Is relativism (moral and cultural) just a way of rationalising the racism of low expectation?

Yes. And thus killing someone over their genes is not universally wrong. And thus it's not objectively wrong.

IMO, there are a few universal morals. It basically boils down to experience. In a way some morals are learned by personal experience. For example most people have suffered emotional and physical pain by the time the reach adolescence. Morality at its most basic is not inflicting these sufferings that you understand personally on others. It is said that arabs grieve differently than westerns. But the causes of grief are near universal.

It's an option of last resort based on the moral understanding I explained here

Based on what?
Plenty of people have ethics that are not based on this princible. ISIS for example has no qualms taking sex-slaves and killing civilians.
Yet it's not as if they're without a set of very well-defined ethical values, just as we are. Theirs are just based upon a different set of presumptions as to what is ultimately for the greater good.

ISIS are immoral. And their ethics are detrimental to humanity as a whole.

Perhaps ISIS are an example of the diseased brain mentioned

I certainly condone killing them for the greater good.

They certainly aren't. They don't just do whatever. They have a very strict and well-defined set of ethical values. It is certainly not "without ethics". They are just so different from ours that we find them reprehensible. But to call them "immoral" is to fundementally misunderstand what they are.

And they believe that you would propagate a lifestyle that would doom billions of people to eternal torture and miss out on their chance of going to Paradise on the last day. From their perspective you're about as evil and reprehensible as anyone could imagine.

I though there was a difference between morals and ethics (beyond half this board saying morals don't exist). Ethics is essentially defined by the group whereas morals are deeper and more universal. My point was meant to be pretty simple. But I guess I can simplify. Do unto others what has been done to you.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

I suspect they are more concerned with control tbh. They have no qualms about using drugs in battle for example.

Yes, and no such thing exists. There is no good and evil.
We have ethics. This is the Will that drives us.

Perhaps in amongst the leadership. And even so, you could argue that a small sin is justified when you're fighting to save billions of people from eternal damnation.

Every faith preaches a version of this though. ISIS scummers ignore this part. And in defense of my moral code, I reached this conclusion through personal experience of feels that are universal, not some spooky desert tome.

But user. Hell isn't real.

Your Will is really not universal to every human being. You must understand that some people out there simply are wired differently than you are, just like fascists and ISIS. They're not evil, because they have ethics they follow just like you and I.

That doesn't matter. What matters is that they think it's real and thus to them, it is.

Also, communism isn't real. Now what?

Not wanting bad things done to you is natural instinct. Human are societal creatures. Argue against that all you like, but reality says otherwise.
I don't think it is spooky to suggest that if we are going to live together, perhaps we should try to minimise our own harm - if that comes at the expense of harming others I'm not sure what your problem is.

I suspect grieving over the loss of a loved on is universal in all correctly wired brains. And empathy is being able to understand this feeling in others. So knowing how it feels to lose somebody, and how your actions will give others these feels, then the moral thing to do is not inflict them on others if there's an alternative. Burning apostates alive is completely unnecessary.

Nyet. That you say 'communism isn't real' suggests that you are a materialist and as such should understand why precedence must be given to real shit. Hell is at best a philosophical concept. Reality trumps such concepts. If I decide that I am god and as such beyond the law, should my delusions be respected?

if mudslimes see stoning woman to death as moral, it's perfectly fine because all cultures are different lmao

What gives you the right to determine whether someone is well by feeling a feeling you expect them to have?

There are people in my country who party when a person dies. The qualification of mental illness simony denotes someone who doesn't behave in a way that you see as abominable.

It was other user here mentioned defective brains

This said, I do believe that lack of empathy is generally accepted as a sign of a neurological defectiveness. My definition of morality was a bit broader though. The bit about how you react in the face of death may have been slightly reductive. So how about the other aspect I mentioned. Most of us know physical pain. Morality is not inflicting this on others when it can be avoided. If you understand physical suffering and have empathy, you wouldn't aim to inflict it on others.

There's no objective morality: it fluctuates across time and cultures, zero consistency. In other words, pure ideology.

Bullshit. I don't condone stoning to death rape victims. I am objectionably morally superior to those who do. Unless you want to contest my special snowflake definition of morality.

Sure, you're objectionably against stoning to death. But that's not objective.

huh. That was meant to say objectively.

You don't believe in personal morality though do you? I mean I guess in this case, if there is no such thing as morality then no action will be morally superior to any other. But I'd love to here the moral case for stoning to death a rape victim.

How do you like my definition of morality anyway? I actually stole it from somewhere

I think your definition of morality better describes ethics tbh.

Ethics (taking a scientific approach): Allowing unnecessary suffering isn't constructive for society, following this we should not tolerate stoning women

Morality (ideological approach): Stoning is bad because it is evil

Stoning victims is pretty much the epitome of evil though. That and Blair. I don't see how this isn't intuitive to some of you?

huh. Turns out there is a scientific case for morality too.

