refuting relativism

[Be Less Bored]

*snicker*

I love sharing this site:

http://www.carm.org/relativism/relativism_refute.htm

here's a tantalizing preview



But please continue denying knowability if it makes you happy.

[Beestie]

Anything can be proven false.

[jaguar]

Please. This is antique. The only thing that is absolute is that everything else is relative. As for knowability, you might want to check out Fitch's Paradox. This is first year uni stuff, get back to class and stop wasting time, you've still got Kant and Jung to cover before exams.

[jaguar]

Now I think about it there's a paradox that applies to this too but I can't remember the name of it, I'll see if I can dig it up later.

[smoothmoniker]

a'ight bored, since this is clearly a class assignment for you, I'll give you a hint. That's just the sort of nice people we are here at the cellar.

1) You've got at several uses of the word "truth" in that little section to signify different meanings. When an objectivist uses truth, they mean correspondence to the actual. When a relativist uses truth, they mean a justified perspectival proposition.

This means that in the argument "If relativism is true, then relativism is not true!", neither side is making a false statement. The objectivist is saying "relativism does not correspond to the actual" and the relativist is saying "the actual is unknowable (or non-existent), your definition of truth therefore has no basis, and my justified perspectival propsition that relativism is true stands."

2) Don't equivocate absolute truth with knowability. I am an ontological objectivist, but have a skeptical epistemology. Just because there can be objective realities that are rightly labeled true, it does not follow that any human perception of them escapes the problem of perspectivalism.

Ok, now put that in your own words, double space it, and add some footnotes. UT still hasn't worked out a good system for footnoting the cellar, so for now just call me John Hick, "Essays on Pluralism"

-smm

[russotto]

Relativism isn't usually a real position, it's a tactic. It's used by one side in an argument to deny the other side a place to stand (c.f. Archimedes).

When it IS a real position, it's usually a stupid one. For example, Cultural relativism -- the idea that the culture of a tribe of warrior cannibals is in no way inferior to Western culture.

[Happy Monkey]

Some things are objective, and some things are subjective, and it's generally not possible to know which is which.

[jaguar]

When it IS a real position, it's usually a stupid one. For example, Cultural relativism -- the idea that the culture of a tribe of warrior cannibals is in no way inferior to Western culture.

Cultural relativism is far more nuanced and useful than simple ethnocentrism, methodological relativism is fundamental to modern anthropology. Relativism most certainly can be a position, it's one of the big debates about the roles of NGOs in the 3rd world, at what point do you call something cultural imperialism and at what point do you call it humanitarian assistance?

[xoxoxoBruce]

© Matthew J. Slick

I believe that.

[smoothmoniker]

Most of the time, when we're talking about cultural relativism, what people usually mean is moral relativism. They don't mean to say (normally) that the musical innovation of Germany in the 1800's was superior to the musical innovation of the Hopi Indians of the same period. What they normally mean to say is that the moral conventions of Germany in the 1800's were superior to the moral conventions of the Hopi Indians of the same period. This is obviously a much more serious statement, and as such more controversial. I'll let Jag dance with pure social relativism, if he wants to.

The relativist holds to one of two basic premises regarding objective moral conventions. Either (1) objective moral values do not exist, or (2) objective moral values exist, but are absolutely unknowable. The result of either proposition leaves the moral ponderer in roughly the same circumstance.

There are some down-stream implications of either of these propositions. Without objectivity, nothing stands outside of any particular cultural convention to critique it. The only critique left would be an internal critique, a criticism that some aspect of a cultural convention doesn't exemplify the basic principles of the culture. For instance, a culture that values human life could be critiqued on the issue of a poorly instituted death penalty, not on the basis of some external standard, but on the basis that it doesn't exemplify the fundamental values of the culture.

This leads to three difficulties that our sense of morality revolts against.

1) There is no possible means of evaluating between two cultures. A culture that values charity and compassion toward the poor cannot be said to be "better" than a culture that values abusing women and prostituting children, as long as both are representing well-integrated expression of their basic principles. As long as the misogynistic culture really and truly holds to the value of misogyny, then they are not in error, on the relativists view. There is no sense in which the word "better" can be used outside of a strictly limited cultural scope.

2) Strict equivalence. Not only can we not say that one culture is better than another, the relativist is also bound to defend the idea that both cultures are strictly and exactly the same, morally. The misogynistic culture and the compassionate culture are strictly, exactly, perfectly the same morally. Our sense of right and wrong revolts at the very idea.

3) The impossibility of moral progress. This is maybe the most difficult one. Ignore the idea of two different cultures now, and thing about the same cultural group over time. Think of Germany in 1939, and Germany in 2005. The relativism is bound to defend the idea that the culture has not progressed morally. Moral progress has two necessary conditions that relativism doesn't allow: an objective goal, and a standard measure of deficiency. A sprinter who exhibits progress does so against an objective measure (covering the same distance in less time) and with a standard measure of deficiency ( a stopwatch and a set marked off distance). A relativist is not allowed either of those tools.

Think of the tremendous progress that the United States has made in the area of human rights. 150 years ago, I could have gone to an auction and purchased another human being, used him in any way I saw fit, abuse his body, his spirit, his family, and take his life. The moral conventions allowed it.

Today, that same man enjoys full equality under the law, the same rights and privileges that any human being holds, the right to compete for the same educational and business opportunities that I compete for, and the right to pursue the life of his choosing. This is no small difference.

The moral relativist is not allowed to call this progress.

-sm

[Clodfobble]

But regarding the impossibility of moral progress over time: couldn't the moral relativist allow for a (they would have to say arbitrary) change of the culture's basic principles? Slavery used to be morally okay because the culture said it was, but now that the culture declares it to be wrong, aren't they allowed to integrate their new basic principles?

What I mean is, the moral relativist can't allow for improvement over time, but they can allow for change right?

[smoothmoniker]

yes, they can allow for change, but not for improvement, not progress.

Which is where my mind just about blows up. Any moral schema that doesn't allow us to say that a culture moving away from human chattel and toward equality is making progress is a moral schema with fundamental flaws.

[Troubleshooter]

Fundamentally flawed or merely a very finely refined component of a larger methodology to be balanced against other parts?

[Be Less Bored]

Ahh the toasty warm glow of irony. No class project here unless I can consider you all lab animals.

[jaguar]

I'm not sure on the definition of social relativism, my experience is with what I've known as methodological relativism which is I guess far softer, merely an attempt to objectively look at another culture while trying to proactively take your own biases into account. Rather useful when trying to study say the belief structure of communities in Ghana or the societal structure in the Caribbean. While I have and continue to enjoy using moral relativism from a devil's advocate point of view I don't think it's something I could wholeheartedly embrace. However things don't have to be absolutes. While I couldn't swallow that say, Female Genital Mutilation isn't wrong in a time where increasingly were confronted with a gross level of misunderstanding between particularly Islamic-based and western society on both sides the importance of methodological relativism I don't think can be overstated.