Moral Relativity or Universalism?

Zillah

Rather than drag the other thread off-topic I thought I could start this one.

Womoma wrote:

There are many concepts of what is right and wrong which are universal and any reasonable rational person would agree with.

I disagree. There is no such things as universal right or wrong. My reasons for disagreeing are many.

First of all it implies that morality is something other than an arbitrary human construct. In my opinion morality serves as a set of societal rules (accidents that maintain the society), and as such will change with the society. If you insist that there are certain aspects of morality that are absolute or universal then those aspects are immune to change, such as the kind of attitude fundamentalist Muslims might have about archaic teachings from the Koran.

Second of all, moral universalism requires that we choose which ones are universal. So, liberal agnostic morals? Or Christians? Muslims? Why not Buddhists? Who gets to decide which ones are absolute? Who decides that those who disagree are aberrant from this universal status quo?

I would challenge you to describe a set of moral values that are universal but there would of course be exceptions, so such an attempt would be an exercise in futility.

condra

Firstly - the quote alone is completely out of context.
I was talking about teaching children right and wrong.

The universally agreed concepts of right and wrong I was referring to were obviously things like kindness over selfishness etc.

Secondly, as I stated in the other post, Im new to the atheism forum and I came here to learn, not to get into a debate about something I have not spent much time thinking about, as you obviously have.

Zillah, you obviously see me as a bit of a soft target.

I see you as being intelligent and articulate but you will show yourself as being pathetic if you continue picking on points I make when giving my opinion.

Zillah

Look, you can either discuss it or not, but theres no point playing the victim card. I don't see you as a target, soft or otherwise. The point of threads like this is to explore the issue by discussing it, if you don't won't to engage in such debates then simply decline but don't act like you're under attack, theres nothing personal about it.

As for selfishness versus kindness, its still not universal. Some people would teach that generosity is weak, that you have to look out for number one. In typical western society teaching children to share and play nice is all well and good, but if you think about it what we see as day to day common sense is only applicable in the society we grew up in. Hell, I can fully believe there is a whole culture (corporate types mostly) that would strongly encourage their children to stand on their own two feet and not let others use you as a crutch.

And thats not even touching on other cultures that would be biased against, say, Jews, such as many Islamic cultures. I'm sure they'd see kindness to Jews as being highly innapropriate.

So no, I still say theres no such thing as universal morality.

condra

i get your point but i still dont think children should be thought religion in schools. blah.

Asiaprod

womoma wrote:

i get your point but i still dont think children should be thought religion in schools. blah.

Now you're getting the hang of it:) you will have fun here, and learning too.
I would tend to agree with Zillah in that there is no such thing as universal morality. Morality, that lovely thing called ethos (Sorry Robin) and ethics are all products of society. They have evolved as rules to enable mankind to live socially and in harmony for the common good of the group. But there are many groups, all with differing ideas. Just think about the variences in reference to killing. One might like to think it is a universal principle, but it is not. Societies have as many ways of circumventing or condoning this one as there are stars in the sky. We could probably make a case to say that a number of these morals are approaching levels of universal acceptence, but we are not there yet.
In the case of children, as a parent myself, it is difficult dealing with schools and their curiculums on ethics morals and ethos. Here in Japan, there is no religion in schools other than the state one of Shinto which really is a state religion and is used for special occasions like state investitures. No one takes it terribly seriously, but they sure do push what I call social ethics and morals. Things like helping the community, working together as a community for the common good, respect for the elderly, anti nuke, conservation, to mention a few. As long as they stay earth bound I am happy to go along with it, supplimenting where I see gaps. The moment they attempt to go religious my kid is out of the system.

robindch

> Morality, that lovely thing called ethos (Sorry Robin) and ethics are
> all products of society.

Eeek, what a horrible word to see so early in the morning! In my experience, the "e-word" tends to be less of a product of society than a vacuous hooray-word used by certain well-known religions to stifle argument by declaring it as fact. Yuk.

It's the celery in the saladbowl of ethical debate, the silent fart in the elevator of disputation.

.

Zillah

robindch wrote:

It's the celery in the saladbowl of ethical debate, the silent fart in the elevator of disputation.

...the pointless bitchy post in the thread of interesting discussion...

Dades

Asiaprod wrote:

but they sure do push what I call social ethics and morals. Things like helping the community, working together as a community for the common good, respect for the elderly, anti nuke, conservation, to mention a few.

That's probably the type of teaching that womoma is getting at.

So basically replace religion class with "Ethics", or "Civics" or some such. I did Civics for a while in school and it was interesting. The bottom line is even if one takes religion out of schools - you don't need to replace it. A child's parents have the real responsibility (or opportunity) to instill morality - and they will do as they see fit.

Mmmm... ethos.

Asiaprod

The Atheist wrote:

Mmmm... ethos.

Maybe we should get Robin to make us up a sticky outlining the Atheist ethos:D

Húrin

Zillah wrote:

I would challenge you to describe a set of moral values that are universal but there would of course be exceptions, so such an attempt would be an exercise in futility.

How about the UDHR?

Zillah

Thats not universal. Sure it has the word "universal" in its title, but there's whole swathes of society that would disagree with a lot of the points. The very existence of the UDHR shows that it is neccessary, and hence not universal.