tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post8185433088148353178..comments2024-02-20T12:26:24.682-05:00Comments on language goes on holiday: It's all relative?Duncan Richterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-26795255349233578772011-03-25T09:24:59.721-04:002011-03-25T09:24:59.721-04:00I may have put the point incorrectly. Here's w...I may have put the point incorrectly. Here's what Prinz says: "Relativists ... believe that conflicting moral beliefs can both be true. The stanch socialist and righteous royalist are equally right; they just occupy different moral worldviews." It is his version of relativism that I am arguing with, not every conceivable kind. And he does not say that everything is right--what he says is that conflicting moral beliefs <i>can</i> both be true. So I might have been unfair.<br /><br />But I still don't agree. How can an anti-monarchist and a monarchist be equally right about the rightness (or lack thereof) of monarchy? Well, they could be if each is half-right or totally wrong, but Prinz says that their beliefs about the moral value of monarchy can both be <i>true</i>, presumably because they "just" occupy different moral worldviews. <br /><br />I don't know what this is meant to mean. It is nonsense (surely) if it means their conflicting moral beliefs are both true because they have different moral beliefs. So I don't think a moral worldview can consist of beliefs. It must be something more like a world or form of life or language or something like that. But I don't think it's all that plausible to say that monarchists and socialists live in different worlds. And if they do, then in what sense do their moral beliefs conflict (rather than, say, pass each other by)?<br /><br />I think there <i>is</i> some sense in which people can and do live in different worlds, and there <i>is</i> something peculiar about moral disagreement. But I don't think that Prinz has captured what this is.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-31844141088023773562011-03-24T23:08:16.863-04:002011-03-24T23:08:16.863-04:00i don't understand the formula repeated above ...i don't understand the formula repeated above that for relativism 'everything is right'. it seems to me like a philosopher's device for putting the moves on a relativist. er. you know what i mean. is there an alternative ism/formula that holds something like 'no one has any means of establishing that their moral judgments are right and those of [another appropriately distinguished group] are not'?j.https://www.blogger.com/profile/09002699528461726304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-76444101546228276392011-03-24T21:53:20.469-04:002011-03-24T21:53:20.469-04:00Michael Cholbi agrees with some of the above here:...Michael Cholbi agrees with some of the above here: http://insocrateswake.blogspot.com/2011/03/good-source-for-moral-relativism.html<br /><br />"If you teach moral relativism in your ethics courses, as I sometimes do, you may share my frustration about appropriate readings on the topic — particularly defenses of relativism. We're all familiar with some critical work on moral relativism useful for undergraduates, James Rachels' being the best known. But I've found the non-philosophical sources on relativism (e.g., Ruth Benedict) just not intellectually rich enough, while some of the better known philosophical relativists (Harman, Mackie) are too sophisticated for students with little philosophical experience."Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-52017808113614687352011-03-24T07:17:53.018-04:002011-03-24T07:17:53.018-04:00Agreed. A desire to be tolerant often seems to enc...Agreed. A desire to be tolerant often seems to encourage people to support relativism, but relativism isn't tolerant. It does not, e.g., say that tolerance is good or right (any more than anything else is). It just says that everything is right, including both tolerance and intolerance. A Taliban warrior who wants to kill girls who go to school speaks the truth when he expresses his beliefs, according to relativism. It is not a good theory for liberals to believe in, or for anyone who is against intolerance.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-33846774052984898212011-03-24T00:23:11.183-04:002011-03-24T00:23:11.183-04:00"The discovery that relativism is true can he..."The discovery that relativism is true can help each of us individually by revealing that our values are mutable and parochial. We should not assume that others share our views, and we should recognize that our views would differ had we lived in different circumstances. These discoveries may make us more tolerant and more flexible."<br /><br />This seems very odd. I don't think I need to "discover" that relativism is true (in anything more than an anthropological sense) to realize these other things, or perhaps even to be tolerant. This is in part because one could be an objectivist without claiming to know what the objective moral truth is. Our own fallibility/finitude gives us reasons for humility and tolerance (and so a reason in many circumstances not to "impose"). Many other good points already made.Matthew Pianaltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-8581952408483888922011-03-23T15:19:30.669-04:002011-03-23T15:19:30.669-04:00Thanks, MKR.
I think I agree with your point 9, a...Thanks, MKR.<br /><br />I think I agree with your point 9, although I wouldn't dispute the claim that there are cultures with different moral beliefs.<br /><br />Point 10 sounds right, too, and might be a reason to assign Prinz's essay in a course based on Rachels' & Rachels' The Elements of Moral Philosophy, which looks at subjectivism after relativism. Prinz seems to have subjectivism in mind a lot of the time.<br /><br />Point 11 seems right as well. There are morally good deeds, so perhaps we might say it is a morally good fact that such-and-such a deed was done. But that does sound a bit odd.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-54970918085986144942011-03-23T13:33:14.957-04:002011-03-23T13:33:14.957-04:00In answer to your question about assigning this pi...In answer to your question about assigning this piece as course reading, I should think that it has more going for it philosophically than the piece by Ruth Benedict that tends to show up in anthologies as the representative of moral relativism. At the same time, it should be more accessible than Gilbert Harman's defense.<br /><br />I would add three more points to your critique of the piece. I follow your numbering, though I think that the first of them actually belongs at the top of your list.<br /><br />(9) Prinz takes it as a datum that "Morals vary dramatically across time and place. One group’s good can be another group’s evil." There is an obvious problem with this sort of claim, namely the difficulty of defining, first of all, what the pertinent "group" is, and second, what the "morals" of the group are. Without the boundaries of the group being defined, it is impossible to say which moral disagreements are between groups and which ones are between individuals or sub-groups within the group. If each "group" is defined by its homogeneity of opinion then the relativistic thesis verges on triviality. As for defining what the morals of the group are, it has to be explained whether these are to be derived from behavior (what gets done and not done, what is approved and disapproved), from expressions of opinion (professions of general principle or judgments of individual cases), or the combination of these. Even given such data, it is a difficult matter to know what rules or principles are to be attributed to the group.<br /><br />(10) Prinz says that moral relativists "believe that conflicting moral beliefs can both be true." Yet the body of the article gives no explanation of how moral beliefs can be true, or even how they can be genuine beliefs. They seem rather to be emotional responses. His position reduces disagreement in morals to mere difference.<br /><br />(11) Prinz dismisses ethical rationalism on the grounds that "reason cannot tell us which facts are morally good." This presumes that moral judgment consists in, or at least requires, pronouncing "facts" to be "morally good." This is a dubious and artificial use of the word "good." The application of "good" pertinent to morals consists in judging human beings, their actions, their characters, their habits, and so forth, to be good or bad. "Morally good fact" has no clear sense.Miles Rindhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03733605717776262840noreply@blogger.com