Truth isn't decided by majority opinion or what "most" ethicists think. You agreed to this earlier when you said:This is the third of a series of posts on moral relativism. These talks are based on some talks I have given on the subject in the last few months. In the first post, I looked at what the basic issues are. The second post examines some of the reasons people offer for accepting relativism. This last post looks at some problems with relativism.Today most ethicists whether Christian or non-Christian reject relativism.
Flannagan continues:Moreover, the fact there is a consensus of judgement on a particular issue does nothing to establish the judgement is correct, consensuses have been mistaken, the history of science shows lots of examples where the consensus belief was later shown to be incorrect. The issue isn’t whether everyone thinks something, its why they think it and whether it’s correct.
If my 7 year old daughter takes three months to stop disobeying me on the bedtime I impose on her on school nights, that is legitimate "moral progress" despite the fact that what time kids must go to bed is 100% subjective, relative and nowhere expressed or implied in nature or the bible or any other source you might deem a source for objective morals.Critics of relativism argue it faces several problems, which give us reason to reject it. I will focus on three.1. The Problem of Moral Progress and Moral Reform.Relativism is incompatible with moral progress or reform. While relativists can accept that the moral judgements of societies change they can't consistently claim these changes amount to progress.
If society at one time supports relativism-1slavery or racial segregation, and then later disapproves of these things. Relativists cannot say that society has thrown off an incorrect view and adopted a correct, one. Instead, it must say that it has gone from one correct view to another one.
No, the relativist would be more accurate to stop characterizing anybody's morals as 'correct' or 'incorrect'. Connecting morals to objectivity is like connecting "greasy" to "radio wave". It is a category error, and your obvious extreme fear of actually putting your money where your mouth is (i.e, your unwillingness to state a specific moral proposition and the reasons you think it is "objective") confirms that you fear, at least secretly, that moral objectivity constitutes a category error. You know perfectly well you are never going to demonstrate that any moral is objective, especially since I raked you over the coals after you set forth "don't torture babies to death solely for entertainment" as an example of an objective moral. I asked you what moral yardstick you used which told you that such act was always immoral for all people, and you skipped town. Apparently your argument is so weak, you cannot seriously set it forth unless your opponent agrees with you that it is true.
Again, it would promote accuracy and truth if moral relativists either stopped using "right", "wrong", "correct", "incorrect" to characterize their judgment of another's morals...unless they carefully qualify that their standard of truth for such matters is itself also relative and subject to possible revision.A related problem is that relativism suggests that moral reformers who spoke out against slavery and segregation were in fact in the wrong.
See above, i already showed the correctness and reasonableness of characterizing one's moving from disobedience toward a relative moral, to obedience to it, as legitimate moral progress. And no, you cannot dumb that down by saying the bible tells children to obey their parents, because even you would agree that this cannot be absolute or objective, since a parent may possibly demand that a child commit murder or some act you think is objectively wrong, and commit it "in the name of the Lord", in which case there would be an exception to "children obey your parents in the Lord", and in light of such exception, that particular biblical moral cannot be objective, but only subjective.They were opposing what society approved of and hence what was right for members of society.This problem also applies to subjectivism. If a member of the Ku Klux Klan holds racist judgements at one time and then later rejects these judgements as bigotry, The subjectivist can’t say he has moved from a mistaken to a correct. Instead, he has changed from one correct view to another. Individuals don’t grow in moral insight or develop more discernment.
What will you do now? Invoke Norman Geisler's "graded absolutism" wherein an absolute remains an absolute while being in some situations less important to obey than some other absolute (!?)
If so, behold: "thou shalt not wrangle words". Pretty difficult to see how you could mount anything remotely approaching a scholarly refutation of some position on morality, without disputing the meaning of words.
That's your first problem, because in saying "seems", you are appealing to our intuitive feelings, and you surely recognize that we can possibly be wrong even in our strongest intuitions.2.The possibility of ErrorThere is another problem with relativism. It seems plausible that we can be mistaken in our moral judgements.
Not if you are judging another moral viewpoint. Once again, "correct" and "incorrect" do not apply to morals. Only fools would ask "Is it correct to refrain from adultery?". Morals are value judgments that draw from several subjective bases, therefore, it promotes truth more if we reserve "correct" and "incorrect" for purely factual disagreements. Since you disagree that all morals come from subjective bases, please state the one specific moral proposition and your reasons for saying it is objectively true.I can make judgements about what is right and wrong which are incorrect,
In the sense that one believes oneself morally justified to do whatever they feel like doing. I cannot imagine how it could be anything else, except in the case of irrational people who allow themselves to get involved in things they personally believe are immoral, such as teenagers or drug addicts. But thankfully, the views of irrational people hardly qualify as anything that anybody need worry about.and whole societies can do this. Relativism, however, suggests mistakes like this are impossible. Subjectivism means that If I believe something is right, then I am right in doing it.
Because of the presupposition that there is no objective right, therefore, the only "right" to speak of would be necessarily relative. But yes, I agree with you that without careful definition of terms, the way many relativists talk is confusing and creates inconsistencies.Relativism means that if a society endorses a practice then its right for members of that society to do the practice.
The consequence is that mistakes about morality are impossible. For a person or a community to make a mistake, it has to be possible for the standards an individual or society accepts to be different from the standards which are correct.
