Moral Relativism
Having someone call me a ‘moralfag’ the other day made me wonder about my position on moral relativism. I’ve always held the position that nothing is inherently good or evil - it completely depends on the social situation and culture. Gwen and I had a pretty long discussion about that for her Philosophy 101 class, and she was arguing on the side of absolutism while I was on relativism. The people who interviewed me at SMU a long time ago were also Not Happy on my views of relativism. They mentioned something about paedophilia but in my anxiety, I cannot remember what nonsense I spouted in defense of relativism.
Anyway, there was an argument raised against moral relativism that I read about quite recently. Abolishment of slavery can be considered moral progress, but according to relativist theory, Lincoln was a bad man, because he acted against the cultural norms of his era.
I’m not quite sure what to think of this. Lincoln was unpopular in the South at the time, and he was certainly seen as a bad man for freeing slaves. Right now we see abolishment of slavery as moral progress, but that itself lends to the argument that morals are relative in differing cultures (or eras).
Consider the reasons why slavery is a bad thing. It subjugates an entire race; it inflicts pain and suffering; it results in social classes; it causes discrimination. Yet, all these can be argued. Stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination are automatic processes in our brains, and it is the social norms that prevent us from actively discriminating. The obligatory question is then ‘why is discrimination a bad thing’? Why do we consider equality as important? If equality is so important, why aren’t we all turning Communist? Why did countries that adopted Communism fail, then? This then lends itself to the even bigger question of the social structures in any given country and the psychology of people… which is mind-boggling, frankly.
What is more concrete, however, is pain and suffering. Pain is the body’s way of telling to GET THE FUCK OUT OF WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING (BDSM not included). It’s then quite natural that removing human-inflicted suffering from an entire race of people is considered ‘good’.
If so, then isn’t there some things that are inherently good? Removing pain is good, inflicting pain is bad? The body that reacts negatively to something (universally) is considered bad? However, pain doesn’t quite answer the morals of more abstract things, like copyright infringement… and other things that doesn’t cause physical damage.
I get the feeling that copyright infringement or theft of property hearkens back to the ages when food was scarce, and people had to barter for goods. Any sort of theft meant a lower chance of survival. I’m sure this is pretty much the evolutionary theory of something, and any type of evolutionary theory, in my experience, is a load of hogwash.
Are constructs of the human mind then supposed to be considered morally good or bad? Are there things that everyone in the entire world universally share? Expression of feelings, like smiling and anger, seem to be shared by many different cultures and are considered universal… does the same go for moral values?
Anyway, I should read up more on moral relativism. I shouldn’t be so clueless about this when I’m in support of it.
