However, when the moral values are in opposition and irreconcilable, objectivists use precisely the same methods of force as relativists. Objectivists are more than happy to kill and torture when people don’t agree with them. The difference is that they take more pride in their coercion.

As a sociological fact that can be very true. The most salient example on the world scene today is radical Islam–like the alleged honor killing in Texas last week, or the woman who was punished by the courts (was it in Saudi Arabia?) for being raped.

The Western system of checks and balances was devised by men (primarily) who were steeped in Biblical knowledge regarding the state of humankind. They knew about corruptibility, they knew about the sin of pride (you imply you agree there’s something wrong there), and they knew that these needed restraint. But they also knew that power needed to be applied for the maintenance of social well-being. They did a masterful job of limiting the way that power could be applied; the best that has been devised on Earth, to my knowledge.

They were objectivists. Almost everybody in history, up until sometime in the 20th century or so, has been. They were not “more than happy to kill and torture.” If by implication you intend to say that subjectivists do not kill and torture, then you’ll have a hard time proving it. I’ll bet the man who’s in prison right now for doing that to my cousin is probably a subjectivist. Was Hannibal Lecter an objectivist? How about the Columbine shooters?

Anyway, we have two issues that need to be conceptually distinguished: how do we determine what is right and wrong, and how do we practically accomplish agreement and enforcement regarding right and wrong? You, Paul, and os have begun focusing on the second: you say that enforcement is the same either way. To some extent, yes.

But it’s not all enforcement. There is still the question of whether enforcement itself is justified and justifiable. To the relativist the answer is that power justifies enforcement; and I have yet to see any of you contradict that. To the moral realist, enforcement is justified when it is done in service of that which is actually right (and that includes the manner in which it is done, not just the outcome).

Is there illogic in your position? I do not say there ultimately is, except that I have often warned you about the difficulty you will certainly have maintaining it consistently (most recently here).

And I repeat: you have provided no justification for applying morality to any situation, except for the justification of power. It’s a strange definition of morality that puts power front and center that way. I think with some more work we could find an incoherency there.

As I survey my moral life, I find it complicated and hard to summarize. All I can do now is to throw out a few quick, random examples.

Recently, I had occasion to tell my step-son that it was wrong for him to do A because “what if someone treated you that way?” My point was obvious to him. So we may extract a moral code–do unto others, etc.– from this example that appeals to one’s sense of fairness. Is that realist/objective/absolutist?

I think murder is wrong, and so does the society of Saudia Arabia, and the two cultures sanction state executions, but for different offenses. Is one society moral for execution A and the other not for execution B?

I think it would be instructive to lay out several specific cases of a moral code and generalize by type, and see what issues for relativism arise, but that’s more than I can do right now.

I might not get back to this for a while (tonight, I hope), but please continue if you feel so led. I am interested in your response, but I can’t reply in a timely fashion.

Later…

Whoa! Did I miss that, Paul? You are saying you act as an objectivist in practice? I don’t think so, MM.

Yes, you did, which is an example of why I’ve lost interest in responding to you. See above for this:

Paul:Certainly, I live my life as if I were a moral absolutist, most of the time.

There’s more to Paul’s statement there, including some qualifications that you might want to look for as well. Happy hunting.

I understand where you’re coming from about relativism being the “truth” behind the “appearance” of human experience. That’s the same basic way that determinists look at determinism. According to them, we think we’re free and we can make choices. In reality, they say, we aren’t and can’t – we’re just collected atoms following the laws of physics. Even though I disagree with the so-called fact of determinism, I can appreciate the reasoning behind it (granting some presuppositions). But, our relationships and societies and experiences are based on the idea that we can, in fact choose. We can’t completely obliterate that idea in any meaningful way. We can’t live coherently by assuming that we can’t choose and see any positive results.

I can say the same about moral relativism. Part of our human experience is the conviction that some things are always, always, wrong (or right). If we start acting as though nothing is really wrong or right, just more or less preferable, then we lose any ability to rationally call anything wrong at all. We open the door for the “yeah, says who?” response to any moral criticisms.

Remember, you can’t have any absolutes and still be relativistic. Even one absolute moral law makes you an objectivist. To truly believe in determinism, you have to hold that there is no “free will” at all, just the illusion of it. To truly believe in relativism, you have to believe that there are no “moral laws” at all, just preferences.

