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From: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Hitler and Moral Relativism
Message-ID: <486@mcnc.mcnc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Apr-85 10:04:09 EST
Article-I.D.: mcnc.486
Posted: Tue Apr 16 10:04:09 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Apr-85 06:22:52 EST
References: <487@lll-crg.ARPA> <789@bunker.UUCP> <453@mcnc.mcnc.UUCP> <4651@umcp-cs.UUCP> <467@mcnc.mcnc.UUCP> <5472@utzoo.UUCP>
Reply-To: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Organization: North Carolina Educational Computing Service
Lines: 60
Summary: 

In article <5472@utzoo.UUCP> laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes:
>From Byron Howes:
>	I don't follow this either.  My point about white southerners
>	is simply that despite the fact that many (including myself)
>	consider racism and sexism to be inherently evil, there are
>	others who consider segregation and traditional sexual values
>	to be moral precepts, worth fighting for.  (Note the change in
>	words.)  These people are by all objective measures very moral
>	people -- following a set of values held strongly in this
>	country up till the last twenty years.  Those values are
>	gradually being swept away (or broken up, depending on your
>	point of view) This is a change in values, not a change in the
>	people who subscribe to them.  Is this progression to some
>	absolute morality?  Make a case for it.
>
>This is the great question.
>Since you believe that racism is inherantly evil is your problem one
>of ``why is it that these sincere people do not find the truth
>of this belief obvious'' or is it ``why do I cling to this notion
>of inherant evils even though there are none''? 

Neither.  I'm using "evil" here in a very subjective sense, much in
the same way I might use "ugly."  The analogy bears drawing further.
To me, the assertion of an absolute morality makes as little (or as
much) sense as the assertion of an absolute aesthetic.  That some
people do not see racism as ugly is testimony to their lack of
acculturation rather than ignorance, stupidity, or lack of morality.
The legislation of the past twenty years has had the effect of
acculturating people, not enlightening them.  Very few former
racists have "seen the light" so to speak, most have simply come to
accept changed values.

The fact that I believe racism to be inherently evil is irrelevant
to the discussion.  At a different time, in a different place, under
a different set of social conditions I might think differently.  I
don't know.  Here and now I see racism as denying society the produc-
tivity of large sectors of the population.  That's ugly.

>Whether we are progressing to a greater understanding of an
>absolutely existing morality is another question. It could be that we
>are getting less and less enlightened all the time. I tend to
>doubt that progress could be made in other areas (such as science) and
>not be made in the area of morals - given, of coruse, that an
>absolute morality exists.

I don't see why values have to be considered as progressing or regressing
from or toward some absolute.  I view cultural change as much like
biological evolution (No, I am not a sociobiologist.)  Certain cultural
traits or social structures increase stability and the ability of a
society to "survive" so to speak.  These will vary with the set of
conditions under which that society exists.  Such structures are passed
on as long as a they remain viable.  Dysfunctional traits wither and die.
A change in conditions, however, may make that which was once stabilizing
a destabilizing value -- the successful society must change.  Todays
"evils" may be yesterdays "goods" and vice-versa.

-- 

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