Sorry if this is a beginner question. I just recently picked up interest in atheist arguments and religious debate as a whole.

I saw some threads talking about how objective morality is impossible under atheism, and that it’s also impossible under theism, since morality is inherently subjective to the person and to God. OK. Help me understand better. Is this an argument for moral relativism? Since objective morality cannot exist, are we saying we should live by the whims of our own interests? Or is it a semantic argument about how we need to define ‘morality’ better? Or something else?

I ask because I’m wondering if most atheists agree on what morality means, and if it exists, where it comes from. Because let’s say that God doesn’t exist, and I turn atheist. Am I supposed to believe there’s no difference between right and wrong? Or that right and wrong are invented terms to control people? What am I supposed to teach my kids?

I hope that makes sense. Thanks so much for taking the time to read my thoughts.

Edit: You guys are going into a lot of detail, but I think I have a lot better idea of how atheism and morality are intertwined. Consensus seems to be that there is no default view, but most atheists see them as disconnected. Sorry if I can’t get to every reply, I’m on mobile and you guys are writing a lot haha

When it comes to the moral argument, it seems like a lot of theists conflate Moral Subjectivity with Moral Relativity. Matt Slick is probably the most notorious case. He does this several times in his debates with Scott Clifton and Skylar Fiction, among others. The argument is that without God grounding morality, secular morality becomes arbitrary and relativistic in a “to each their own“ kind of way, where people can choose to murder as long as they personally feel it’s fine and those who are personally opposed to murder can choose not to. A common gotcha question is “How can you call what another culture does immoral if you don’t believe in objective morality or believe that morals are subjective?” but this is like asking, “How can you call a lemon sour if you believe taste isn‘t objective?” It’s just a non-sequitur. If you want to be particularly asinine, you can say “so it’s just your opinion, then“ and that would technically be right, but keep in mind, it‘s also “just” a doctor’s opinion that you shouldn’t eat glass or drink gasoline. It’s “just” a fire safety expert’s opinion that you shouldn’t put out a grease fire with water. It’s “just” a culinary chef’s opinion that you shouldn’t serve raw food.

One of the next dialogue chains is for the moral objectivist to list a bunch of scenarios and for each one, ask the moral subjectivist “is this moral or immoral?” and then after the subjectivist answers, ask them how they can call it immoral if it‘s subjectively moral according to the culture/time period it happened in. To explain why this line of questioning is tedious and dull, try asking a person what they think of black licorice. If they say “nasty,” keep asking them if they would find it tasty in different areas of the world: “Would you like black licorice in Nigeria? How about Tibet? France?” This is pointless and will not change the answer since it’s based on the person’s subjective experience, which would be universally held no matter what culture/area. This is where confusion between Subjectivism and Relativism is most common. Objectivity and Subjectivity are actually only one axis of morality, the other axis is Relativity and Universality. This creates four quadrants: Universal Objectivism, Universal Subjectivism, Objective Relativism, and Subjective Relativism (don’t know if those are the actual names or not, but we’ll go with them for simplicity sake). These categories can be described as follows:

• Objective, Universal - Morality is a real

I recall ages ago seeing destiny comment on the following video where Noam Chomsky answers a question on moral relativism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i63_kAw3WmE.

 

In essence, Chomsky is asked why he does not believe in moral relativism -as Michelle Foucault does- given the observed reality that ethical norms vary wildly through time and space. Chomsky's long-winded answer brings up many points, I remember listening along to the commentary Destiny was giving of Chomsky's answer that concluded in calling his points "dumb". At the time I was convinced Destiny was right because I too could not understand what Chomsky was getting at.
Turns out Chomsky's argument against moral relativism is quite strong.

 

Preliminaries to understand Chomsky's arguments:

Technically the position that the professor questioning Chomsky supports is called metaethical moral relativism.

 

Metaethical moral relativism: the truth or falsity of moral judgments, or their justification, is not absolute or universal, but is relative to the traditions, convictions, or practices of a group of persons.

 

Notice that this is a claim in the metaphysical domain. Canonically, essentially always, to support such a position, one appeals to descriptive moral relativism.

 

Descriptive moral relativism: as a matter of empirical fact, there are deep and widespread moral disagreements across different societies.

