What Moral Relativism Is Really About

Moral relativism explained: arguments for and against moral relativism.

[dirak]

Truth is that cultural imperialism has done a good job at making most cultures around the world being about the same. So it's easy to point the odd leftover cultures as wrong.
In the end, it's just the old saying "might makes right".

[douglasphillips]

This video is a string of strawman arguments

[gergelymagyarosi]

Hi!
Could you do a video on moral relativism vs moral subjectivism?
I'm not a fan of relativism, but it would really clear up some misconceptions you seem to have.
I think both objectivism and relativism stand on really shaky ground, but the latter is worse.

[Spazzboy]

Moral relativism is a vice of the over-agreeability crowd who are adverse to argumentation; moral relativism is a means of shutting down argument and discussion.

[jb-xcoh]

Morality, right or wrong, good or evil does not exist, its merely a philosophical discussion about what is socially acceptable at any given point in time.

[sinisterminister]

The biggest problem faced by the moral absolutists (i.e. moral non-relativists) is how to ascertain these absolute morals. Likely the most common position is that of “emotivism” where something is wrong or right because it “feels” wrong or right. Did those who practiced slavery “feel” it was wrong? Some like Thomas Jefferson may have, but most probably did not feel it was wrong at all.

[astrocandless]

It was interesting to hear the term "earth flatters" for the first time. There are 1100 Google results for the term "earth flatters". There are over 1 million Google results for the term "flat earthers".

[ThatSpazamataz]

Great video. For the record I consider myself a moral absolutist but think the arguments on the other side are much stronger than described in this video.

I think you missed one of the strongest arguments of relativism (that of morality from biological evolution) and also mischaracterised what moral relativism is.

I say you mischaracterised it because some moral relativists can hold the view that “there is no objective morality” but that “humans can together ascertain subjective morality” in the way you have described.

In other words we can all (except for some psychopaths) hopefully come together and agree that murder is “bad” and orient ourselves away from it. But whether this value is objective in the sense that it is a a universal law or is subjective in the sense that it is like what you described “what to wear to a wedding” is what the relativists would be disputing. Not that anything goes just because there is absolute morality, in the same way that you agree that within the confines of a culture not everything goes when deciding what to wear to a wedding.

A common counter argument and I imagine the strongest (although I don’t have a strong philosophy background) is the argument from evolution.

When it comes to morality our ideas do tend to come from things that directly affect evolution “such as our strong distaste to murdering babies, a lesser distaste towards murdering anyone, and the lowest distaste towards murdering people in war who from an ethical perspective are just as human as the rest of us but from an evolutionary perspective share less DNA with us and therefore their “survival” is less detrimental to our own genes fitness.”

A similar example would be how we value human lives over animals, or for that matter pet lives over other animals.

The problem is that any strong value that humans have can be drawn back from evolution.

Even the reality of feelings of empathy have strong evolutionary advantages. Therefore any morality derived from empathetic feelings we might believe are based on an objective truth because of such a strong feeling must be “true”. But we don’t do this for every strong feeling we have, and when people who themselves also believe in something being objectively moral and hold equal or even stronger “feelings” on the matter we don’t just accept what they say as true. It would take too long to lay out this argument in totality but it sort of gets my point across.

[richmondaddai-duah]

when it comes to the argument of tolerance you are spot on, the argument defeats itself

when it comes to the argument of dependency no so quite, because the the real question is if humans stop exiting would something still be true, for example if humans stop existing the the history of medicine would still be true and teh formulas for those medications would still be the correct ones, (i.e even if all humans are gone the formula for Tylenol would still produce Tylenol)

In terms of differencial equations or mathematics in general, math as a language is subjective, in the sense that the symbols and structure we use, could have easily been different, the the objective thing about mathematics is what it represents metaphysically, in a sense what the symbole"1" represents could have been represented by the symbol "2" or vice versa but either way (1 or 2) it is representing the same thing. So when it comes to differential equations, yes the symbology, one could say depends on the the human formulation, but what it represents does not. And we accept this with language, language could have been different as is dependent on human formulation, but what language represents or corresponds to, is objective.

