Talk:Moral relativism

message: See for older talk: Talk:Cultural relativism
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This page has more information about moral absolutism than moral relativism. It needs a decent rewrite, from a NPOV. At the moment it is written from a decidedly absolutist point of view. 194.176.105.40 (talk) 01:46, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Old talk

message: I've read most of the book this article cites as its source on Strauss and find no justification for the article's statement that he's a moral relativist.  Indeed, much of his work was intended to attack modern philosophy for descending into moral relativism and nihilism and to recreate a political science that would be able to call tyranny tyranny and condemn it as what it is, which he considers the present political science incapable of doing.  One might argue - and people have - that his arguments against relativism are merely exoteric and that he's really a relativist down deep, but I consider this position completely incorrect, or at least very, very controversial.
See, for example:
Zuckert, Catherine and Michael. 2006. The Truth About Leo Strauss: Political Philosophy and American Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. See especially Chapter 5: "Leo Strauss - Teacher of Evil?" which addresses claims that Strauss called for the lawless and criminal tyranny of philosophers and argues that to claim this is to fundamentally misunderstand Strauss.
If the person who wrote the Strauss section for this page can't back up his or her claims, I intend to delete it, as I can't see a reason to have a section on Strauss in a page on moral relativism.  What he actually thought on the matter is simply too open to debate and what he actually wrote is simply too complicated to address in this article.
EJD 14:09, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Leo Strauss and Relativism 

message: There seems to be much discussion here as to whether or not there are moral constructs that can be viewed as "objective truths"... I think it's worth mentioning that, while moral/ethical statements may have significant practical value (and therefore may be interpreted as "truth" in a utilitarian sense), they are not scientific statements. Wikipedia's own page on falsifiability maintains that "Ethical statements such as "murder is evil" or "John was wrong to steal that money" are not usually considered to be falsifiable."
:Although Karl Popper's claim was that the difference between science and nonscience was falsifiability, he was wrong...  It's actually just as hard to falsify something (to prove it's not true) as it is to confirm something.  There are ways to work any new evidence you might find into any theory--even if they initially seem to conflict.
:: Perhaps falsifiability does not necessarily equal scientific. However, it still stands that moral/ethical statements are not falsifiable, whatever implications that may have on their scientific qualities (or lack thereof). One way or another, it is important to mention the non-falsifiability of moral statements in this article (even if we don't link that to science), as non-falsifiability places them in the same category as other non-falsifiable statements such as conspiracy theories or pseudoscience. Like I said, wikipedia's own page on falsifiability states that moral/ethical statements are "not considered to be falsifiable," so why shouldn't we mention that here? By the way, you claim Popper was wrong, but Wikipedia's page on falsifiability claims that there is actually an open debate and no right/wrong consensus concerning Popper.
:::The point I was trying to make is that every theory/proposition is not falsifiable, which defeats the purpose of declaring it in specific cases.  You're right that there are people who disagree with my position (e.g. people who still think Popper was right)--although how they could is beyond me...  But in contemporary philosophy of science Popper has certainly fallen out of favor, which is about as close as you can get nowadays to being "wrong."
:::: So I followed your own link to the philosophy of science page, where I found under the "falsifiability" section that: "Despite criticisms of falsifiability by philosophers, it remains a cornerstone of many working scientists' personal philosophy of science." .... fallen out of favor??? hmmm.... It sounds to me that this objection to falsifiability is clearly a pet peeve of yours, and not at all a consensus among scientists/philosophers. Anyhow, many pages on wikipedia reference the idea of falsifiability, such as the page on Freud (which mentions that his critics have accused his theories of not being falsifiable). It's only fair to reference the notion of falsifiability here as well, as to correspond to the falsifiability page's own mention of the non-falsifiability of moral/ethical statements. In addition, the article should contain a link to non-cognitivism, which entirely pertains to the "truth-value" of morals/ethics.
:::::Right... many "working scientists" still go for falsification theory, because it has a nice ring to it and seems to justify what they're doing.  But "working scientists" are very different from philosophers of science; the first group is content to simply do science (whatever it might be), while the latter is interested in what science actually is and the justification of its methodology.  (Of course, a lot of philosophers of science are also scientists, but hopefully you get my point.)  It's among the philosophers that falsifiability has fallen out of favor, and it's the philosophers who matter in this article, since scientists (although they might say "falsifiability" when necessary) generally reject all this sort of theorizing as hogwash for the humanities.
:::::I do think it's appropriate to mention "falsifiability" in the Freud article, because this criticism has been leveled at him quite frequently since Popper, in an attempt to separate Freud from modern psychology, which is supposed to be "real science."  (I'll have to check that article to make sure it doesn't say anything stupid about falsifiability...)  However, I don't think falsifiability has come up nearly as much in the discourse on morality.  If we're going to add a "not-falsifiable" clause to every article on wikipedia that deals with something non-falsifiable... well, let's just not think about that.  Also, this isn't actually a peeve of mine... I've just got time to kill.-BrownApple 22:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In addition to having nothing to do with this article, your claim is obviously wrong. The fact that a theory can be reworked to include new evidence does go against naive falsificationism, but a single counterexample falsifies an empirical universal while no number of examples confirms one, so it's not just as hard to prove that something isn't true as to prove it is. Also the claim that Popper has fallen out of favor is nonsense; the sophisticated philosophy of science views of people like Imre Lakatos and David Deutsch refine Popper, they don't discard him. -- 98.108.220.157 (talk) 10:31, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Objective truth"... possible truths, but none are scientific... falsifiability? 