 

Indeed even the professor questioning Chomsky builds his case on descriptive moral relativism by citing the acceptance of slavery, the repression of homosexuality, ecc.

Now, it is not immediately obvious why descriptive moral relativism should imply metaethical moral relativism, so often, philosophers will argue this implication but, for the sake of this post, we don't care since Chomsky will take a different route to answer the moral relativist.

 

Chomsky's reply:

Chomsky starts off by saying, as a preliminary point, that, although it is conceivable as a position, it is unclear that one can practically ever behave like a metaethical moral relativist, then he gets into the meat of his argument.

> Every biological system, and I assume we are biological organisms, so our moral values, ethical systems are also biological systems, every one of them can vary quite wildly depending on experience. That's not controversial...ther

So my relatives just repeat this mantra when discussing the dangers of Islamism and changing demographics in Sweden (about 40% MENA migrants next generation) "All countries have some bad people". These are 30-45 year olds mind you, not ancient 80 year olds that never experienced MENA immigrants growing up.

I remembered this recently, and Gad Saad and some exmooses arab-specific words came up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghayrah#:~:text=Ghayrah%20(Arabic%3A%20%D8%BA%D9%8E%D9%8A%D9%92%D8%B1%D9%8E%D8%A9)%20(,a%20kind%20of%20protective%20jealousy. It really fascinates me how extreme the definition of a "cuck" is in arab and western societies. In the west you literally need to be aroused or have your wife fuck another man behind your back for people to find you a weak man or cuckold, while in MENA its enough that your female cousin has a male friend. In the west the guy policing his female relatives to that point would be seen as some sort of psycho.

Im not really surprised by it, but I cant get around that there are people in the west that cant imagine that there is a difference in values between two spheres that have barely exchanged cultural values with eachother.

I understand the futility of making value judgements about such abstract concepts as "authority" or "freedom of speech" because whether those things are good or bad depends on material conditions, how they're defined, who is the subject/object etc. etc., but is there any concept that is unequivocally condemnable or praiseworthy under this framework? For example, would not condemning slavery outright be idealism? Are the hallmarks of a communist society like classlessness and statelessness not also ideals, if it is implied we want the condition of classlessness and statelessness indefinitely?

Some of my professors are actively attacking relativistic positions and philosophers. However, while some thinkers do promote relativistic ideas and positions, it seems to me that others just observe relativistic trends or mechanisms in culture, and do not necessarily take a stand.

I don't wish to get into specific examples as I don't want to be corrected for a specific thinker, but for example, one may say that morality is relativistic, while another one may say that according to his cultural observations morality seems to be relativistic.

Hopefully I made it clear.

How should we differentiate between the two?

If he does, do you have a page number or remember some main points he uses to support that suffering is bad?

Sorry if this is easily answered in the majority of his book! I have yet to read it, but intend to.

I’m a anti-natalist, vegan, and generally describe myself as a negative utilitarian. All of my ethical stances are technically “subjective.” I would love to hear what David has said about the topic of this type of morality. Clearly, he is still for this framework, but does he prescribe or completely object to nihilism or any form of moral skepticism? I know it’s an age-old debate, but it’s one I’d like to learn more about for my own edification and one to help me when I talk with others about these views.

Thank you in advance!

Is telling a lie a bigger sin if you are seven years old or eight years old? If you have never heard of the gospel or if you are a baptized member? If you have the Aaronic priesthood or if you do not? If you have taken the oath and covenant of the Melchizedek priesthood or if you have not?

Now how about fornication? Is fornication a more serious sin if you are an unendowed member or endowed? Married or unmarried?

Is adultery a greater sin if you are civilly married or sealed in the temple? What about if you’re a lay member or a bishop? Or a stake President? An apostle?

Of course, that’s where it starts getting dicey, because the ultimate Mormon ordinance is the second anointing, which makes it so that nothing you do is ever a serious sin again. There’s an elite upper crust of Mormons to whom no standard of morality applies at all!

No one can deny that Mormonism has a tiered system of morality that depends on who and what you are in the Church. If that’s not moral relativism, I don’t know what is.