The reason I would say that with morality it is a bit harder is because of evidence:

mainly with facts we consider to be objective we consider them true even if we would prefer not to, or many of us would accept that even if we do not like something or dislike it, but we find out it is true, we would accept it to be true . or we would be neutral to its true.

a good example is slavery in america, the vast majority of americans would consider slavery wrong, but would still accepts that America was had a history with slavery, the point here is that it is a fact that most americans prefer it not be a fact, but accepts it as a fact, because they consider historical facts as objective facts, which are true regardless of ones reservations, bias, desires and sentiments .

but when it comes to what some call moral facts, it is not the same, the moral realist is under inductive tension to show why "moral facts " differ so much than other types of facts.

when we say there are moral facts we are saying that there are moral truths which are true irrespective of the stance of a individual, regardless of there reservations, bias, and sentiments.

So here is a question, if raping and murdering your one of your family being good was a moral fact, would you do it, I think that vast majority would say no, why because of the subjective desires, emotions, and sentiments that an individual has, YOU do not want to be raped, YOU do not want your family member to be harmed, and (for most people) and hence You do not any person to suffer that harm.And this applies for virtually all things we consider moral facts

Take a note that for the majority of us, what we consider moral wrong or right are aswell things we would not like to happen to us, loved ones, humans in general or things we would like to happen to us, loved ones, humans in general .

in a sense all things we consider morally wrong or right, are linked or at least correlated with our subjective desires,
and even if the example just showed does not disprove objective morality, definitely shows that we consider moral truths are accepted and acted upon not because they are true, but because they are linked with our desires or conformed to them.

then here comes the problem if morality by evidence has shown to derive or are dependent from human desires and desires are subjective (if the being does not exist nor does the desire, and the desire is precisely what determines the reservation, bias, and sentiments a person has), than if humans stop existing then morality would not exist and would not be valid.

[Temulon]

0:40 "Moral Relativism is the view that even in very specific scenarios, there is no objective right or wrong, and it all depends on the society in question"

Moral Relativism, as a philosophy, is bankrupt. There are things that will always be objectively wrong. Slavery for example, human beings owning other human beings as property was always wrong, is wrong now and always will be wrong. No moral argument can be advanced to make the proposition acceptable.

[conduit]

Arbitrary intolerance is always a bad thing, beyond that it tends to get complicated.

[tonbears]

The main argument relativists appeal to is that of tolerance. They claim that telling someone their morality is wrong is intolerant, and relativism tolerates all views. But this is misleading. First of all, evil should never be tolerated. Should we tolerate a rapist’s view that women are objects of gratification to be abused? Second, it is self-defeating because relativists do not tolerate intolerance or absolutism. Third, relativism cannot explain why anyone should be tolerant in the first place. The very fact that we should tolerate people (even when we disagree) is based on the absolute moral rule that we should always treat people fairly—but that is absolutism again! In fact, without universal moral principles there can be no goodness.

[TheRebelliousMeatPuppet]

It's really very simple and doesn't require deep philosophical debates to flesh out. Logic itself dictates if you want to live in a world with other humans and we all get along and live harmoniously it goes like this: "Create no harm, loss or damage for your fellow Man and if you do (life happens, accidents happen), make it right" - For 'most' things, it really is that simple. Comprehendable by even those w/out education.

[magnusheister]

It doesen't matter if you "accept" or "embrace" moral relativism, you will still act within you own nature therefore it is your nature that defines your morality, this means your are bound with a pre-setted morality by your blood, by your dna, your morality comes from within you and everything that comes from the outside is not your morality. With this in mind, in order to establish a funktional and congruent society the overarching morality needs to be more or less (the more the better) present and active in all of the productive constituents, from the institutions to the individual, within the society. This means that there will never exist a tolerant multicultural society without an overarching artificial/dominant set culture, since otherwise the different groups consisting the multicultural society would consciously or even subconscioulsly sperate/isolate themselves to their own societies, in other words if you remove the artificial overarching morality, that secures it's positions by monopoly of violence and capital, then the more natural and truer forms of morality will blossom forth among groups that naturaly inherently share it. Our conscious is our bio-soul and our bio-souls shape and create our bio-cultures and our morality is a part of that. Our goal should therefore not be pointless tolerence but instead aligning through contemplation and authentic intuitive living our morals with our intuitive ideals, which will for the most part concern a higher form of life.

