Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ratex.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxj!houxm!ihnp4!ratex!mck
From: mck@ratex.UUCP (Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Relativism does not imply Nihilism -- Reply to Huybensz
Message-ID: <790@ratex.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Jan-85 16:00:09 EST
Article-I.D.: ratex.790
Posted: Fri Jan 25 16:00:09 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Jan-85 07:19:17 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Terran Mystery Poodles
Lines: 61


Mr Huybensz:

     Let me quote from *Dictionary of Philosophy* 1st ed (the 2nd ed has
recently become available, but I don't have it) editted by Dagobert D Runes
(if anybody out there is feeling sorry for himself, he should just be
thankful that his name isn't 'Dagobert'):

          Absolutism: the opposite of Relativist.
            [...]
            3. Axiology: the view that standards of value (moral or
               asthetic) are absolute, objective, superhuman, eternal.

Now, please note, the term 'god-given' (which you used) does not appear; it
is not intrinsic to the definition (I am an Absolutist and an Atheist).
Nor is the word 'simple' (which you of course did not use) used; it too is
not intrinsic to the definition.
     Absolutism holds that ethical rules can be derived from objective
reality according to objective process; rational Absolutism holds that
such process must be logical.
     Now, the various elements of your paradigm may not be an accurate
representation of objective reality, but they themselves possess objective
existence (just as a book may contain falsehood yet nevertheless exist).
And you can deal logically with these elements; in other words, there is
an objective, logical standard of how to deal with imperfect information.
     If your definition of 'Relativism' is that it is the doctrine that
different people should act differently in different situations, then it
is trivially true; it is also, thus, not the opposite of rational
Absolutism, which holds that while different people perhaps should act
differently in different situations, their actions should merely be
different manifestations of the same rule.  To draw an analogy from
physics, most physicists (in fact, all that I'm aware of) posit
conservation of momentum as an absolute; this does not mean that they hold
all objects to have the same mass, or the same velocity, or the same
momentum.
     To reject Absolutism (in other words, to be a Relativist such that
Relativism is the opposite of Absolutism) you must deny either that your
system exists except to itself (like a book which only exists as a fiction
in its own pages) or that your system is subject to an objective process
like logic.  A system which exists only to itself is quite literally
unfounded (I won't explore the other problems here); a conclusion which
could not be reached logically is quite literally senseless.  You are left
with Ethical Nihilism.

     Incidently, I take Nihilism quite seriously.  I think that I know of a
way to refute Ethical Nihilism, but only if we reject Metaphysical
Nihilism; I haven't the damnedest idea how to refute Metaphysical Nihilism.
     And, unfortunately, when you tried to correct misimpressions about
Nihilism, you contributed to misimpressions about Social Darwinism.  If you
get a chance to read the original writings of the genuine Social
Darwinists (like Herbert Spencer, its English originator, or William Graham
Sumner, its primary American exponent), you'll discover that they've been
thoroughly libelled and slandered.  One day in an anthropology course that
I took, the professor (who had never read Spencer) started the usual cant;
I challenged him on the point.  When another member of the department (who
had read Spencer) heard about the incident, she used her next class period
to give a summary of what Spencer actually advocated.
     But enough of petty victories.

                                        Absolutely,
                                        Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan