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I can't see where calling pedophilia a liberal-friendly example does NOT appeal directly to emotions.



Just homosexual pedophilia. I'd assume that if these were grown men having sex with teenage girls, people wouldn't be so tolerant.

They wouldn't rationalize it by calling it teaching.


For the time being, unless someone has an objection, I'm referring to relativism as "A theory, especially in ethics or aesthetics, that conceptions of truth and moral values are not absolute but are relative to the persons or groups holding them."

I believe that there are universal truths, even if we disagree on what they are.

The relativist also has a hard time because the idea itself is contradictory. Saying that all truth is relative is an absolute statement. But if that isn't absolutely true then that means that truth is absolute. Relativism makes no sense.

I understand what you guys are saying. Some people disagree on what is morally ok to do. And that's a fact of nature. But just because people don't agree, doesn't mean that there isn't an absolute truth. I'll illustrate below.

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This is a good example. Are you saying that American slavery is universally understood to be a "bad thing" morally? Back in the 18th century, a majority of American didn't think so at all. And, as much as I hate it, even today slavery is not universally understood to be morally bad. Isn't that Moral Relativism?



Ok. So then you admit why relativism is so dangerous. It says that slavery wasn't really bad. Since we disagree on what's right and wrong, blacks are just lucky that the ones who thought slavery were wrong won out in the end. That's the only truth of the matter. I hate to use an 'emotional' argument, but try telling a holocaust survivor that the holocaust wasn't absolutely wrong, but just that we think its wrong and 'good thing we won the war.'

Relativism says that since people disagree about slavery, no one is right. I say that even if we disagree, slavery is ALWAYS wrong.

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Maybe the misunderstanding here is that Irish_Farmer thinks that accepting the fact that morals are relative to a culture means embracing their morality ?



Nope. I doubt much would change for the time being if everyone were a relativist. But I find that some relativists are the most contradictory. They say no one is for sure right, and then spend their lives trying to change everyone else's morals to fit their own view better.

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Now for the really tricky question, is there really such a thing as absolute morals? Things that are *always* good or *always* bad (even if a society thinks otherwise)? Or is everything relative? Can you have absolute morals without some powerful "overseer" (like God)?



You're the only one who has actually managed to catch the point of everything I've been saying. They're off on a tangent about whether or not everyone agrees. I don't care if everyone agrees. The point is whether or not you're going to believe that some bad things really are bad (that the evil of slavery isn't just an illusion) or whether they're only bad because we all agree they're bad.

I just want the relativists to admit that's what they believe. But they seem to be pretty good at dodging around their own conclusions.

I mean, they have all but admitted it, but I want to hear them say it. It'll make happy that they at least aren't denying their own worldview to themselves.

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There can and should be a higher morality. This would be a morality defined by cetain enlightened individuals, and can transcend the common "mob morality".



I finally got it! The admission that there are absolute morals (in a relative sense, in other words whatever seems best at the time), and that it takes 'enlightened' people to tell the majority what they are. Interesting. This is why I resist relativism.

Its a dangerous position, especially when people like Matt hold it to be true. That's only a half-joke.

Last edited by Irish_Farmer; 06/22/06 04:56.
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