The explicit making of moral right and wrong judgments coincides with activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC) while intuitive reactions to situations containing implicit moral issues activates the temporoparietal junction area.[23]

Stimulation of the VMPC by transcranial magnetic stimulation, has been shown to inhibit the ability of human subjects to take into account intent when forming a moral judgment. According to this investigation, TMS did not disrupt participants' ability to make any moral judgment. On the contrary, moral judgments of intentional harms and nonharms were unaffected by TMS to either the RTPJ or the control site; presumably, however, people typically make moral judgments of intentional harms by considering not only the action's harmful outcome but the agent's intentions and beliefs. So why were moral judgments of intentional harms not affected by TMS to the RTPJ? One possibility is that moral judgments typically reflect a weighted function of any morally relevant information that is available at the time. On the basis of this view, when information concerning the agent's belief is unavailable or degraded, the resulting moral judgment simply reflects a higher weighting of other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). Alternatively, following TMS to the RTPJ, moral judgments might be made via an abnormal processing route that does not take belief into account. On either account, when belief information is degraded or unavailable, moral judgments are shifted toward other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). For intentional harms and nonharms, however, the outcome suggests the same moral judgment as the intention. Thus, the researchers suggest that TMS to the RTPJ disrupted the processing of negative beliefs for both intentional harms and attempted harms, but the current design allowed the investigators to detect this effect only in the case of attempted harms, in which the neutral outcomes did not afford harsh moral judgments on their own.[24]

Similarly VMPC-impaired persons will judge an action purely on its outcome and are unable to take into account the intent of that action.[25]

I guess what separates this from ethics is most people wouldn't do a rape on a baby just cause nobody was there to see it. ie. societal implications are secondary.

see

Although I'm a bit suspicious to claim that ethics is scientific, it is more rigorous than morality. Morality is essentially vulgarized opinion, while ethics are the basic foundations for something like morals to exist at all. For example, murder being illegal is an ethical issue, it's illegal because if it wasn't, it wouldn't allow basic political systems to function. When and where it is 'okay' to murder is a moral issue, such as in certain instances (murdering a serial killer) and a irrelevant one at that. Morality is a breakfast topic for mothers and children, ethics are beyond good and evil.

If what you say was simply 'intuitive', we wouldn't be discussing it at all.

Intuition is literally how stupid people discern knowledge. Everything has a reason behind it, even if this reason is itself highly questionable. Stoning, for example, was actually considered a lesser of evils because it alleviates the guilt of killing through large group participation so no one person can be considered responsible; a thousand years ago, when human society was incredibly more violent than it is now, this would probably sound pretty okay in extreme circumstances.

Of course, the only reason it's being brought back in Islamic nations is because it offends Western sensibilities and fits into religious iconography. People who want authority and tradition because they're afraid of it have some Orwellian conflict going on in their head.

Are you denying that some things are objectivly wrong? I'm going to go with the brutal rape and murder of a baby. Is there ever a situation this isn't immoral?

Yeah yeah, I'm stupid because I believe some actions are objectivity wrong.

We're not talking about that here. We're talking about stoning women for being raped. Justify it.

This picture is such a blatant false equivalence it hurts.

Relativism and antirealism is much more than just "I was told to be tolerant of le muslams so when the extemists do bad shit i make up excuses ;-;;;;;"
The only reason why slave-taking, executing, and other shit is bad is because you don't want to be taken as a slave or be executed. That's it. That's all the rationale you need. And it has nothing to do with """"culture""", what is taboo and what isn't changes every fucking century, particular in these things where it does not apply at all to the majority of people that are supposed to form the "culture". To think that beating women and such is the natural development of average people going about their daily lives and not the result of manipulation by those in power ignores a lot of both the history of the Middle East, but of Europe and elsewhere as well, as throughout history these things have popped up and been phased out over and over.
That being said, there is plenty of rational to oppose things such as slavery or beheading even without a universal moral realism. You can base it simply on your own interests, that is:
1. I don't want to be a slave or be beheaded
2. My ideal society is a communistic one, and slavery impedes this
3. Slaves working for someone else means a wasted possibility for a friend or co-worker to mutually help each other
4. Beheading ignores the causes for crimes (if they are crimes at all) and again doesnt help me at all, instead it impedes me
and so on and so on
There's a middle ground between "hurr durr nothing matters we gotta be tolerant there culture(?) " and "slavery is objectively ebil my god wills me to destroy it", try thinking in your own rational interest instead of being spooked out.

yes

I've seen a Muslim try to excuse and avoid questioning Islam's horrible morals by using moral relativism.

I'm sorry you're too easily offended to remain mentally stable, but that wasn't the point I was making.

Don't mix material conditions and pure ideology. Will get a toxic sludge.

Simple question. Is it ever right to stone a women to death solely becasue she got R'd? If no then you have made a moral judgement

There's nothing ideological about calling the stoning of a woman in the above situation immoral.

No, I think it's wrong because it seems horrible and makes me uncomfortable. My feelings tell me it is bad.

The difference is that I admit it.

I explained your feelings to you above. You have an understanding of suffering and are capable of empathy, thus you know it is wrong to inflict such suffering if at all avoidable. As does everyone else. Those that don't are likely brain damaged or brainwashed. This is what I'm trying to get at about universal morals. Not objective, not assigned from up high. But universally true. So it follows that societies and individuals that ignore this moral impulse not to inflict suffering are morally inferior to societies and individuals that go with their feeling.