So, I’m not calling moral relativism a hopeless hypothesis because of any truth value questions. I’m looking only at whether or not we can actually apply it to human experience. Ultimately, we can’t. Relativists are free to believe that, ultimately, there are no moral absolutes and no objective moral laws, but the nature of human experience demands that they live as though those things do exist.

So, if morals are relative, then there is no such thing as a “real” right or wrong – it’s all opinion.

This is begging the question, no true Scotsman reasoning.

“Real” right and wrong means objective right and wrong. That’s question-begging. Right and wrong ARE opinions. They have always been. They are opinions we are willing to fight for. Right and wrong are exactly like pretty and ugly, but rather than applying to things, they apply to actions.

When you say to someone, “that’s wrong”, instead of “that’s not what I would prefer”, you’re not being a relativist, you’re acting as an objectivist.

Not at all. Right and wrong are opinions, not statements about objective fact. You are making the assumption that right and wrong refer to absolutes from the very beginning, then saying that if they don’t refer to absolutes there is a contradiction. But you’re just assuming your conclusion.

It’s the equivalent of this: Right and wrong are just opinions. If you are saying that we ought to act without consideration of personal opinion, then you are not referring to right and wrong, but to something else, maybe rules” or “laws”, but not right and wrong. Therefore, morality must be opinion because if it isn’t, there’s no morality.

Paul, for example, understands that he acts as an objectivist in practice. There are aspects of morality that Paul thinks, intellectually, are subjective, but he recognizes that he can’t make moral judgments under a relativistic framework – because they don’t make sense.

Whoa! Did I miss that, Paul? You are saying you act as an objectivist in practice? I don’t think so, MM.

Sorry, but see above.

You still resist answering my philosophical question. Why be good?

What does it mean to be good in the abstract sense? IOW, suppose you had never heard of God or the Bible. What does good mean and why do you want to act in a good way?

You say:

Try to follow: if there is an omnipotent God who created me, and He tells me to follow rules A,B, and C, I have good reasons to follow those rules, and to understand that the consequences for violating them will be worse than the consequences of following them.

What does worse mean?

What I see is you saying that there are some laws of the universe that dictate what it means for something to be good. Much like there being laws that dictate what it means for a rock to melt. Well, why do you want your rocks molten? If such laws existed, why follow them?

You say the consequences will be better. In what way? How does good/bad dichotomy have any more significance to you than the solid/molten rock dichotomy?

Again, I want you to talk about good and bad in the abstract. Don’t talk about Christianity. Just pretend that we haven’t considered any particular moral system yet. I want to know what you expect to get out of the moral system you choose.

I keep stating (not pretending) that it’s obvious, because no one has yet indicated somewhere that they’ll actually apply moral relativism in a coherent and consistent way. Note, please, that said “moral”, and not “morsel” – spare me more irrelevant analogies about fruit. The very act of making moral judgments – which you do – is a form of objectivism. You’re not really saying, “I don’t prefer murder,” “I don’t prefer the rape of toddlers”, you think (I presume) that those things are wrong. You’re not really willing to accept any standard of morals. You’re just inserting your opinion above any other considerations.

For example, you keep making subtle suggestions that it would be wrong to murder if God was Vecna and Vecna said “I command you to murder”. Wait, now. I thought morality was subjective – are you implying that murder is wrong, regardless of the situation? That’s objectivism. If not, why keep making that argument?

Your numbered section is completely off the map. I’m stating that you cannot attempt to make a moral claim against someone at all, since relativism, by definition, means that there is no “right” or “wrong” answer to any moral question. That’s why it’s irrational.

When you say to someone, “that’s wrong”, instead of “that’s not what I would prefer”, you’re not being a relativist, you’re acting as an objectivist. I think we can agree that if absolute morals do exist, then they are by definition not relative. Noncontradiction requires that contradictory statements cannot be simultaneously true. So, is morals are relative, then there is no such thing as a “real” right or wrong – it’s all opinion.

Paul, for example, understands that he acts as an objectivist in practice. There are aspects of morality that Paul thinks, intellectually, are subjective, but he recognizes that he can’t make moral judgments under a relativistic framework – because they don’t make sense. That doesn’t change the fact that Paul’s a relativist, just like Dawkins is still a determinist. What it does do is put Paul (and Dawkins) on a more realistic footing regarding what they believe. I don’t agree with Paul, but I can communicate with him. In the end, we probably won’t agree, because this is a worldview issue based mostly on presuppositions. We do have a shot at better understanding both our own views and each others’.

In contrast, I’ve spent more than enough time watching you do gymnastics, so feel free to continue on your own. I’d rather talk to someone who’s got something other than pseudo-logic to offer.

You say that relativism is nothing more than theoretical, but I see it as the underlying foundation, a background that is necessary but is rarely revealed or thought about because it doesn’t have to be, just like we rarely need the precision of Einsteinian physics in our daily lives, Newton is just fine the vast majority of the time, and we can act as if it is actually true, but, in reality, it isn’t. (I know I haven’t proved the reality of relativism, I’m looking now at only the coherence of the system.)

That isn’t a hopeless hypothesis.

Your 1-5 is rational, assuming that (3) is true [it may be for pickles, but it may not be for other foods]. It is rational, and it relies on your tastes and desires. We can skip just about everything else you said. Why? You can’t get past the idea that just because gustative taste is subjective and rational, that does not mean that morality can be subjective and rational.

Not all reasoning about what a person thinks they should do is necessarily moral reasoning. And this…

It would be begging the question to say that the above is not moral reasoning just because it does not rely upon an objective moral reality.

…is nonsensical. No one made such a claim.

Your premise (0) is highly subject to interpretation. I understand how you’re using it, however, and it’s not all bad in that sense. The difference is that subjectivists don’t think that there’s any reason to change what they want to do for any reason. Objectivists think that there’s an external standard that we should be trying to conform our “wants” to. Given the interpretative room in your (0), it’s not necessarily true that you must do what you want to do. That’s just a form of determinism, implying that you don’t really have any choices at all, which would make everything else you’re trying to say moot.

There is a lot in your first (0.x) series that doesn’t fit Christian theology. For instance, Christians don’t believe that God determines objective good for me, we believe he’s determined an objective good for everyone. What you wrote is just your relativism bleeding through. We also don’t think that God is ever indifferent to our moral choices; if God’s not concerned what decision we make, it’s because it’s not a moral decision.

Again, by invoking Vecna (or Hextor, or Nerull, or any other DnD deity you think will get an emotional response) you’re asking me to defend what I don’t believe. You’re also losing the logical connections. As I said before, if there IS such a thing an objective, absolute moral rule, then it makes no difference if we like it or not. Your own question is removing the logical ability to criticize someone for choosing to follow the rule. All you’re really doing is continuing to assert that your personal feelings should be the highest authority in the universe.

It’s highly rational to accept (0.1) because of the consideration of the consequences. Try to follow: if there is an omnipotent God who created me, and He tells me to follow rules A,B, and C, I have good reasons to follow those rules, and to understand that the consequences for violating them will be worse than the consequences of following them.

When you ask this…

”Who would want to be good without any clue of what that entails? No one does.”

…you really mean to say this: “Who would want to follow a rule that doesn’t give me what I want? Why would anyone ever do something they don’t want to?” Your attitude of swapping your 1 and 2 not only wouldn’t solve the problem (if I want to be “good”, but I don’t want to pay the price, then I apparently don’t really want to be good.), but it shows how the moral framework you’re creating is purely selfish.

I think you should be able to see that you’re relying on emotion, and not reason, when you say this:

”To be rational, you have to like what God is selling before you buy.”

To you, your own personal desires are the ultimate authority. That’s not rational at all.

You said to Paul:

You may well believe that relativism is true, but, as you’re saying, that belief cannot be anything other than theoretical. There is no circumstance in which you can rationally apply that belief consistent with its outworkings.

You have never not established this. You just keep pretending that is is obvious.

You think that:

1) In order for person A to make an effective moral claim against person B, person B has to think person A is a moral realist.

2) In order for person A to make an effective moral claim against person B, person A has to actually be a moral realist.

3) In order for person A to reason about what he ought to do, there has to be an absolute morality, or else his decision is irrational.

Each of these is false.

Suppose a guy walks up to you on the street and says “Hey, it’s chilly today, and if you give that busker a $1, he’ll be able to afford a hot cup of coffee. You should do that.”

Realizing that you had not given the busker or the weather a second thought this morning, you decide to reflect on the issue. You think, “yeah, if I were a busker, I would really enjoy a hot cup of coffee on a morning like this.” You also think that you lose about $1 a week in your sofa’s seat cushions, so the $1 means a lot less to you than to the busker. You conclude that you should give the busker a $1.

At no point in this reasoning process do you need to think about realism versus relativism.

At no point in process did you think about whether the guy who first suggested the donation was, in fact, Adolf Hitler or Professor Relativist. Your decision is not governed by the man’s moral authority, but by your own moral compass (i.e., your own internal moral authority).

Also, you reasoned about what you ought to do without any reference to absolutes. You reasoned based on your tastes, the material facts, and your empathy.

Yet you insist that society will collapse if we learn that morality is relative. What would you do differently if you knew morality were relative?

I put it to you that you rely on your own moral compass when making moral decisions, and that taking God out of the picture won’t change anything significant. As Jake has said, humans have tendencies that result from our evolutionary history and our ability to empathize. Doing what we want isn’t the end of the world – it’s the first law of free will.

In the absence of objective morality…

If you think premarital sex has adverse consequences, then you’ll try to prevent it. On the other hand, if you think it has no adverse consequences, then the benefits outweigh the penalties, and you will engage in it. No big deal.

Similarly, if you think theft has adverse consequences, then you’ll try to prevent it. On the other hand, if you think it has no adverse consequences, then the benefits outweigh the penalties, and you will permit it or engage in it.

I wonder what your definition of rationality is. Consider this line of reasoning:

1) I don’t like pickles.

2) I want to live a happy healthy life.

3) I do not need to eat pickles to have a healthy life.

4) My life will be less happy if I eat pickles.

5) Therefore, I will not eat pickles.

This seems completely rational to me, and yet it relies upon my tastes, preferences and desires.

Relativism most certainly does not eliminate moral reasoning because this is an instance of moral reasoning. It is reasoning about what I think I ought to do. It would be begging the question to say that the above is not moral reasoning just because it does not rely upon an objective moral reality.

We could analyze this in a more general way. You might argue that there are implicit axioms in the above chain. For example, there is a premise (0):

(0) I will do what I want to do.

You might even call this the First Law of Free Will. Even you cannot help but obey (0) as a prime directive.

You believe you add another series of premises:

0.1) I want to do what is objectively good more than anything else, no matter what that entails.
0.2) God determines for me what is objectively good.
0.3) Therefore, I should do what God wants.
0.4) If God is indifferent to my moral choice (or if his preference is unknown), then revert to my personal preferences.

Here’s my argument again. It makes no sense to place premise (0.1) in a position before the questions of what God wants. Here’s an example:

0.1) I want to do what is objectively good more than anything else, no matter what that entails.
0.2) Vecna determines for me what is objectively good. (He wants murder, suffering and death.)
0.3) Therefore, I should do what Vecna wants.
0.4) If Vecna is indifferent to my moral choice (or if his preference is unknown), then revert to my personal preferences.

Why would anyone accept (0.1) as a preliminary without any consideration of the consequences? That would be senseless. Who would want to be good without any clue of what that entails? No one does.

What might be more rational is to have (0.1) swap places with (0.2). That way, you can see what you are buying. However, this leads you into trouble. Even if you believe God exists and sets objective morality, that does not make you rational to follow God. To be rational, you have to like what God is selling before you buy.

I/we weren’t claiming that everything must be coherently subjective because we found one example; but, rather, that because we can find *one* black crow, that is, one realm in which subjectivity is not incoherent, then *you* can’t claim that relativism must be incoherent on the basis of its subjectivity.

I agree – that’s more or less sound logic. At least, I agree that if at least one area of experience can be both subjective and coherent, you can’t automatically dismiss every other areas that are subjective as incoherent just because they’re subjective.

I disagree that the coherence is possible in respect to morality in the way it is to taste, which is why I reject the Chiquita Theorem. It would be a fine demonstration that subjective coherence can happen, but there are aspects of morality that make subjectivity and coherence incompatible, in the same way that pluralism and coherence are incompatible.