Something which I remembered recently, from an anthro class I took back in college. Wanted to get some thoughts on this. We often describe desi culture from an American perspective, by our ideals. We might consider aspects of desi culture to be “immoral” per our American standards. Similarly, desis might hold certain American cultural elements to be immoral. Interesting to think about, but in your opinion, should we take the stance of cultural relativism or absolutism when evaluating both our desi and American heritages?

There are many threads about moral relativism, but I have not found an answer to this particular question.

In the following I am interested specifically in the meta-ethical and normative aspects of moral philosophies. (The merely descriptive aspect is, in my view, simpler and less controversial.)

I think I understand the following positions:

• Moral realism, which posits that there exist objective moral facts.
• Moral antirealism, which posits that there exist no objective moral facts.

As far as I understand, moral relativism is used to refer to a number of things. It appears to overlap with moral antirealism and is sometimes categorized as a subtype of moral antirealism.

I gather that moral relativism is sometimes used to mean that there exist different moral truths for different cultures or groups. This idea seems strange to me. It seems to me that this is just moral antirealism muddled behind misleading terminology.

At most, I can understand this if we view "moral truths" as an intersubjective phenomenon like the law (i.e., there exist different "legal truths" in different places). But as I see it, this only makes sense descriptively; it becomes nonsense when we try to apply it to normative ethics.

So my question is: In a meta-ethical or normative sense, is the idea of "different moral truths for different groups" meaningfully distinct from the moral antirealist view that "there are no moral truths"? If so, what is an argument for preferring the former over the latter?

I hope this makes sense. Thanks in advance!

I'll start by prefacing my view with my understanding of the subject, which will gradually segue into my opinion:

What is morality? Morality is the study of right and wrong. Well, what does right and wrong mean in the context of morality? Right and wrong are properties of an action, and they're opposites. What does these properties describe? They describe an action's alignment with moral rules. What are these rules? They describe what's right and wrong. Any moral rule is ultimately based on a blanket statement. Take the rule that "murder is wrong." Well, what is the reason? "Murder deprives someone of their consciousness, which is taking away everything." Now, this assumes no after-life, but beyond that, it just reasons using another blanket statement.

Well, something being a blanket statement doesn't mean its incorrect. Take this statement for example: "macroscopic objects are attracted to each other via a force called gravity". One could ask "why is that", and the only answer would be "because". So, what's the difference between physical laws and moral laws then? They both describe reality using blanket statements, what differentiates them? Physical laws have supporting evidence, moral laws do not. Physical laws are discovered, moral laws are defined.

Now, I am not saying that "there is no intrinisic, true moral code to reality". I do not possess the knowledge to say whether there is or isn't a moral code to reality. Whether there is or is such a code is logically unknowable through any known means; if the creator (in the event that they exist) descended down and told us the code, we still could not be 100 % certain that they were the creator and/or if they were speaking the truth. Perhaps some currently ineffible proof could be given to us, but since this proof is currently ineffible, it is by definition outside of logic. Thus, logically, there is no way for us to know if there is an intrinsic right and wrong to reality.

Furthermore, what would such an intrinisic morality even mean? Would intrinisic morality entail that it is the rules of the creator? Well, why do the rules of the creator constitute the intrinsic, true morality of reality? One could say that of course it does, but is this really an a priori truth? No it is not. Why? Because morality, and right and wrong, are terms not rigorously defined to that point. In fact, morality is very unrigorously defined. Now, here's an argument that could be made for the rules of the cre

So, I’ve struggled with church authorities who speak in absolutes. I find President Nelson does this a lot compared to our past two Presidents and it doesn’t settle well for me.

At the start of conference he talked about 3 things to look for…

1. Pure truth

He then said that the messages we would hear at conference are “pure truth”.

Edit: added quote…

“Contrary to the doubts of some, there really is such a thing as right and wrong. There really is absolute truth — eternal truth,” said Nelson, speaking from inside a mostly empty conference center in Salt Lake City. “One of the plagues of our day is that too few people know where to turn for truth. I can assure you that what you will hear today and tomorrow constitutes pure truth.”

If the speakers were Infallible that might be the case. But they are fallible. And I could produce a very large document of things said in conference over the years that were anything but “pure truth”.