message: In the "Moral relativism versus absolute morality" section of this article is a paragraph that reads
:Moral Relativism is in direct opposition of Moral Realism (which contains the concept of moral absolutism) and is characterised as follows:
And then is followed by two rather lengthy paragraphs that appear to be solely about the concept of moral realism, not even bothering to describe it in comparison to moral relativism. I'm no philosophy guy, though, so I figured I'd ask here before moving this stuff over to the moral realism article; is there any reason why this lengthy description is here, am I just missing mention of how it relates to moral relativism within it? Bryan 05:47, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: There seems to be an article on [[moral realism]] embedded in here

message: This article became a hodgepodge of incongruent, redundant, and, sometimes, incomprehensible assertions.  The major philosophical positions about both relativism as well as the principal criticisms of it were misrepresented.  Technical philosophical terms were misused with abandon. It had a definite POV in support of a species of relativism at every turn, though it never articulated it in a manner that was understandable. I did what I could to restructure it and insert more information on the major philsophical doctrines, pro and con, along with references to some of the philosophers supporting those doctrines. The article was recently made into a promotion for a quasi-religious, moral doctrine that is certainly not among the major philosphical views dealing with relativism, namely, what is called "universism."  I left a blurb in the article about it near the end, along with the website link promoting it, but its encyclopedic merit is highly suspect.  I note that an article about universism was deleted.  I will leave it to others to decide what to do with it, here, but it certainly should not dominate the longstanding philosophical tradition of relativism, that has more rigourous theories and very capable representation, nor should it give short-shrift to some of the serious difficulties that relativism presents.  I will eventually put in some publications for references.  icut4u
:The encyclopedic merit of undated comments is highly suspect. -- 98.108.220.157 (talk) 10:56, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Revamp

message: The last entry does not adeqately state or deal with (in the counter-argument) R.M. Hare's point that relativism is mistaken in a very fundamental way, since all moral prpositions and arguments are subject to the laws of logic, without regard to the truth values of the content. Also the conclusion of relstivism being unaffected by a criticism is personal opinion and not encyclopedic.[[User:Logic2go|Logic2go]
Since no one else tried to fix it I did. Logic2go
:Calling it a point rather than a claim is POV. (OTOH, Hare's criticism not affecting relativism is a personal opinion the way that his criticism not affecting the value of 1+1 is a personal opinion.) -- 98.108.220.157 (talk) 11:05, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticism

message: Is there a good reason not to turn the references section into wiki Template:Book reference references?  I've been doing that on pages that didn't already have consistent reference style but this page has one. Deborah-jl 22:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  References format 

message: "An observer in a particular time and place, depending on his outlook (e.g., culture, religion, background), might call something good that another observer in a particular time and place would call evil."
- Why is this a criticism? It seems only to support moral relativism. If one society sees something as good, and another sees the same thing as bad - then moral relativism is correct. Claiming otherwise contradicts the definition of morality, and disconnects it from the notion of right and wrong.
:Your point does not compute for the following reason. Let's take a (generally) non-controversial topic such as peeling potatoes. Society A sees peeling potatoes as good, whereas Society B sees peeling potatoes as bad. This is not inconsistent with moral absolutism. The moral absolutist who views peeling potatoes as bad will simply say Society A is mistaken in its position, or may even go further and say Society A is therefore bad itself. I don't think anybody would dispute that different societies view particular acts differently in terms of "goodness", but this can be separated from the fundamental quality of "goodness" that the moral absolutist would ascribe to it, and described as a simple failure to correctly determine that fundamental quality.
:I think the "difficulty" for moral relativists being referred to is that a moral absolutist could say to the moral relativist "therefore you are saying that you do not think, for instance, that the Holocaust was bad?" and the strict moral relativist would be forced to reply "you are correct". This is not a difficulty for the position itself - such a response would of course be consistent with moral relativism - but could create an inconsistency if the advocate of moral relativism is not prepared to admit to such a view on the grounds that it is clearly controversial. AngryStan 01:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is drivel. The stated "criticism" of moral relativism is only valid if there are in fact moral absolutes, so it begs the question. And the "difficulty" is a strawman: the moral relativist does not say that she does not think that the Holocaust was bad, she says that her opinion that it's bad is not a universal truth. Moral relativism does not require one to abandon one's own moral judgments. -- 98.108.220.157 (talk) 11:15, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  There is something I don't understand 