No, see above. Nobody says it is a "mistake" to agree with the clocks in New Zealand which say it is "6 p.m." merely because at that particular instant, it is not "6 p.m." in China. Time is surely a relative thing, and therefore 6 p.m. in New Zealand is not a time that can be nailed down by any standard that is truly objective. Yet nobody says the relativity of the time exhibited by New Zealand clocks makes it a "mistake" to agree with the current time they exhibit. Again, the school night bedtime I impose on my daughter is not a reflection of any objective truth in nature or the bible or natural theology. Nobody "intuitively knows" what time kids must go to bed, so the actual time chosen by the parents is entirely subjective and relative. Yet it would be legitimate for me to characterize her rebellion against that admittedly subjective moral as "mistaken" (i.e., she says "I'm not going to bed!", and I reply "you are mistaken.").
Thank you for starting to put your money where your mouth is, despite the fact that you chose to start doing so only at the end of your third article on moral relativism.3. Relativism Implies that Obvious Moral Wrongs Are Acceptable
Perhaps the most important objection to relativism is that it implies that obvious moral wrongs are acceptable. If actions are right or wrong relative to an individual or societies standpoint, then anything at all can be justified. Genocide, rape, torture of children, racial intolerance, are all morally right for a person if he believes that they are or his society endorses them.
Now that you've identified rape as an "obvious" moral wrong (which Ii safely presume you take to signify an objective immorality), please identify the standard you are using, which declares that rape is immoral, and why you believe that standard's declarations about morality are objectively true.
And remember, "objective" means something is true for reasons apart from human opinion, belief or input:
Oxford Dictionary
Not dependent on the mind for existence;
So you need to demonstrate the objective immorality of rape without appeal to input on the subject from any human mind.
Just like if you think the existence of trees is objective, you should be able to demonstrate such without needing to gain the input of any other human being.
The weakness of the objectivist position shines through brightly with your appeals to human emotion. It is likely you can never do better to refute moral relativism, than prey upon the strong feelings of other people. As soon as you run into an opponent like me who requires that you do something more than blindly assume the immorality of an act, but that you actually demonstrate why it is objectively immoral, you can do nothing. Just like the last time I asked you for the moral yardstick that tells you torturing babies to death solely for entertainment is objectively immoral. You correctly feared that if you open that door, it will be immediately clear that your bases for this judgment are subjective, relative, and based on the strong feelings shared by most civilized adults...not exactly a proof of objectivity...since you earlier denounced using majority or consensus view to demonstrate an objective moral.Many find this implication hard to swallow if a serial killer thinks it's permissible to kill women, is it really plausible to suggest this fact alone means his actions are right or did the fact German society adopted Nazism in the 1930s mean that Germans did no wrong when they implemented these policies.
Once again, Dr. Flannagan, for what reasons do you suppose that torturing babies to death solely for entertainment, constitutes objectively immoral conduct, now that we know that you refuse to ground an objective moral in human consensus? And remember, if what you plan to show is an 'objective' thing, than you should be able to show it without appeal to what any human being has to say about it.ConclusionLet me now bring the threads of this talk to a close. I have explained what relativism and objectivism are. I noted some common reasons why people accept relativism and suggested these reasons fail. The appeal to diversity fails to make some important distinctions and appeals to tolerance, openness and so on are incoherent. I have also sketched several problems with relativism it entails moral reform is impossible moral error is impossible and that obvious moral wrongs are right. For reasons like this most philosophers, today reject moral relativism. While it's a challenge to the way, Christians think about ethics. I am not convinced it's a challenge which is very defensible.
Or was I correct to say that you cannot win this debate unless your opponent agrees that your viewpoint is true?
And you might wish to tread lightly in combating my challenge. I have written a long scholarly rebuttal to your book co-authored by Copan "Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God". If your theory of "dispossession only" be true, then the Canaanites, by giving up their land to the Hebrews, were subjecting their pagan children to slow death by starvation, exposure, thirst, abuse by other pagans, etc. So that if god commanded "dispossession only", then logically he was commanding for actions that were the functional equal of torturing children to death. See my post proving the point, here's a quote:
Apologist Glenn Miller says life in the ANE outside one’s established town or province was unbearably hostile and could not be sustained except by routinely stealing and raiding of others, with threats to the dispossessed of forced slavery and prostitution being ever-present. If he is correct, the Hebrews knew it too as they chased any fleeing pagan woman and children outside the promised land. http://christianthinktank.com/rbutcher1.htmlSo you must answer the terrible irony that the dispossession-only hypothesis, if true, made life more unspeakably unbearable for children than the "kill'em all" hypothesis you were seeking to refute. The point being that you can no longer appeal to child-torture as an objective immorality, unless of course you revise your hypothesis and try to convince others that child-torture is objectively good where God commands it (!?)
Now that's a nasty turn of events, eh?
Be careful what you pray for. The bible-god might have a few surprises in store for you.
Update, June 25, 2018;
In advertising my replies around the internet, I also advertised then on the following youtube channel
This channel is owned by "InspiringPhilosophy", it is located at this link, and he took an active side with James Patrick Holding when I sued Holding for defamation in 2015-2016. I therefore have good probable cause to believe that once InspiringPhilosophy recognizes that "Barry Jones" is the guy that sued Holding, InspiringPhilosophy will do what most Christian apologists do, and remove my posting. So I include the screen shot here. Now he'll have to decide: If he gets rid of a problem by removing the post, he looks like the frightened barking child he is. If he doesn't remove it, then he faces the daunting prospect of his friends asking him to post a rebuttal to my blog pieces, which answered Flannagan and did what InspiringPhilosophy wouldn't like, and showed that moral relativism is defensible while moral objectivism is total bullshit.
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