I’m finding myself feeling more and more agitated with absolutism compared to relativism.I do like the other two points he made:

2. Pure doctrine of Christ
3. Pure revelation

These seem to be more personal. And about the only absolute thing I tend to believe for myself is the doctrine of the atonement and gods love for us and the need for us to love.

How have you found peace with absolutism vs relativism within the church?

What has been helpful for you?

For me Fowler’s stages of faith has helped me understand what Im feeling and where I am at on various subjects… but ultimately I feel like the current church leaders (especially the first presidency and some senior apostles) dont allow room for relativism…. At all.

"It is a commonplace that the truth-value of an utterance can depend on the context in which it is uttered. If you say “I’m happy” and I say the same sentence, your utterance may be true and mine false. In such cases, the context of utterance plays a role in determining which proposition the sentence expresses. This can happen even when the sentence does not contain an overtly indexical expression. Thus Harman and Dreier hold that a statement of the form “A is wrong” is roughly equivalent to “A is wrong according to the moral system I accept”. So two utterances of (say) “Torture is wrong” can differ in truth-value if they are uttered by speakers who accept very different moral systems. Contextualists about (for instance) moral, aesthetic and epistemic discourse will view moral, aesthetic and epistemic expressions likewise as indexical expressions but (as we’ll see) with some difficulty explaining apparent genuine disagreement in these areas of discourse. On this point, New Relativists claim an important advantage over contextualists. New relativism, by contrast with contextualism, aims to achieve this advantage via a much less familiar form of context dependence." - SEP entry on New Relativism

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding the difference between the two, as they both appear to make use of context dependence, yet I am unsure of what it means by "a much less familiar form of context dependence, In regards to the New Relativist.

I would also be interested to know, how each party would tackle the is/ought problem? If you can shed some light on that too, I'd be extremely grateful.

Cultural Relativism in Anthropology: a Method

From Thomas Hylland Eriksen's Small Places, Large Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology:

>Cultural relativism is an indispensable and unquestionable theoretical premiss and methodological rule-of-thumb in our [anthropologists'] attempts to understand alien societies in as unprejudiced a way as possible. As an ethical principle, however, it is probably impossible in practice, since it seems to indicate that everything is as good as everything else, provided it makes sense in a particular society. It may ultimately lead to nihilism. For this reason, it may be timely to stress that many anthropologists are impeccable cultural relativists in their daily work, while they have definite, frequently dogmatic notions about right and wrong in their private lives. [...]
>
>Cultural relativism cannot, when all is said and done, be posited simply as the opposite of ethnocentrism, the simple reason being that it does not in itself contain a moral principle. The principle of cultural relativism in anthropology is a methodological one — it helps us investigate and compare societies without relating them to an intellectually irrelevant moral scale; but this does not logically imply that there is no difference between right and wrong. (pp-7-8)

The Tension Between Normative Morality and Descriptive Morality

(This is an excerpt from my post The Polysemy of the Word “Morality”)

The Latin word "mos" (genitive "moris") translates as "mores", "customs", "manners", "morals". This etymology, however, is useless because the history and the popular usage of the words "morality" and "moral" is far too convoluted. If we want to begin to understand the thorny complexities of this word, we must start with a philosophical dictionary.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy distinguishes between "two distinct broad senses" of the word "morality": descriptive and normative.

>...the term “morality” can be used either descriptively to refer to certain codes of conduct put forward by a society or a group (such as a religion), or accepted by an individual for their own behavior or normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by **

First off, as I understand it 'Cultural Relativism' first and foremost refers to a perspective used by anthropologists as a tool to better understand different (to the anthropologist) cultures. It kind of makes sense to me in that regard: Better don't judge the actions of a group of people belonging to a culture you don't really understand according to your own moral standards, because that will make it harder for you to understand what is going on. I can understand that point of view and it's usefulness to a person trying to analyze and gather knowledge about a different culture.

Yet some people are also willing to extend that concept as a day to day moral philosophy in regards to normative ethics. I.E non-anthropologists using 'Cultural Relativism' to elevate cultural/traditional behaviours as above criticism from a, so called, 'outsiders' perspective. I gladly acknowledge that I dont't know how prevelant this is in the academical philosophical community. My question is this:

How could such a person NOT become an absolute moral relativist with regards to normative ethics?