message: I'm going to risk sounding like an idiot and propose that the language of this article be simplified; not necessarilly for those with "weaker" minds, but a weaker vocabulary. The flowery and elequent (sp) language really got in my way of understanding the article, and I have a feeling a lot of people can relate. No, I'm not going to start writing in a flowery language now, to show that I myself am elequent (and that I don't need the article to be "dumbed down"), because I don't feel the need to; obviously, knowing a lot of vocabulary doesn't always determine someone's wisdom or intelligence. Just give us the information; it's annoying to look up some words that I don't understand -- give it to us in "laymen's terms". Really, I think the pseudo-flowery language just gets in the way of the reader's learning. Do other encyclopedias read like this? It sounds like Plato's description of a sophist; just please try and make this simple and understandable like Socrates. And I want to say one more time that simplifying the language doesn't equate to dumbing it down. I may consider simplifying it myself, once I get a consesus/permission on it, because I think that will really do the public a service. 24.23.51.27 05:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Laymen's terms 

message: Editors interested in this topic might like to take part in peer review on a new version of Global justice I've been working on. Cheers, --Sam Clark 11:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Peer review request

message: This section has no subtitles or subsections, and is very long.  In one paragraph it talks about descriptive relativists and in the next, meta-ethical relativists.  This section needs to be re-written or merged into other sections. Tom Stringham 19:12, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Some philosophical considerations" section 

message: The two religious critiques at the end are not about the philosophical theory of moral relativism but rather about the everyday sort of "different strokes for different folks" mentality that's become common in the modern world. Where does discussion of this layman's moral relativism belong? A section of this page? Its own page? Jonathan Tweet 15:44, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  everyday moral relativism 

message: 'In popular culture people often describe themselves as "morally relativist," meaning that they are accepting of other people's values and agree that there is no one "right" way of doing some things.' 
Do they? I don't think I've heard anyone describe themselves as 'morally relativist' in 'popular culture' even once, let alone often. Is there a source for this claim? AngryStan 01:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Either people often describe themselves as "morally relativist" or they don't. The fact is that they don't. And we have no citations of studies determining what most people think about the Peruvian Indians. Nor do we have reliable sources that claim that thinking that Peruvian Indians aren't born "bad" people is "generally in alignment with Moral Relativism". What we do have is a lot of editors who are ignorant both of moral philosophy and of Wikipedia standards. -- 98.108.220.157 (talk) 11:42, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  latest edit 

message: In trying to resolve my confusion as to how ethical subjectivism and relativism are related, I think I may have identified a problem with this article: relativism has at least two important meanings, which refer to:
#the source of moral judgments (i.e., moral judgments stem from individual or societal preferences and are thus relative to the person making them), and
#the scope of moral judgments (referring to universal statements, like "You shouldn't do that, whether you agree with me or not", contrasted with relative or intrapersonal ones, like "I think I shouldn't do that, but I can't use my values to pass judgment on your actions").
On page 154 of Richard Brandt's 1959 Ethical Theory, he wrote "A subjectivist, clearly, can be either an absolutist or a relativist." I think he is obviously speaking about relativism in the second sense; clearly, in the first sense, subjectivism is a relativist view (and may even be synonymous with relativism).
This article mentions descriptive relativism, which is relativism in the first sense, according to Francis Snare:
This stands in contrast to normative relativism, which actually makes value claims. Snare calls one variation "ethical relativism":
This is what relativism has meant to me. In any case, it seems clear that there are two very different kinds of relativism, and while the section on Descriptive relativism appears okay, the section on Meta-ethical relativism appears to be incorrect, or at least unclear — ethical relativism is not just the observation that people's moral views differ, but the claim that a thing is good simply because a person or their society approves of it.
— Elembis (talk) 21:12, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Different kinds of relativism 

message: The criticism section particularly. The person who wrote it obviously does not really understand moral relativism. I tried to make some corrections, but I think a major re-organization of this information is in order.
The criticisms in this article simply do not address moral relativism in its simplest form. Instead, they attack more complex forms of moral relativism, some of which are, in fact, self-contradictory.
:Agreed. I'd have fixed it long ago, but it's beyond me. Jonathan Tweet 16:08, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You need to explain what this better form of MR is. Your edits do not come remotely close to do doing so. I suggest you use the talk page. The article was not written by a single person. You should not present you persona views as the One True Relativism. if it can be established that some people believe such-and-such a form of relativism, then it is pertinent to criticise that form, even if it s not the form that you favour. 1Z 16:30, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

text: This Page on Moral Relativism is not a Page on Moral Relativism.
 This Page on Moral Relativism is an argument against the validity of Moral Relativism.
 This Page on Moral Relativism is a misrepresentation and presents Moral Relativism from the bias of a Moral Realist point of view.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.59.104.22 (talk) 20:20, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is terrible... 

message: It is not clear what this means.1Z 16:33, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The majority beliefs have no correlation to personal beliefs". 

message: "Relativists need not be considered supporters of (to us) evil acts and institutions. Their critics might consider it rational to reject relativism on the basis that it allows the possibility of justifying wickedness, even if it is not carried through, since some acts are so abominable that they demand to be condemned utterly, and not just as being "against my personal precepts" or "not what my culture teaches".
"Auschwitz was not a discourse. It trivialises it to see it as a text".
Richard Evans, In Defence of History, P106-7"
This entire paragraph doesn't belong in an encyclopedia.
"(to us)"?? To whom? This is blatently POV.
Likewise for "some acts are so abominable that they demand to be condemned utterly" - also blatently POV.
Same for "justifying wickedness" - blatent POV.
The entire paragraph adds nothing - the previous paragraph ends "Each makes assumptions the other does no share." and this one just continues the idea that moral objectivists just don't believe a word of it. The point is already made. 
The quotation added is also pure propaganda, and does not belong in an encylopedia.
The idea of criticising relativism because of its consequences, rather than its truth, belongs in a separate section. I'm not sure why this section is entitled "other cultures" anyway. Such a criticism should include the counter criticism that it is not a belief in relativism, but a belief in absolutism, that is most likely to result in the "atrocities" that they condemn. We may cite the idea that it is absolutely right to burn people who don't subscribe to a particular religion, for instance, since they are absolutely wrong to disbelieve in it. Most of the world's atrocities result from fanaticism, which is a function of absolutism, not of relativism.
So, deleted the offending paragraph and quote. AngryStan 03:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Leaving out the "to us" qualificaton is also POV, since it implies moral values are context-free, thus favouring the objectivists. What would you suggest? 1Z 19:38, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

text: This is considered in the article, and show to have no real force. One can hold to tolerance and non-interference as abolute values, or to intolerance and interventionism as relativist ones.1Z 19:33, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion 

message: This objection is already mentioned in the article. While popular, it is rejected by professional philosophers.
"A further counter-criticism might be that moral absolutism is as likely or more likely to lead to such "immoral acts" since a belief in absolute "right and wrong" can potentially be used to justify any number of acts that might generally be considered to be "atrocities". For example, many people ("Joan of Arc" being a prominent example) were burned to death in Europe during the second millennium simply because they disbelieved in the religion of the prevailing monarch, and this disbelief was held to be absolutely wrong and deserving of execution; few people today would accept this as being correct, and this fact supports the argument that it is difficult to demonstrate that the consequences of believing in moral absolutism are necessarily less "immoral" than the consequences of believing in moral relativism."
1Z 02:06, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do we care whether a noteworthy viewpoint is rejected by professional philosophers? Moral relativism is a habit or attitude apart from being a strictly philosophical phenomenon. Jonathan Tweet 02:13, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Argument from intolerance 

message: There doesn't seem to be any commentary on the criticism of Moral Relativism as a real moral system. The article clearly states that the idea of immoral action is denied in Moral Relativism. Yet, isn't the point of a moral system to say what ought and ought not be done? Wikictionary, has this definition of moral "of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior, especially for teaching right behavior". Merriam Webster says something similar with "of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior". OED says this about morality "Ethical wisdom, knowledge of moral science" but Moral Relativism denies the existence any such knowledge or wisdom. Doesn't the fact that Moral Relativism denies any principles of right and wrong and says nothing about behavior mean that it is not an actual moral system but rather a principle that denies the existence of morality? I think this criticism of moral relativism might be worth adding to the article.
159.242.10.215 12:08, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: People might be motivate to switch contexts in order to find an objective standard, but they might also be motivated by a desire to find justification for whatever they wanted to do in the first place. It is not "only". The statement that relativism has no objective standard is a correct description of  relativism, but it is not a defence of relativism. I can't make any sense of your last sentence, there seems to be a word missing. 1Z 10:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Finding a justification outside of the context of an action is an appeal to objectivity. I don't see any difference in your also. As to defending relativism, there is no real need on this issue, 'anything goes' simply isn't a valid description of relativism. Yes, my last sentence was confused, but it was redundant.
This is all rubbish. Moral Relativism isn't a "moral system", it is a stance concerning what the nature of morality is. Likewise moral absolutism isn't a "moral system" -- it is about the nature of morality, but does not state what is or is not moral (different moral absolutists make different factual claims as to what is moral -- which is virtually a refutation of moral absolutism).  -- 98.108.220.157 (talk) 22:10, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of Commentary on Moral Relativism as a Legitimate Moral System 

