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From: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Hitler and Moral Relativism
Message-ID: <453@mcnc.mcnc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 4-Apr-85 23:58:32 EST
Article-I.D.: mcnc.453
Posted: Thu Apr  4 23:58:32 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Apr-85 03:15:59 EST
References: <2580@ihuxf.UUCP> <1345@aecom.UUCP> <487@lll-crg.ARPA> <789@bunker.UUCP>
Reply-To: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Distribution: net
Organization: North Carolina Educational Computing Service
Lines: 51
Summary: 

In article <789@bunker.UUCP> garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson) writes:
>> In article <1345@aecom.UUCP> teitz@aecom.UUCP (Eliyahu Teitz) writes:

>Occasionally, someone (usually not a religious person, but there are
>exceptions) will make the claim that there is no such thing as an
>absolute morality (I use the term "moral relativist" to refer to one
>who so believes).  Then, someone else (usually a religious person,
>but again there are exceptions) will say that the lack of an absolute
>morality would mean there is no rational reason to condemn what
>Hitler did.  The moral relativist will usually disagree with this
>conclusion.  Now, will all the moral relativists explain why Muffy's
>conclusion is incorrect, or admit that moral relativism allows Nazism
>to be considered moral?

I'll bite.  From the relativist position both morality and rationality
are culturally defined.  In this culture Hitler's actions must be con-
sidered both irrational and immoral.  Muffy, however, hypothesized a
world populated by Nazis as the dominant and only culture.  Under those
conditions *and* *only* *under* *those* *conditions* could Hitler's
acts be rationally considered moral.  The twist which puts the double
bind in the above paragraph is that it implies that moral relativism
allows Hitler's acts to be rationally considered moral in *this* 
society.  It does not.  It merely says that social norms determine
what is moral.  The principle applies as well to the social reality
surrounding *this* argument.

>And if moral relativism, consistently followed, would consider Nazism
>to be moral, if only Hitler had won the war, then I submit that
>moral relativism is a dangerous philosophy.

It's less a philosophy than a way of thinking.  In less melodramatic
situations it is often quite useful.  Would you serve pork to Orthodox
Jews?  Why not?  Would you smoke in a non-smoking restaurant?  (Maybe
you don't smoke, but you get the idea.)  Impoliteness is a kind of
low-grade immorality that most people tolerate but don't accept.
Actions which are wrong in some places are not wrong in others.  It
is only when we consider those actions which are strongly culturally
proscribed, or when individually learned values are strongly at odds
with societal norms, whether hypothesized or not, that we begin to think
in terms of absolute morality.
 
>(Of course, unless all the moral relativists on the net denounce Muffy,
>immediately if not sooner, then the moral absolutists will justly
>conclude that they in fact agree with Muffy's reasoning, and by
>extension condone Hitler's actions.)
 
I haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about. :-)
-- 

						Byron C. Howes
				      ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch