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From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Hitler and Moral Relativism
Message-ID: <5119@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Apr-85 10:21:37 EST
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Posted: Tue Apr  9 10:21:37 1985
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(Gary Samuelson:)
}>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?
}
(Byron Howes:)
}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.

Muffy's hypothesis makes no sense to me.  One only arrives at her
hypothetical culture by killing off those who disagree with Nazism.
So, while the killing is being done, are Hitler's actions moral or
immoral?  If they were moral, how would you explain it to the Jews?
It seems like Muffy is saying that Hitler's extermination of the Jews
and other dissenters would have to be considered moral after the fact
and only after the fact, which makes no sense.  When there are dissenters
it is morally wrong to kill them (because the culture does not consist
of all Nazis).  Once the Nazis kill all the dissenters then it becomes
morally right to kill dissenters, but then there are none to kill anyway,
so what is the point?  Once that point is reached, one might just as
well to say that is moral to kill unicorns native to downtown Boston.
The object or victim or the supposed moral or immoral action doesn't
exist (anymore), so what is this the point?

}>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.

We tend more often to think in terms of absolute morality when considering
human rights without which your less melodramatic situations couldn't even
be considered.  (In a predominantly Nazi society there wouldn't be any Orthodox
Jews to feed pork to, would there?  And if Hitler smoked, there probably
would be no such thing as non-smoking restaruants.)  The founders of
our country and framers of our Constitution considered life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness to be among these "inalienable" rights.  What
place do inalienable rights have in moral relativism?  I agree with Gary
that it is indeed a dangerous philosophy (or "way of thinking" or whatever).
-- 

Paul Dubuc 	cbscc!pmd