this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 30 minutes ago

I'm not quite following. From my recollection meta ethics deal with the origins of morality, with absolutism being that morality is as inherent to nature as, say, gravity is, and relativism that morality is a social construct we have made up.

Is it hypocrisy to acknowledge something is a social construct while also strongly believing in it?

If I grew up in the 1400s I'd probably hold beliefs more aligned with the values of the time. I prefer modern values because I grew up in modern society. I find these values superior but also acknowledge my reason for finding them superior ultimately boils down to the sheer random chance of when and where I was born.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 hours ago

Subjective morality is self evidently true, but that gives us no information about how to live our lives, so we must live as if absolute morality is true.

We only have our own perspective. Someone else's subjective morality is meaningless to us, we aren't them.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 hours ago (3 children)

Absolute truth must exist, because if it doesn't, "there is no absolute truth" is absolutely true, which is a contradiction.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I mean, in the same vein, I can completely break reality if it can't stand a contradiction, watch:

This sentence is false.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

Kind of, right? You're making strong assumptions about the meanings of words. A lot of continental philosophy has been written about this subject.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago

Obviously truth is absolute. The question is whether morality is absolute or relative.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 hours ago

Everything in moderating or something. I'm not an ear doctor

[–] [email protected] 7 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

Is he saying the first point is wrong or just that it conflicts with the second?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

They conflict. The first one is a form of moral relativism (that how you should act morally depends on your culture/upbringing).

The second one is a form of moral absolutism (that there is a specific morality you should live by)

Basically someone saying there's no right answer while also saying they have the only right answer and everyone who disagrees with it is bad.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

That it conflicts. He's saying that if you believe that morality is relative and every person/culture has the difficult task of defining their own, it's ironic to be so aghast when people have reached different conclusions than you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 minutes ago

There are two opinions: mine and wrong.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago

Setting aside the unshakeable part, morality should be somewhat rigid. While relative, that doesn't mean morality can or should change on a whim.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

It seems like that tension between those things (which I'd expect are natural intuitions that many people experience) would be a foundational principle in ethics. Is it? Is that the joke?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

There are many people in the world who don't believe in moral relativism, and those people can somewhat easily argue that their view is the right one, and that people who disagree with them are wrong. You see this a lot in religious fanatics. They have a kind of internal consistency, and there are ways you could attack it, but there is a simple message.

But you also see people who think that moral relativism is a better worldview, but in the next sentence they will get upset that people disagree with them, which shows that actually they aren't accepting of moral relativism unless it's to their benefit. And they don't see this contradiction. It's this final point, this failure to realize their own words undercut their own professed views, that's entertaining.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago

as someone who never studied ethics academically, this was also my guess.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 21 hours ago

That it conflicts with the second viewpoint.

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