message: I deleted "In this sense, it is argued, moral relativism suffers from its inability to defend itself (as does, according to some arguments, pacifism)." 
Actually, it does not. The moral relativist is unable to claim that the attack is "wrong", "evil", etcetera, but he is certainly allowed to defend himself, not only in a traditional way, but by any means available, since none of them would be "bad". Am i missing something or this makes sense? 
Benceno 22:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are missing something. The sentence begins "in this sense..". You are talking about other senses.1Z 09:00, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess you may be right. I am not too proficient in English, so there may be some twist that I am missing. Thanks . Benceno 02:11, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

text: What you are missing is "it is argued". It is indeed argued. But the argument is rubbish -- not only don't moral relativists lack their own moral judgments from which they can claim that something is morally wrong, but they have no trouble pointing out logical and factual errors -- those judgments aren't moral judgments, so they are undeniably entitled to them. And the mention of pacificism is irrelevant , and the argument against it is at least as stupid -- one doesn't need violence to defend the principle of pacificism. (One doesn't even need violence to defend against violent aggression, but even if a pacificist were helpless in the face of aggression that wouldn't invalidate the principle of pacificism.) -- 98.108.220.157 (talk) 12:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Line removed 

message: Recent changes:-
This is not a 'problem' however for relativism, it simply points to where the moral absolutism position differs from relativism. While the "majority" may indeed agree, this implies a minority does not. The relativist simply recognizes that the claim the "Holocaust was wrong" is a matter of opinion, majority opinion or not. The argument then comes down to an assumption, where the absolutist states their logical premise, what they sometimes call an axiom, their opinion, and then claim those who disagree are wrong, without offering any sound basis, other than saying things like 'its self-evident'.
...have added some weaselling. I am going to largely revert.
This is not a 'problem' however for relativism, it simply points to where the moral absolutism position differs from relativism. While the "majority"
..quotes unnecessary..
may indeed agree, this implies a minority does not. The relativist simply recognizes that the claim the "Holocaust was wrong" is a matter of opinion, majority opinion or not.
..."recognise" should be "believe" or "claim"...
The argument then comes down to an assumption, where the absolutist states their logical premise, what they sometimes call an axiom, 
Both sides have premisses...
their opinion, 
Absolutists do'nt believe it is just an opinion, so this sides with relativism
and then claim those who disagree are wrong, without offering any sound basis, other than saying things like its self-evident
..Self-evidence is an important issue in axiomatics. The comment is phrased to suggest that rels. have something more solid to go on, but nothing is offered.
1Z 10:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weasel words in "other cultures" 

message: The recent changes deleted some reasonably well-argued material, and substituted the following plonking assertion
And of course this is true, one would have no 'absolute' right to anything. But this is not a problem for relativism, since decisions are not made based on absolute rights.
This clearly calls for reversion. 1Z 10:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: POV in "consequences"

message: The reason this is not a fair criticism of relativism is that it ignores the implicit contextualizing which is central to relativism. When context jumping is used to justify one's actions, it is really just a dishonest appeal to an external authority. Dishonest people can abuse any system. Within relativism, the boundary condition is context, and while it may not be obvious to an outsider, and may indeed shift, it is subject to contextually imposed constraints. The culture I accept as my own limits my choices, if I choose to modify it, that has effects on the meaning of my past and future choices. Compared to absolutism, its dynamic, but also self-adjusting. Just because relativism can be easily abused doesn't mean its not valid.
The text this replaced actually made the same point in a briefer way: "unless forestalled by a meta-ethical principles that individuals need to be self-consistent. ".
The argument of the new text is flawed because it assumes (dis)honesty is not relative. Otherwise someone could just
jump to a context where honesty or consistency don't matter 1Z 08:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Drawing boundaries -- Context-jumping

message: "Some relativists regard this as an unfair criticism of relativism..."
What exactly is being regarded as an unfair criticism of relativism? There is no explantion of this.--Logiboy123 (talk) 01:49, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meta-Ethics 

message: How can Marx be listed as a moral relativist? Even the description of Marx's views in this article doesn't describe moral relativism. I am going to remove the section on Marx.
I think Nietzsche is pretty doubtful too, but I don't know too much about his views so I'll leave him in.
It would be far better if this article contained some actual moral relativists. Where is MacIntyre? Misodoctakleidist (talk) 10:16, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: MacIntyre is missing because the editors of this article know almost nothing of its subject. -- 98.108.220.157 (talk) 13:08, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marx? Nietszche? 