These feelings are not universal, this is literally autistic thinking. Whether you like it or not, there was a time and place when these horrible things were seen as the moral options.

But of course you'll just start screaming about how I approve of stoning.

It is ideology that dictates it.
Morality is a spook.

I've spent this whole thread trying to show that it isn't.

Was there? Even the desert trilogy said 'thou shalt not kill'. I've said there are instances where people can act against their own sense of morality or oppress it, such as in people who're brainwashed. Fuck I bet even the myans and ancient egyptians knew sacrifice was wrong, but the elite of their society benefited from it, thus bullied, tricked and coerced others into it. But I bet they still knew they done wrong.

Abrahamic religion is stupid and self-contradictory, breaking news.

Still has nothing to do whether morality is objective.

You're using a No True Scotsman fallacy: people who think differently from me don't count as people.

I'm not. I am saying I'd be impressed if you can find one person in the world who says stoning a rape victim is right WHO IS NOT brainwashed or braindamaged. Of course I'm asking the impossible of you here so we might have to call it quits. For now…

Okay, what if Hitler was a rape victim and was afraid of rocks?

The example I chose they are being stones for being raped. Hitler has known baggage that could make a case that he deserves to die. After all he did take lives without mercy or pause.

a brief aside, has anyone clicked this yet?

ehhhh. I don't even have words. It's Occupy, with a couple of dog-whistles for Holla Forumsacks. It is very unique snowflake.

Who the hell chooses these ads?

Okay, let's say the fact that he was raped was someone's personal motivation but everyone else went along with it because he otherwise deserved it.

Big H arguably deserved it cause he fucked over so many other people. But, and we're getting deep into hypotheticals here, if the guy stoned him to death solely because he was raped, then the stoner has committed an immoral act: murdering somebody in cold blood for something they haven;t done. I'm assuming the stoner knew that big H didn't want to be raped here.

That's exactly my point, real life is extremely complicated and can lead us to do things we never thought we would, even if we'd regret it afterward.

...

I think you missed my point. If the guy stoning him knew of all else H had done, then it murder is defensible. If it was done because the stoner thought H's virtue was spoiled by his being raped, and stoned him for this, then the stoner is immoral.

Right. So this has essentially been what I've been arguing for ITT

philosophy-index.com/ethics/meta-ethics/universalism.php

That SOME acts are objectively immoral. I am not arguing for

philosophy-index.com/ethics/meta-ethics/absolutism.php

Debunk me.

The very fact you see this as an issue of being brainwashed if you think this or that means you're brainwashed yourself. You're duped and don't even know it.

You saying this isn't brainwashing? The vast majority of people in the countries where this shit happens are pleb tier. ie exactly those liable to be brainwashed by a spooky cult.

Then his culture is shit and should be fucking purged. Some culture are objectively superior to others too.

See?

My culture says we should kill niggers and Jews. It is objectively superior to yours.

This is fucking funny, you think you get to decide what is for and should be for everyone and call it objective cause feels.

Not exactly. I just think that some actions are absolutely immoral. Torturing kids just for fun. Is there ever a moral case for this? Is there ever any justification for this?

I also don't really get your point. If people are willing to commit acts they know are immoral it is likely cause they're brainwashed or coerced into it.

Is it really so hard for some of you to accept some cultures are better than others or are you happy to ignore niggers in south africa punishing theft by burning people alive with tyres filled with petrol rather than a court system?

The Other creates morality, it is not some preexisting thing belonging in the real order. Seeing such things as abominable makes you brainwashed, just like them. We're all brainwashed the moment we enter the symbolic order.

My point is that your placing of that which is absolutely dependent on subjectivity on the field of objectivity, that of the real, is really dumb. Such a thing as objectivity is forever beyond man.

I thought the others created ethics?

Again, I'm not arguing in favour of moral absolutism. Just that some things are wrong, plain as day. Every culture ever has taken a dim view of child torture for fun. This came about because of the intimate understanding of suffering empathy gives us.

I'll have to agree to that because in my view punishing criminals by killing or maiming them is fucking retarded since it does not judge the person properly for what he has done but rather what people think he has done without proper investigation.

And because I have thought about stealing myself and wouldn't want to lose my life over something as petty rather than say, mass murder.

I have to agree actually, because some actions are simply abominable to me as a subject. I am not a moral relativist of the "lol is subjective so it's not bad" type. My only problem is with invoking objectivity.

It sounds like you are arguing that there is a biologically based set of "rules of behavior" that is hardwired in the human brain. You would be correct on this. But calling this behavior "morality" is abuse of the term. You can't seriously say that these base instincts give us any instruction on how we *ought* to behave, can you? That seems like you are conflating two different questions.

Certainly the question of ethics can be informed by our instincts, but should not be *defined* by it. In the case of imminent starvation, for example, stoning a baby to death might be the best course of action even if every base instinct of ours is firing on all cylinders telling us not too..