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newjon
Stranger
Registered: 02/12/05
Posts: 120
Last seen: 18 years, 9 months
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Re: Moral relativism [Re: Phluck]
#4166671 - 05/12/05 02:09 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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it's a large generalisation, but what i do agree with is that many people here in the UK (and i'd guess but can't say for sure, Europe, the USA and Canada) are too "protected" from peoples' problems in other parts of the world. Our culture is becoming so much more about the self, at the expense of all others. Now, i'm not gonna be stupid and say we should all only care about other people. In fact, i think that can be just as detrimental. You need to give yourself some attention. Because only you know your mind the best out of everyone in the world. But the way we are headed, albeit more slowly than might seem at times (after all, the media are sensationalist by definition and therefore pick the extremes rather than the norms, when it comes to stories) we cannot head indefinitely. Something will give, if not enough of us notice in time.
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Doom
Rogue
Registered: 11/23/04
Posts: 365
Loc: ghost-train city
Last seen: 17 years, 9 months
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Re: Moral relativism [Re: newjon]
#4166902 - 05/12/05 02:52 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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That is a large generalisation. N.America and Europe are very diverse places with many seperate sub and ethnic cultures, so your analysis would prove to be quite incorrect if the myriad communities were considered. Who are you contrasting against? do you think Indians give a fuck about you? nope, they are just trying to get paid so that they can live in a nice house.
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Phluck
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 04/10/99
Posts: 11,394
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 5 months, 3 days
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Re: Moral relativism [Re: Doom]
#4167287 - 05/12/05 04:20 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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Exactly, we may not spend as much time thinking about others as we should or could, but there's no reason to say that we are worse than other cultures are about this.
-------------------- "I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson http://phluck.is-after.us
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Divided_Sky
Ten ThousandThings
Registered: 11/02/03
Posts: 3,171
Loc: The Shining Void
Last seen: 15 years, 9 months
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Re: Moral relativism [Re: Phluck]
#4169348 - 05/13/05 01:22 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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To me moral relativism is on par with people who refuse to believe in science. It is the denial of correspondance between actions and effects. Certain 'moral' actions make ourselves and others happier and 'immoral' actions do the opposite. It's a pretty universal constant. We are all human beings and we all function 99.9% the same wanting all the same things, happiness, acceptance, security and peace. Anyone that thinks that hurting themselves or others is going to make them happy is either very ignorant or deluded. Denying the correspondence between personal actions and effects is nieve.
-------------------- 1. "After an hour I wasn't feeling anything so I decided to take another..." 2. "We were feeling pretty good so we decided to smoke a few bowls..." 3. "I had to be real quiet because my parents were asleep upstairs..."
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sbenton
Very Stranger
Registered: 05/11/05
Posts: 6
Last seen: 18 years, 6 months
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I agree that moral relativism is often the mark of a spoiled child. The argument that right and wrong is relative to each person and that there is no absolute right or wrong is more often than not invoked by people to justify beliefs they haven't properly questioned. I also agree that most people need to be directly impacted by things like poverty and famine before they care about them. But to wish for war is immoral, and pointless considering how innevitable war has been all throughout human history. What we are witnessing in the developing world is the evolution of warfare away from violent killing and towards cultural and economic warfare.
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Silversoul
Rhizome
Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Quote:
Divided_Sky said: To me moral relativism is on par with people who refuse to believe in science. It is the denial of correspondance between actions and effects. Certain 'moral' actions make ourselves and others happier and 'immoral' actions do the opposite. It's a pretty universal constant. We are all human beings and we all function 99.9% the same wanting all the same things, happiness, acceptance, security and peace. Anyone that thinks that hurting themselves or others is going to make them happy is either very ignorant or deluded. Denying the correspondence between personal actions and effects is nieve.
You're assuming an inherent connection between morality and happiness. I disagree. Sometimes pain is good for us, and we need to feel it. It certainly shouldn't suffered unnecesarily, but to deny that it is sometimes necessary to hurt others for their own good and the good of others is, in my opinion, rather ignorant.
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sbenton
Very Stranger
Registered: 05/11/05
Posts: 6
Last seen: 18 years, 6 months
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Re: Moral relativism [Re: Silversoul]
#4171826 - 05/13/05 04:51 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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Divided_Sky said: To me moral relativism is on par with people who refuse to believe in science. It is the denial of correspondance between actions and effects. Certain 'moral' actions make ourselves and others happier and 'immoral' actions do the opposite. It's a pretty universal constant. We are all human beings and we all function 99.9% the same wanting all the same things, happiness, acceptance, security and peace. Anyone that thinks that hurting themselves or others is going to make them happy is either very ignorant or deluded. Denying the correspondence between personal actions and effects is nieve.
Aside from agreeing with Paradigm about not defining morality too narrowly as the pursuit of happiness, moral relativism doesn't deny cause and effect. All it says is that what brings one person happiness, or neccessary suffering, or whatever it is that that person is striving for, is relative to their reality. If it makes me happy to kill Jews there is a cause and effect relationship there. If I kill a Jew it makes me happy. Moral relativism says that to me killing Jews is right and there is no absolute right or wrong with which I can be judged. What separtes moral relativism from science is that science is based on physical reality which is absolute and where the same laws of cause and effect apply to all matter. I accept the truth that morality is relative I just hate it because it's a cop-out for people to believe anything and do whatever they want no matter how wrong it is to me.
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