails every time is has ever been tested.
- The death penalty is taboo not because life is sacred but because one person deciding the importance of another’s life is intellectually bankrupt and only leads to a spiral of violence.
- All life is meaningless, full stop, which gives us the right to assign whatever meaning we like, and having more technology, with equal control over it by each individual person, gives us the collective power to make more choices.
I will not be taking any questions, meatbags
So, empathy like I said.
Why do you value the technological advancement of the human race? How do you determine what is advancement, and what is regression?
Why place emphasis on satisfaction and aversion to harm? How do you determine the relative levels of satisfaction and harm except through empathy?
People who use tabs are monsters
<overly dramatic threat of violence here>
Vertical or horizontal tabs? And I don’t mean browser tabs.
Tabs are the one true way! All those who blaspheme against the might tab will be regex’d into compliance.
My heart goes out to those who suffer with poor editors where this is a problem. I do empathize with them. It’s important to love others and help. That’s the code for my life: love others. Except vim users. Straight to jail.
Parallel: Teaching contemporary American literature to undergrads in 2019 was utterly bizarre because they hadn’t lived through 9/11. So much stuff went over their heads. There’s just a disconnect you’re always going to have because of lived experience and cultural changes. It’s your job, especially in a philosophy course, to orient them to differing schools of thought and go “oh, I didn’t think about it that way.” And correct them on Nietzsche, because they’re always fucking wrong about Nietzsche.
Gesundheit!
I believe the only objective morality is that you must act without intent to harm others unless it is in self-defense.
How far in advance are you allowed to act in self defense? If you all but know they’re leaving the room to go get a gun out of the next room can you strike while their back is turned as they leave? What if it’s the neighbor who thinks you banged his wife and he’s going next door to get the gun? For most people there’s probably a distance at which the answer becomes “call the cops” but that distance probably gets a lot farther if the guy you think is about to shoot you is the sheriff’s brother. And what if you’re less sure? What if the person is clearly unhinged but it feels like a coinflip as to whether or not they’re about to try to murder you?
What about on a wider societal level? If you think a group of people is marshalling to attack you or the wider society can you attack first? Do you arrest them or even have the police violently disrupt their gatherings? Do you become a terrorist and commit an act of mass violence in the hopes that it will prevent them from attacking you or another group you consider vulnerable?
That raises the other question of whether it’s acceptable to defend others, but for the sake of simplicity it sounds like you’re not in favor of getting in the middle of other people’s fights which is fair, but do your kids fights count as your fights? Is there an age limit on that?
None of those questions necessarily apply to any particular ideology but I can think of a few ways people might and often actually have used these concepts in ways both favoring and disfavoring my own personal convictions.
Oddly enough, just watched Hitman, and there was a line that fits here.
And now you successfully turned a simple statement into one hell of a philophical exam.
A few years ago a coworker asked what thing is seen as normal now that’s going to be looked back on in 100 years as completely barbaric and I was like seriously? We’re acute inpatient psych nurses who have to force people to take medications, often by physically holding them down and injecting them. We’re doing the best we can, and I actually got into this field because I was that patient (my first restraint incident was my own) and I like to think I’m part of working towards that better future but holy shit does it suck right now.
I have to see every person’s full skin including removing their pants on admission. I’m as tactful as I can be, I provide as much modesty and dignity as I can, but in the end I can’t tell just by looking which ones have a knife taped to their leg. One person actually had an entire loaded gun that the ED somehow missed. I don’t make them squat and cough or put my fingers in any orifices but it still traumatizes the depressed college students who think we’re gonna heal them instead of just prevent them from dying for three days while we make sure the sedatives they’re gonna take until they can see an outpatient psych or therapist won’t kill them.
Life is horrible. We do the best we can. I’ve decided my meaning of life is to reduce suffering. The more time I spend trying the better idea I have of what actions I can take that will actually do that (although luck remains a significant factor) and sometimes I even succeed!
The misunderstanding I see here is in the definition of “subjective”.
Subjective is often used interchangeably with opinion. And people can certainly have different opinions.
But the subjective that is meant is that morals don’t exist without a subject, aka a mind to comprehend them.
A rock exists whether or not a mind perceives the rock. The rock is objective. It is a physical object.
The idea that it is wrong to harm someone for being different is subjective. It is an idea. A thought. The thought does not exist without a mind.