I think you’ve at least got a rational perspective on the idea, even if we don’t agree on the particulars. Where I would disagree leads back to my idea of the “hopeless hypothesis”.

You’re right that it does not “defeat” it, in the sense that it proves it’s wrong. What it does do is demonstrate that there is neither benefit nor rationality in applying it to our lives. Therefore, it’s not a viable philosophy to claim or to attempt to apply. This, in the same sense as determinism or predestination.

You may well believe that relativism is true, but, as you’re saying, that belief cannot be anything other than theoretical. There is no circumstance in which you can rationally apply that belief consistent with its outworkings. Thus, it’s a hopeless hypothesis – an idea of no value, regardless of its truth or falsity.

To continue the determinism example, a person can believe intellectually that they are determined, and lack true free will. Yet, there is no way for them to apply that belief rationally to their lives. Thus, for all practical and meaningful purposes, determinism’s truth or falsehood is irrelevant – it’s a hopeless idea.

The same is true for moral relativism. You can’t actually apply it in a rational way, so whether it’s true or not makes no difference.

As you noted, the 4-D theory (as you said, it’s not really verifiable…yet) may well be true, but it’s a mostly* incoherent idea in our lives. My conception of the hopeless hypothesis speaks to this. If you claimed there was value in living out the 4D theory, I’d have to ask…how? IF there is no value, or it’s not possible, then who cares if it’s true?

*For the sake of nit-picking, we actually can apply the 4D idea to life, since there really are temporal effects caused by motion. You’ve suggested a much better analogy, though, than the Chiquita Theorem we saw earlier.

I’m saying very clearly that just because one thing can be coherently subjective does not mean that everything can be coherently subjective.

Because I never said that DL’s analogy was a proof (remember?), I/we weren’t claiming that everything must be coherently subjective because we found one example; but, rather, that because we can find *one* black crow, that is, one realm in which subjectivity is not incoherent, then *you* can’t claim that relativism must be incoherent on the basis of its subjectivity.

You claiming that relativism is incoherent is like saying that it’s absurd to think that time and space are but two axes of a 4-D continuum. Of course, I live my life like time and space are different, but Einstein showed that that’s not the case. (As to why the underlying unity of time and space is invisible to us experientially is a whole ‘nother question).

Certainly, I live my life as if I were a moral absolutist, most of the time. But, when push comes to shove; when, metaphorically, Newtonian physics doesn’t get us quite close enough; when we’re really talking about what reality is, relativism is not incoherent.

A gunman threatens to murder a man’s children if he doesn’t take a bite of sushi. The man really dislikes the taste of sushi, not just a little – he strongly dislikes the taste of sushi more than any food.

All observers, including the man himself, are disturbed several orders of magnitude more by the fact that a gunman would murder this man’s children than the fact he would be forced to taste something he disliked strongly.

In fact, there is no food imaginable that would cause you or anyone else to be disturbed by its taste more than the murder of an innocent person.

We have a well-researched, clinical description for people who think and live out their lives in opposition to this: Sociopath.

Subjective morality is incoherent for the same reason that determinism and pluralism are – it’s not compatible with the way we actually live our lives. No one actually lives as though they’re lacking in free will. No one actually lives as though all truth claims are equally valid. No one actually lives as though all morals are equally valid (which they are, if they’re really subjective).

Yes, DL showed that another – that is, different – area of experience is subjective, and coherent. It would be incoherent if DL said that taste was subjective, but acted (and expected others to act) as though there was something wrong about disliking bananas. The analogy actually works in my favor if DL thinks that it’s okay for groups of people to band together and punish folks who don’t eat bananas, even though he thinks taste is purely subjective. That’s what he’s doing with morality – living like there is such a thing as moral truth, speaking as though there is not.

It’s a false analogy because what he is trying to relate between morals and taste does not relate.

I’m saying very clearly that just because one thing can be coherently subjective does not mean that everything can be coherently subjective.

Again, you’re trying to make his analogy do more than it needs to. Of course you can find many ways in which bananas are not like morality, but that’s completely irrelevant to DL’s proper use of his analogy.

Most people would argue (and do) that you and DL are using a specific analogy that doesn’t fit very well with respect to the important differences. The differences are highly relevant. It’s what we are arguing about. Nobody, including relativists, think moral preferences are the same as food preferences.