message: "Thus, it can be said that the definition of a society is relative. Keeping this in mind, a moral relativist would have to explain and outline why goth teenagers or homosexuals should readily accept or adhere to the edicts of another "culture", if it is true that there are no moral absolutes."
This seems like a very odd claim to me. Since when is it a requirement for moral relativists to support the position that members of subcultures must obey the "edicts" of culture?
Fuzzyblob (talk) 05:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The edicts of culture 

message: It seems to me that to list Rousseau as the prime example of objectivism, or at least non-relativist positions, is incorrect.  Rousseau clearly states that morality is purely conventional in both the Discourses on the Origins of Human Inequality and The Social Contract.  This would make him amoral, not a moral absolutist.  Amorality of this sort is compatible, if not the same thing, as relativism.  I removed mention of Rousseau from this article. 128.239.116.147 (talk) 23:13, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If you think that Rousseau is amoral you have misread Rousseau. He believed that morality derives from God. He was a "relativist" in that he believed all the major religions derive from God and therefor all promote morality. I advise you to go back and read him again.24.105.152.153 (talk) 17:17, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Rousseau as a moral objectivist

message: Speaking on the final paragraph in the header;
Saying that someone who says they tolerate others' beliefs because there is no one right answer has "little to do" with moral relativism is absurd; this person is still a moral relativist, they've merely added the small step of therefore being sympathetic to those whose system of morality differs from their own. Even worse, that final paragraph in the heading goes on to say that their words are a mix of moral relativism and moral objectivism. What?! Saying you're TOLERANT of others' beliefs, while acknowledging that there is NO correct answer, sounds ENTIRELY morally relativist. It is not at all morally objective. Either way, I changed the absurd wording of that part earlier in the paragraph from "little to do with" to "partly to do with."
And I think we should strike that useless last header paragraph which, as is, seems like another arrogant attempt, which has no place in Wikipedia, at differentiating the public opinion even further from the academia. At spitting on those ghastly plebes. Oh isn't it fun to do!
Chicopac (talk) 08:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Philosophers unable to cope with common linguistic implication?

message: Belief in Biblical infallability and belief in Biblical Christianity are two different things. If you don't believe me, read CS Lewis. However, the whole question of whether the Bible is in itself absolute truth or not and whether that is the essential belief of "Biblical Christianity" is not germane to the topic of whether absolute truth exists. I suggest we merge the entire section into "Abrahamic religious objections" or somesuch. That would cover all the bases and wouldn't require each and every tradition to have it's own section. --69.243.242.58 (talk) 19:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biblical christianity section badly in need of cleanup 

message: I removed the final paragraph of the introduction, it was incorrect. If a person "agrees that there is no one 'right' way of doing some things," they are a moral relativist, that is what moral relativism is. They are not a mainstream person who is misunderstanding moral relativism. If you agree that there is no "correct" or "objective" morality, this does not imply any belief in objective morality. Adding the fact that they respect other people's moral choices does not add any objective belief in morality, either. Even if they don't mean it as completely as a true philosopher does who knows the ramifications of Moral Relativism, they're not actually incorrect in their claim, they're just using the term a little more loosely, which does not warrant a paragraph in the main heading here. Chicopac (talk) 05:51, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks to whomever put up that bit on moral pluralism. Chicopac (talk) 23:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed a bit 

message: :"Some moral relativists — for example, the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre — ..."
I looked in the article on Jean-Paul Sartre and some other references and don't see anything stating he is in fact a "moral relativist". Given what I know of him and his ideas, I think this statement may be a little too bold. Is there a reference that can give a solid backing to his being a "moral relativist"? Freedom to choose is not the same thing as moral relativism. 
I'd like to see this sentence amended if it cannot be shown clearly that he indeed subscribed to this idea as the article seems to proclaim. --DanielCD (talk) 15:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sartre 

message: Hi everyone. I've sort of adopted the meta-ethics bloc of wiki here, and I'm trying to get all the different metaethical articles to agree with each other and with the main article on meta-ethics, to properly interlink with each other, share similar formatting, and so forth. So far this has been going fairly smoothly, but I've hit a snag now that I've reached this article.
Just from the information already here on wiki, it seems that relativism could be categorized at least three different ways:
* As a semantic theory about the meaning of moral sentences, specifically a subtype of ethical subjectivism claiming that moral sentences are statements of fact about the prevailing ethical opinions of society.
* As a substantial theory about the nature of morality, as the negation of universalism; the claim that while there are correct moral judgements (whether those flesh out to be semantically cognitive judgements or not), which judgements are correct varies between different societies.
* As a substantial theory about the nature of morality, as the negation of absolutism, but still potentially a form of universalism; simply the claim that there are no unconditional moral principles which ought never to be violated (e.g. "lying is always wrong" as per Kant). By this definition, even universalist theories such as act utilitarianism could be considered relativistic: they are universalist in that they say that the same moral judgements hold regardless of people's opinions, but they are "relativistic" in that they deny that any particular act is always absolutely wrong, since the rightness or wrongness of an act varies greatly by context.
I would very much appreciate any help from the editors of this article in both
# organizing this article in a way that mirrors and agrees with the other articles on meta-ethics, and
# accurately naming the different types of theory listed above, whether it be as some sort of "qualified relativism" or as something else entirely.
Cited definitions from reliable sources are of course most appreciated :-)
Also, any other feedback on the current organization of theories at meta-ethics would be welcomed as well. -Pfhorrest (talk) 06:23, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorization and different forms of relativism 