So yes. Morals are all subjective. Morals do not exist in the physical world. Morals are not objects, they do not objectively exist. They exist within a subject. Morals subjectively exist.
That does not mean that any set of morals is okay because it’s just an opinion, bro. Because it’s not just an opinion. Those subjective values effect objective reality.
Nobody used the word subjective. What are you on about?
So you legitimately don’t recognize the screenshot as being fundamentally based around the issues of subjectivity and objectivity?
I mean… what are you on about?
I think you should read more carefully in the future, but this time I’ll explain it to you: The OP used the word relative. The reply went into a discussion about how the word subjective has a narrow meaning in philosophy that isn’t the same as the common usage. The OP was not discussing subjectivity in the sense of the reply, nor did it use the word subjective.
Probably in relation to the use of ‘relative’, I guess a synonym for subjective?
(Edit) I thought is was an interesting comment btw
Yeah, I guess. Maybe they misread the OP. I agree that it was interesting, though completely irrelevant to the statement in the OP.
But suffering objectively exists. I know this. I experience this. It is an objectively immoral experience that exists in this reality that I am calling ‘suffering’.
That pretty much enough for moral objectivism for me on some level.
Do no harm, do only good. In that order.
The keyword there is experience.
You are a subject. Suffering isn’t an object, it’s a feeling. A concept.
Subjective doesn’t mean “not real”. It’s something that needs a subject to exist. The suffering, just like morals, do exist. They are real, they can be measured, they can be discussed, they have real effects.
What makes them subjective isn’t “well that’s like, just your opinion, man”, it’s the fact that without a subject to experience them, they would cease to exist.
To you I am subjective. But from where I am sitting it isn’t.
You have a physical presence in space. That’s objective. Emphasis on object. Something being objective doesn’t mean “this is a fact”, it means it has physical form.
The pain you feel is not an object. It’s an experience. Again, that does not translate to “that’s your opinion”. It is real, it simply is not a physical object.
Objective and Subjective are both real. They’re mind and matter, not opinions and facts.
Woah there buddy, I said suffering. Not Pain. Distinct difference that nullifies your point as it’s completely irrelevant, talking about something else sorry.
Alright. Is suffering an object?
I think this is a bit too simple. Suppose I say that moral badness, the property, is any action that causes people pain, in the same way the property of redness is the quality of surfaces that makes people experience the sensation of redness. If this were the case, morality (or at least moral badness) would absolutely not be a subjective property.
Whether morality is objective or subjective depends on what you think morality is about. If it’s about things that would exist even if we didn’t judge them to be the way they are, it’s objective. If it’s about things that wouldn’t exist unless we judge them to be the way they are, it’s subjective.
Subjective morality is self evidently true, but that gives us no information about how to live our lives, so we must live as if absolute morality is true.
We only have our own perspective. Someone else’s subjective morality is meaningless to us, we aren’t them.
Absolute truth must exist, because if it doesn’t, “there is no absolute truth” is absolutely true, which is a contradiction.
You arent the decider of what truth is though, especially for others.
You don’t agree that there are universal truths? Like the earth is spherical, the sun provides us light, and lemmy.ml is full of tankies?
What is light to one is dark for another. Whats pain for one is gain for another. Everything is relative and through the lens of your own perspective, experience, and bias
I’ll take that as a ‘no’
Ill take yours as “I dont get it”
Obviously truth is absolute. The question is whether morality is absolute or relative.
I mean, in the same vein, I can completely break reality if it can’t stand a contradiction, watch:
This sentence is false.
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You should look into Godel’s incompleteness theorem.
Everything in moderating or something. I’m not an ear doctor
Excuse me I was told that anyone who says “people view disagreement as moral monstrosity” is actually a nazi.
Is he saying the first point is wrong or just that it conflicts with the second?
That it conflicts with the second viewpoint.
That it conflicts. He’s saying that if you believe that morality is relative and every person/culture has the difficult task of defining their own, it’s ironic to be so aghast when people have reached different conclusions than you.
This, we sadly have people who believe that open-mindness is a virtue, as long as you’re open-minded in the exact same way as everypony else.
There are two opinions: mine and wrong.
Setting aside the unshakeable part, morality should be somewhat rigid. While relative, that doesn’t mean morality can or should change on a whim.
It seems like that tension between those things (which I’d expect are natural intuitions that many people experience) would be a foundational principle in ethics. Is it? Is that the joke?
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as someone who never studied ethics academically, this was also my guess.
