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Topic:
Are you religious or spiritual?
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Suzuki_Akira
Registered:
May '03
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Date Posted:
7/16 4:26pm
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
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To Quix, a question - is it possible to have relativity within the confines of universal guidelines? This is the base of morality that pervades popular opinion, or at least the philosophy that would justify popular morality. And if so, how is that functionally dissimilar from moral relativity?
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Quixotic-Sith
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Jun '01
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Date Posted:
7/16 4:41pm
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
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Interesting questions - I'll answer them later (heading out to eat).
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 Cressbeckler 2008!
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Bacon164
Registered:
Mar '05
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Date Posted:
7/16 4:42pm
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
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George_Roper posted:
Boba_Fett_2001 posted:
Uh-oh, you said the R word.
*hides*
I predict a total of 427 posts.
it's getting there.
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Palpateen
Registered:
Apr '00
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Date Posted:
7/16 5:37pm
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
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wannasee posted:
Morality only exists if you take free will as a given. You have already illustrated this with your hydrogen atom example.
Also, 2 hydrogens don't make a helium.
Pardon me, I thought this was the "are you religious or spiritual thread"? 
Let's all get down on our knees and pray.
Woody Allen:
If there is a God, I think the worst thing you could say about him is that he's an underachiever.
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-RebelScum-
Registered:
Feb '04
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Date Posted:
7/16 5:50pm
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
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I could say worse. 
Scummy
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Fantasy Keeps Me Sane.
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Suzuki_Akira
Registered:
May '03
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Date Posted:
7/17 11:18am
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
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*waits for Quix*
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God is great, the Lord of all. "I find your lack of faith disturbing..." Those who dare oppose us will stand knee deep in the blood of their children. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=158008483
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Quixotic-Sith
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Jun '01
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Date Posted:
7/17 12:33pm
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
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can't write long posts. Using iTouch to surf the boards. More later.
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Grimby the Hutt
Title:
• JCC Mod with no MSG
• RMFF webmaster
Registered:
Apr '00
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Date Posted:
7/17 12:49pm
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
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Are you religious or spiritual?
I am. Yay! 
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Lord_Vivec
Registered:
Apr '06
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Date Posted:
7/17 1:00pm
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
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I am a spirited person.
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Do you enjoy pajamas?
Obama/Biden '08
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Obi-Zahn Kenobi
Registered:
Aug '99
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Date Posted:
7/17 5:09pm
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
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Lord_Vivec posted:
I am a spirited person.
That makes you a bad Catholic. Catholics aren't allowed to be spirited. See the Catechism of the Catholic Church Part 1, Section 2, Chapter 2, Article 3, Paragraph 4, III (466).*
* Look it up if you believe me.
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Quixotic-Sith
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Jun '01
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Date Posted:
7/17 6:27pm
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
- Date Edited:
7/17 6:54pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Quixotic-Sith
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alvarez posted:
I think we may be using "absolutism" in different contexts. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems you are referring to morality being knowable within a human context, which is not how I tend to view absolute morality.
And I'm not sure how you make the jump from universal guiding principles to being able to determine the good/evil value of a particular action. It still seems that your arguments are based on certain axioms regarding what is objectively good for humans.
We probably are using "absolute" in different contexts. Frequently, people use the term "absolute" in the sense of "Action X is *always wrong!!!!one!!!", and that's not the sense of "absolute" I'm using. My "absolutism" is metaethical - that is, moral status is not dependent upon a particular person, time, or culture, and it is possible for us to know it. This clarifies, but also raises further questions. I'll address your second question in the process of answering the first, as they tie together.
The way that I teach morality and ethics to my students is to break the concept down into three categories:
1. Metaethics
2. Moral Methodologies
3. Particular judgments
Absolutism, relativism, and emotivism all fit into category one ("Metaethics") because they are all questions of moral epistemology. Relativism, for instance, argues that moral judgments reflect cultural mores, individual moral judgments, etc., and have no appeal to transcendent concepts of right and wrong. Emotivism argues that all moral judgments simply combine statements of fact and value, so the statement "The Nazis were wrong to kill the Jews" becomes "The Nazis killed the Jews. I disapprove." All of these positions are expressing an argument about our access as moral agents to an objective standard of right and wrong, without specifying what that standard is, the "Whether we can" of moral judgments.
The second category already assumes a metaethical absolutist position. Kantian deontology, utilitarianism (Mill's and Bentham's), virtue theory, care ethics, narrative ethics, situational ethics, etc., etc., already assume it is possible to know moral right and wrong; they just tend to disagree on how to decide whether a particular action is right or wrong. The moral methodologies are the algorithms applied that generate moral judgments - this category concerns the "How" of moral judgments.