message: The article contains some phrases that were recently tagged with 'specify' and so on. The tagging represents
a lack of English comprehension and has been removed.
The phrases "a/the moral relativist" ,  "a/the moral absolutist" do not stand for specific individuals,
they just mean anyone whole holds those views (compare the phrase "the sceptic"). 
Therefore they do not need to be specified. 
Likewise the phrase 'of whatever kind' is intended to cover a wide range of cases,
not some specific case that has been left unexplained.
The article is far from perfect with lack of citations a particular problem, hwoever this i s not a forward step
1Z (talk) 08:04, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Inappropriate tagging

message: I have noticed that critics of moral relativism often make the charge that it can lead to a kind of moral supremacism because it tends to disregard the other valuable moral views that people may have. For instance, it has been said that the Nazis practiced a kind of moral relativism by refusing to recognize the value of inherent morality of other races, ethnic groups and societies. Similar arguments have been made with regards to cultural relativism , which are sometimes perceived as a forms of cultural supremacism. ADM (talk) 07:21, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This is just stringing words together, like saying that Catholics practice a kind of religious relativism by refusing to recognize the value of inherent religion of other groups.  Even if there were such a thing as "inherent morality of other ...", and Nazis had "refused" to recognize its "value", that would not amount to a "practice" of moral relativism. -- 98.108.220.157 (talk) 21:35, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Moral supremacism

message: So a little ways above I called for help from regular editors of this article to clean it up and better organize it. It's been quite a while since then and I've received no response, and this article continues to get worse and worse - my coming here again was prompted by User:Nigelstead's recent string of uncited, POV, and editorial-style edits, though really they're no worse than much of the rest of this article.
I'm thinking of going through this tonight and stripping out everything that doesn't have some citation or reference (and cleaning up the references that are there into proper footnotes). I'm normally quite against deletionist practices, but this article is absolutely horrible and without some help I'm not going to be able to clean it up well enough, so I'm hoping that a bold step like this might get the ball rolling. At the very least it should clear out all the poorly written editorial cruft that most of this article is covered in, leaving only the solid, cited facts, which I hope will attract more quality edits and less "NO U" counter-editorials.
--Pfhorrest (talk) 23:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is horrible 

message: Turned out the only really crappy parts of the article were most of the long "Themes in the debate on moral relativism" section and the lede; the rest of it is decently written and cited enough that I've spared it the torch, and just reorganized it some. The new lede is a trimmed down derivative of the "Variations" section.
This article still needs a lot of work but I'm content to let others futz with it from here. --Pfhorrest (talk) 06:05, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is better 

message: First off, the general scientific consensus at the moment is, that selection works on a genetic or  level. There are some pointers that group selection might play a role, but everything i've read so far can be explained by the gene centered view. Group_selection
Then, even if the main mode of selection was the group selection, we would all have inherited the same moral principles as the most successful strategy. Why? Because we are as a species highly related to each other and variances between individuals in something as complex as evolved moral behaviour would be minimal. Therefore relativism cannot follow from group selection.
One could make a stronger case for individual or genetic selection resulting in different moral tendencies as that would result in different stable equilibria.
Anyways, saying that the scientific consensus is, that group selection is the made mode of selection is wrong. Then, concluding from this, that relativism follows from that is a non sequitur, as in, it doesnt follow and has to be proven.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.178.67.106 (talk) 10:52, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relativsm as a result of group selection? 

message: Besides adding some interesting views on moral relativism, I shaped the headers into the "for and against" layout that was so successful in organizing ideas for the existence of god page.
Any constructive criticisms welcome!
-Tesseract2 (talk) 19:25, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  harris, warraq, and re-organization 