They conflict. The first one is a form of moral relativism (that how you should act morally depends on your culture/upbringing).
The second one is a form of moral absutism (that there is a specific morality you should live by)
Basically someone saying there’s no right answer while also saying they have the only right answer and everyone who disagrees with it is bad.
What’s even funnier- is the amount of people in the comments here that perfectly illustrate the humor in the post without even understanding why.
Jokes on you, I don’t believe in subjective morality.
Could somebody explain it to me, please?
The humor is based on a seeming contradiction this guy’s students exhibit.
They apparently simultaneously believe:
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in a relativistic moral framework - that morality is a social construct (that can mean other things, too, but morality as a social construct is a very common type of relativistic moral framework)
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that their morality is absolutely correct and get outraged at disagreements with their moral judgments.
This isn’t logically inconsistent, but it is kind of funny.
It isn’t logically inconsistent because, if you believe morality is relative and what is right/wrong for people in other societies is not necessarily right/wrong for people in your society, then assuming that the professor and his student are part of the same or similar societies, they should share the same or similar morality. People in the same society can disagree on who is a part of their society as well as what is moral. Ethics is messy. So, it is not necessarily logically inconsistent to try to hold others to your relativistic moral framework - assuming you believe that it applies to them too since “relative” doesn’t mean “completely individualized”. And, due to globalization, you might reasonably hold a pretty wide range of people to your moral views.
It is kind of funny because there is a little bit of tension between the rigidity of the ethical beliefs held and the acceptance that ethics are not universal and others may have different moral beliefs that are correct in their cultural context. Basically, to act like your morals are universally correct while believing that your morals are correct for you, but not for everyone, represents a possible contradiction and could be a bit ironic.
A good example of relativistic morality based on culture/society:
On the Mongolian steppe, it is seen as good and proper for the old, when they can no longer care for themselves, to walk out on the steppe to be killed by the elements and be scavenged - a “sky burial”. Many in the West would find this unacceptable in their cultural context. In fact, they might say, it is wrong to expect or allow your mom to go sky byrial herself in Ohio or say… Cambridge. Instead, they might think you should take her in or put her in a home.
Now, if your professor said to you “So you don’t think Mongolians expecting their mothers to die in sky burials is wrong, but you believe me expecting my mother to die in a sky burial is wrong in Cambridge? Curious. I am very intelligent.” You could probably assume they are either a Mongolian nomad or don’t understand relatvistic morality.
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I don’t see the problem. One can have unshakeable moral values they believe everyone should have while acknowledging those values may be a product of their upbringing and others’ lack of them the same.
I think you’re missing the significance of his phrase “entirely relative”.
In moral philosophy, cultural relativity holds that morals are not good or bad in themselves but only within their particular context. Strong moral relativists would hold the belief that it’s fine to murder children if that is a normal part of your culture.
I guess I’m parsing the statement as “understand it as a concept” when they mean “hold that position.”
What about the last part: “viewing disagreement as moral monstrosity?”
It’s the kind of thing professors say when they want to go viral on some fascist platform.
I believe abortion is moral. I believe people who disagree are morally monstrous. I can also understand that their beliefs on whether abortion is moral or not can be a product of their culture and upbringing. What am I missing? Why is this odd?
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When you say “abortion is moral,” do you mean that it is never immoral? As in, you literally can’t think of a situation where it would be wrong for a woman to get an abortion?
I’m someone else, but yeah, I believe the right to bodily autonomy trumps quite literally every other right.
If the world’s smartest person’s survival depended on compromising my bodily autonomy for 5 seconds, I would be in my right to let that person die. If you forced it on me, I would be in my right to kill the world’s smartest person for violating my bodily autonomy.
And not just that, but I think the vast majority of people hold this opinion, but they’re either too dumb to realize it, or commit non-stop special pleading to deny it. I think that very basically, because to think bodily autonomy is NOT the ultimate right, is to think it acceptable to farm human organs as long as it’s for a sufficiently good reason.
So mother is in the 12th hour of labor, she can just morally request an abortion? What if the baby is crowning? How about before the cord is clamped or cut? What about the day before a C-section?
Not the person you responded to, but yes, that describes me.
The only situations I can imagine where abortion would be immoral are extremely contrived scenarios that don’t happen in reality.
That’s very nieve. You can believe in a woman’s absolute right to choose while also acknowledging that sometimes people do heinous things.