[liquidcancer]

1:05 Can a moral relativist say that tolerance is good though 🤓

[Tom_Shepperd]

Morality has always been and will always be objective. If you take an action that causes the harm of another sentient being, you've objectively done wrong. If you take an action that causes harm to another in self defense, then you have objectively done no wrong. If you kill another in self defense in a situation where your life is in danger, then you have objectively done no wrong. Moral relativism is just a concept to try to justify wrong doing, such as tyranny and slavery.

[nati]

"Does it mean that medicine is relative and we can make i as we want?"
Yes. And no to the second part. Relativity doesn't mean that you can do things as you want. It means that things work or not with "relatiion" to something. You can take some vitamins everyday, but if you give it to a dog it will die. The *human* medicine is relative to humans.
You could say "medicine works objectively for humans". Which is not your original point, because now I can say "relative morality works objectively for its followers".
Think of money. The value of money is relative, but you can't go to a shop and decide that your dollar is capable of buing a whole stock. Despite being relative, you *can't* say that a dollar is objectively worth a carton of milk.

"The idea is that we should be respectful towards others [...]. To recommend relativism for the sake of tolerance is somewhat inconsistent, that is, some values are taken for granted here."
You're right in that some values are taken for granted. So what? They are taken for granted arbitrarily. We like tolerance. So we take it for granted. We see a benefit of tolerance, sure. But does that make it absolute? Why should you do something that has benefits, if not for an arbitrary reason of liking it?

"It doesn't seem that cultures are that different."
That's true. The similarities though usually end the moment the behavior stops having an impact on the spread of genetic information. Is it wrong to kill people? Many culture say yes, and then go to war with each other. What is wrong to kill is *your people, * your gene holders, and the closer you are genetically the more you protect it.
Beings that have to take care of their young for their survival also often say that all babies must be saved, regardless of species. Since they have characteristics very close to their own. But you don't see them advocate for the young of pests like locust or grasshopper. Even if they do, it's only for species that directly impacts *them, * like those that improve crop health or something. "Save the bees", why? Because honey yummy and wax for candles. Not because it's a "moral thing to do".
Morality grew through evolution - does it make it absolute? Is the spread of genes the absolute moral behavior, and survival the moral right?

"The father says 'This is our culture'"
Sure, it is. But this doesn't mean I have to agree with it. Your culture directly contradicts mine - the free pass on tolerance ends. My morality is based on tolerance, sure. But it's not a tenet. Or a dictate. Or law. It's *relative* to the situation I or others are in. If I didn't exist, this excuse work for people who think that this guy did nothing wrong. Awfully relative one might say.

[dionysianapollomarx]

Moral relativism is not cultural relativism. That conflation is thanks to James Rachels’ own confusion of those two things. Though a lot of people are both in the wild. Additionally, cultural relativism in anthropology and the social sciences has never meant the outsider cannot criticize, only that the outsider has to be more cautious in doing so. It’s never been an absolute term though it has been used that way in moral philosophy, which is generally incorrect. Yet philosophers and laypersons on Twitter do so. The term outside of social science has been made to mean nothing. Additionally, other formulations that stand up well to scrutiny, but which I and many people would disagree with, are Jesse Prinz’s and Joseph Margolis’.

[mikek]

You seem to be looking for some sort of law to dictate to you what should be. That has never been the goal of moral relativism, so of course it fails.

Moral relativism is not a tool to prescribe the proper morals. It's a descriptive explanation of the present reality of our world. It is okay with finding something personally immoral, while describing it as moral in the eyes of that particular society, because it isn't searching for some immutable truth. It's searching for the clearest way to communicate our present so that we can properly articulate the moves necessary to achieve what you see as objective truth.

[splaineguy]

Ain't no way I'm the first comment on this video. Thank you for explaining and breaking it down in a digestible way