What I mean by that is, why stop at culture as a category of meaningful difference or as the subject that holds legitimats moral values? All that relativism seems to imply is that morality is relative to the individuals upbringing. Yet it seems to me that there are also differences in ethics within the 'same' culture. (Or would that denote a different culture/subculture?)

In essence, how could a Cultural Relativist reasonably make any judgement in regards to other indiviuals morals other than themselves? After all, it could be the case that the other person just has a different, and therefore equally valid, perspective due to their upbringing.

My last long-winded rant on this subreddit got a few upvotes, so I've been emboldened. Here's another one, that might be a bit more controversial than "Vanguardism is not perfect."

Part One: US Hegemony is Bad

As an anarchist, you should believe that all states are bad. This is basically the common usage definition of anarchism; most people think anarchism is just anti-statism, and they aren't strictly wrong. Of course we are anti-hierarchy and oppression in general as well as anti-state, but if you ask an average person on the street, an anarchist opposes the state.

But there is a distressing tendency among anarchists to be relativistic, to see all states as equally bad. Opposition to the US is given, as in this sub many of us are Americans so that's the government we interact with the most, but it's not particularly emphasized over opposition to any other state, so I've been disappointed to see anarchists in this subreddit argue for US intervention against China on behalf of the Taiwanese state, and continued US occupation of Afghanistan in the name of "harm reduction". Because obviously the Taliban are bad, and China is probably also bad, so we shouldn't go to bat for these countries the way tankies out of some vague campist dogma. The Cold War is over, after all.

But...US Hegemony is really bad. US Hegemony is bad for humanity, it's bad for the environment, it's bad for Americans even. It's Nazi victory in World War II levels of bad. US is the primary perpetrator of war crimes in the 21st century, but no international body exists that can hold the US accountable, because the US is the global hegemon. No deal on Climate Change could happen without the US, which will veto anything that is not favorable to its business interests. The more powerful the US becomes, the worse things are for everyone.

Thus, an end to US Hegemony is absolutely critical to human liberation. This means, in the short term, increasing the power of other states who are themselves not great. All states are bad, obviously, but Russia and China gaining control of their regional affairs undermines US Hegemony. There is little risk of Russia or China becoming the global hegemon, so the end result of their foreign policy being successful is a world that is less dominated by the US.

**This does not mean Russia or China are good. This does not mean we have to support these states or any st

I feel like cultural relativism is bad, because many cultures view gay rights negatively. Yet it seems a bit taboo to criticize this, with the focus being on "people need to accept it themselves, even if it takes 100 years". To me this is absolutely insane and cruel.

Any thoughts?

Could you say slavery is wrong in all circumstances on moral relativism?

Note: I posted this in r/Mormon but don’t feel like I will get advice about staying in the faith… which is what I want. Hopefully I can find more ideas and advice here.

——

So, I’ve struggled with church authorities who speak in absolutes. I find President Nelson does this a lot compared to our past two Presidents and I truly struggle with it. I do know others love the boldness.

At the start of conference he talked about 3 things to look for…

1. Pure truth

He then said that the messages we would hear at conference are “pure truth”.

Here’s the quote:

“Contrary to the doubts of some, there really is such a thing as right and wrong. There really is absolute truth — eternal truth,” said Nelson, speaking from inside a mostly empty conference center in Salt Lake City. “One of the plagues of our day is that too few people know where to turn for truth. I can assure you that what you will hear today and tomorrow constitutes pure truth.”

If the speakers were Infallible that might be the case. But they are fallible. And I could produce a very large document of things said in conference over the years that were anything but “pure truth”.

I’m finding myself feeling more and more agitated with absolutism compared to relativism. I do like the other two points he made:

2. Pure doctrine of Christ
3. Pure revelation

These seem to be more personal. And about the only absolute thing I tend to believe for myself is the doctrine of the atonement and gods love for us and the need for us to love.

How have you found peace with absolutism vs relativism within the church?

What has been helpful for you?

For me Fowler’s stages of faith has helped me understand what Im feeling and where I am at on various subjects… but ultimately I feel like the current church leaders (especially the first presidency and some senior apostles) dont allow room for relativism…. At all.