The third category are particular moral judgments - these are the end product of answering questions one and two. It is possible to disagree on the valuation of particular actions, but this doesn't take us back to question one - it is a debate about question two, and begs the question as to whether there is a flaw in the method of judgment, or if one of the conflicting positions can generate a stronger argument. Pluralism and disagreement can freely occur at levels two and three without leading us back to question one. This is the "What" of moral judgments.
In my case, I tend to support Aristotle's virtue ethics, as I'm a strong believer in character informing and producing actions. It's possible to combine a number of theories (for instance, I combine virtue ethics and principlism when making decisions in medical ethics), and typically the stronger arguments can be validated by a number of moral methodologies (one of the strengths of casuistry - moral argumentation based on paradigm cases). I justify virtue ethics by noting that it considers the motivation for performing the action, the action itself, it's outcomes on the agent and those around him/her, etc., in the final judgment. It's predicated upon the defining telos of humanity (our capacity for reason and reflection) producing specific characteristics that are objectively good for us to possess (e.g., wisdom, charity, compassion, etc.). I'm giving you a really watered down version of the Nicomachean Ethics - I can go into more detail if you like.
wannasee posted:
Against the argument for "overarching moral principles":
What about the treatment of animals? Some cultures won't harm animals, while others will do it for sport.
What about sex? Every culture has a different idea of what is moral concerning sex.
What about the individual? Every individual has his own sense of what is right and wrong, and even that changes over time.
That's all I got.
Edit: Also, what about cultures that are warlike, versus cultures that are peaceful?
You are painting with a rather broad brush, and only discussing examples at the level of practice, not principle (i.e., *why* these cultures have the practices that they do) - it's entirely possible for these cultures to generate very different practices that stem from the same motivations (e.g., the principle of respect for the family producing both long-term care facilities and sending grampa out to sea on an ice floe).
In regards to individual differences, the first response is that individuals can be wrong, so someone can be incorrect in his or her assessment of an actions morality (e.g., bad information, faulty reasoning, etc.). Change over time does not yield relativism - we can examine the process that yielded the change and see whether this produces a better or worse judgment (e.g., shifting to a racist position over time would constitute an objectively worse judgment (since racism by definition commits a fallacy of generalization, among other problems).
Suzuki posted:
To Quix, a question - is it possible to have relativity within the confines of universal guidelines? This is the base of morality that pervades popular opinion, or at least the philosophy that would justify popular morality. And if so, how is that functionally dissimilar from moral relativity?
I think I see what you are saying, but I'm not sure that it justifies relativism. I can certainly see a case made for pluralism (in which there are *many* good moral ideals, not one overarching ideal - both of which are compatible with absolutism; for instance, "charity" and "loyalty" are both virtues, and neither is more important than the other). See my response to alvarez regarding pluralism. The mere fact of disagreement within popular culture doesn't really yield moral relativism - some people are just idiots.  I have a bookmark made out of a panel from a Dilbert cartoon where he asks a woman "When did ignorance become a point of view?" The point is that people can be objectively wrong ("Obama is a Muslim!"), which fundamentally undermines relativism.
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Onoto
Title: Risk Host
Registered:
Oct '04
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Date Posted:
7/17 7:20pm
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
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OZK makes me laugh.
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JohnWesleyDowney
Registered:
Jan '04
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Date Posted:
7/18 1:18am
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
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This makes me laugh. This was great:
The mere fact of disagreement within popular culture doesn't really yield moral relativism - some people are just idiots. I have a bookmark made out of a panel from a Dilbert cartoon where he asks a woman "When did ignorance become a point of view?"
When I started the thread, I was not expecting anything this incisive. 
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wannasee
Registered:
Jan '07
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Date Posted:
7/18 6:20am
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
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Quixotic-Sith posted:
There are natural, overarching moral principles; morality is not relative.
These two things are not related. While there do seem to be some natural, overarching principles for some aspects of morality (incest is bad, respect for parents, marriage etc.), it does not necessarily follow that all morality is absolute.
I will accept that “67 universal features” of morality have been found, however, it is unlikely that these 67 features cover all areas of moral choice in our lives.
Regarding the treatment of animals, I can see no overarching principle that can reconcile the attitude of a hunter with that of a Buddhist, other than that they are both doing what they think is right.
Since that is not what I think you meant by “overarching principles”, can you tell me what the overarching principle is that is governing these two seemingly disparate practices?
Isn’t morality decided in the mind of the individual? Doesn’t that, by definition, make it subjective ie relative? Or does morality come from God?
Morality in the individual is learned. Just as a child can learn any language, so can he learn any morality.
In other words, morality is relative.
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Onoto
Title: Risk Host
Registered:
Oct '04
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Date Posted:
7/18 6:27am
Subject:
RE: Are you religious or spiritual?
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We are not discussing whether or not an individual has the freedom to choose, but rather, we are discussing whether or not it is possible for a person to be wrong about his or her choice.
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