message: User:Dschwen wrote on my talk page, but I'm replying here since others may be curious as well. He wrote:
:Oh my god, I've started to question my sanity, but triple checking the history of the article confirms it: There were two identical sections titles Arguments for meta-ethical relativism in the article. I merely removed a duplicate. So your edit seems to be based of the wrong assumption that I deleted that section entirely. Just like this poster on my talk page thought. I went over the two titles letter by letter, they were identical (compare section 4 and 8 here). --Dschwen 13:40, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I see now what happened. Somehow there was (presumably by accident) an additional, empty section titled "Articles for moral meta-ethical relativism" at the very bottom of the page, below the references and everything, which apparently User:Tesseract2 had overlooked in his reorganization, and which I hadn't noticed either. I had inserted the "section-expand" tag into the first of those two sections, since it was empty after Tesseract's reorganization. I thought Dschewn was deleting it because it was empty (he deleted the section I had tagged, in the middle of the article, not the one at the very bottom, which I didn't even realize existed) and redundant with the "for" section above it, and so I renamed the "for" section back to just "views" as it was prior to Tesseract's edits. I don't really have much opinion on having one "views" section vs having separate "for" and "against" sections, though since the "for" section was empty as created I lean a little toward leaving it as just one "views" section for now. --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:52, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I was at first a believer of the for/against, but I suppose we don't really need an "against" section until we have a good number of actual against views. Actually I am sorry that my seemingly harmless empty section tripped anyone out - at least to any consequentialists. I owe deontologists NOTHING.-Tesseract2 (talk) 01:26, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The elusive duplicate section 

message: Forgive me if I'm not using this page correctly -- I have contributed to articles and I have read the guidelines for talk pages but have not previously read or contributed to talk pages. It seems as though the page should be better organized, but since it seems to me hopelessly disorganized I will put my comments here.... 
In the section on Nietszche I find it problematic how the author(s) lept from the article's topic, "relativism," to "realism" without explaining what they meant by realism or how the two relate. I am more or less sure that the author(s) did not simply mean to say relativism. Vikslen (talk) 16:55, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No comment on the article issue, but I've cleaned up the talk page a bit and put your comment at the bottom where it's supposed to go. FYI, you can click the "+" button up there next to Read/Edit/History/etc, to add a new comment section to the bottom of the page automatically. --Pfhorrest (talk) 18:23, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried adding a word to clarify. The point there is just that Nietszche is probably not a relativist.-Tesseract2(talk) 03:24, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that clarification is in the wrong direction. It sounds to me like whoever wrote that section meant to contrast relativism to realism, as is often done. In metaethics, one meaning of "realism" (the older meaning in fact) is synonymous with "universalism", which is the antonym of "relativism". I've never heard anyone speak of "relativistic realists"; both usual meanings of "realism" (the newer one is even more narrow) are opposed to any form of relativism. --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:06, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Nietszche

message: I think the fragmentary Religious Views section is currently misleading, mainly because it lacks context. Whereas the Roman Catholic church has publicly campaigned against moral relativism (as clearly summarized in the RC paragraph), I'm not aware of any widespread Buddhist equivalent. The Buddhism paragraph implicitly seems to align Buddhism with official RC doctrine, based on a single quotation  (almost as long as the entire RC paragraph) expounding the view of a single scholarly monk. Can that opinion, however scholarly, be taken to represent all Buddhist schools and opinions? I don't think so. For example, although the present Dalai Lama does not support abortion or euthanasia in principle, he feels that exceptional circumstances should be evaluated "on a case by case basis". (WP).--MistyMorn (talk) 10:46, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religious views: Buddhism paragraph misleading 

message: There's hardly any at all.  AlbertBowes (talk) 19:07, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  needs references 

message: The postulated Moral Landscape proposes a solution to criticism surrounding issues of moral relativism. A concise summary of the morality proposed in the book could serve as an accessible opinion on the matter that would be appreciated by readers of this article. What do people think? Would anyone else who is familiar with the Moral Landscape care to comment? Timmytim6912 (talk) 01:15, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sam Harris and the Moral Landscape 

message: In the very first paragraph, it says that normative moral relativism means we ought to tolerate other peoples' actions because nothing is right or wrong, but it seems rather flagrant to me that this is not going that extra mile. If it's true that no one is right or wrong, there is no reason for anyone to tolerate or shun the behaviors of others, let alone demand that others tolerate, because toleration and shunning are both actions with no moral weight, at least in this framework.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.245.216 (talk) 13:51, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: And some people raise that as a criticism against normative moral relativism, as covered in the section on it further down in the article. --Pfhorrest (talk) 20:30, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Normative moral relativism 

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thread_title:  External links modified (February 2018) 

message: This section says that "most" philosophers disagree with this concept... so which philosophers do posit this as an actual moral framework? Do any? Or does it just exist in opposition for the purpose of reducio ad absurdum? Jmackaerospace (talk) 18:03, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does Normative Moral Relativism actually exist? 

message: "Category:Postmodernism" ...why? Is moral relativism relating to "postmodernism"? The article does not describe it.  add it, and also does not describe it on the time. Critic of postmodernism (as well-known) Alan Sokal's Beyond the Hoax says: 
We can refer his remark for the article. Now, the adding-category actor 209.237.90.4 probably has a common misconception (or a biased view) about "relativism with many definitions". - 211.131.37.92 (talk) 12:53, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category:Postmodernism ...why?