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From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Hitler and Moral Relativism
Message-ID: <5178@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 20-Apr-85 23:02:41 EST
Article-I.D.: cbscc.5178
Posted: Sat Apr 20 23:02:41 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Apr-85 06:23:37 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories <SCCS>, Columbus
Lines: 119


Byron Howes:
}I'll answer your statements with a question adapted from one originally
}posed by Tim Maroney:  Why do we consider it immoral for Hitler to have
}attempted genocide against the Jews while we seem to consider it moral
}for the Israelites to have attempted genocide against the Midianites.  I
}submit that the morality of a particular act depends upon whether you
}are the actor or the one acted upon (or allies thereof.)  If moral precepts
}were applied consistantly throughout history by those who assert an
}"absolute morality" I could be persuaded that such a thing exists.  I do
}not find such evidence, hence moral relativism.

One question you're avoiding, Byron, is whether or not Hitler's actions,
were moral.  Do you think they were, while they were actually going on?
Do you agree that to consider them moral after the fact (as in Muffy's
hypothetical situation) does not make sense?  If so, then the contention
stands that moral relativism makes no binding judgement against a Hitler
in any society.  

You say the morality of an act depends on who is doing it.  What about the
*reasons* for doing each?  Moral absolutes imply a common standard
by which to judge each act.  What common standard would you propose for
considering whether each of these acts is moral or not?  Do you pass
judgement on either of them?  How do you answer your own question?  If
you think both acts are immoral, what is the basis for that view, and
what gives your view any real meaning?

If you think the two acts are inconsistent you must be judging them
so by a common standard.  Does it make sense for a moral relativist
to do that?  If we adopt the position that you propose, by what standard
are the two acts inconsistent?  Is it always wrong to kill anyone for
any reason?  Then you have an absolute and not a relativistic standard.
Is the position inconsistent by the standard of Ancient Israel?  In
that time God destroyed peoples for the sin that pervaded their society.
That standard was the same both for the peoples surrounding Israel
and Israel herself.  Scripture records countless judgments against
Israel for their sin and yet they did not consider these judgements
against them to be unjust.  It seems consistent to me.  To Israel,
their moral standard did not depend on whether it faulted them or others.
The judgements against Israel, recorded in their own Scriptures, are
far more numerous and severe than any inflicted on other peoples.  Yet
in those same Scriptures, God's judgements are many times extolled as being
righteous.  How do your statements explain that?

You may reject Israel's standard, but it is not true that that standard
was different for Israel than others.  They recognized that.  Do you think
that there is no one who would view his punishment by his own moral standard
as being just?  You need to use some standard of judgement that encompasses
more than just your own actions in order to even consider the question.  If
you use Israel's standard, then what sin (based on that standard) can be laid
to the charge of the Jews so as to be able to justify Hitler's holocaust as the
judgement of God, as was the case with the Midianites?  (If you accomplish
that, then you could show that Hitler's persecution of the Jews may fall into
the same category as when God used foreign nations to punish Ancient Israel;
so they might be wrong [by their own standard] to hate what Hitler did to
them.) If you use Hitler's point of view, of course you couldn't find fault
with anything he wanted to do.  (You would die for it, if you weren't able or
justified [by whose morality?] in killing him first.) If you use your own
standard, then you are using it to judge actions in another moral context
(Hitler's Germany) and presuming them to transcend that context; your moral
standard ceases to be relative (at least with regard to Hitler).

}I'm glad that the founders of our country declared life, liberty and the
}pursuit of happiness to be "inalienable rights."  It makes life considerably
}more pleasant here than it would be elsewhere.  I note in passing that
}imprisonment, death penalties, legislated inqualities on the basis of sex,
}immigration restrictions etc etc suggest that our "inalienable rights" are
}quite abridgeable if the culture demands.  (This is not a statement of
}approval or disapproval of death penalties or imprisonment.  It is merely
}the observation although "inalienable" means not abridgeable, such rights
}may be taken away anyway.)

You are glad that we consider certain rights inalienable because it makes
your life pleasant.  Is that a reason why they should be considered as
such?  If not, can you give a reason?  Members of the KKK and certain Neo-Nazi
groups apparently don't think the inalienable rights we accord to certain
groups make life pleasant.  Wouldn't you have to see things from their
point of view?  If it turns out that we shouldn't consider these rights
inalienable where do we stand?  What gives us any right to draw the line
of the KKK and the Nazis in *this* society?

Charley Wingate's remark about moral relativists not taking moral relativism
seriously seems to be generally true.  (There are those who have, I suppose.
Sartre, Camus, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche come to mind.)  In order to get
along it seems we must consider some moral values as being absolute.  But
is seems to me that the moral relativist can give no binding reason for
doing so.

You seem to be implying that absolute moral standards must not be absolute if
they don't, in themselves, prevent people from actually transgressing them
and, though they are recognized, if they are not always lived up to they
cease to be absolute.  Is this necessarily so?  I don't see why.  Any moral
standard implies a sense of what *ought* to be, not necessarily what *is*.
If this were not the case how would we be aware of morals as such and when
they are transgressed?  You seem to be saying that the lack of observable
"evolution" in moral standards toward a system that recognizes moral absolutes
makes a case against the existence of absolutes.  How is this so?

In another article you seemed to imply that American chattel slavery became
wrong when it became unprofitable.  Wasn't there some moral reproach
involved at the time?  I have a hard time figuring out why the Civil War
was fought if only to convince the South that slavery was unprofitable to them.
One has only to read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" to get a feel for the moral currents
that contributed strongly to the anti-slavery movement.  The main thrust
of that book was that slaves were as much human as their masters, so they
should be treated according to the same moral standard (their "inalienable
rights" were not being honored).  When the northern states passed laws like
the Fugitive Slave Act, northerners could no longer pass off slavery as a
sin of the South.  Their own laws were supporting the system.  Many of them
felt guilty by their own moral standard and, rather than change the standard,
they did something about it.

Your main point seems to be that you find no evidence that those who hold
to certain moral absolutes also recognize when their own actions fall short
of that standard as well as when those of others do.  This is not true, I
think (except if you look among those who are already moral relativists).
-- 

Paul Dubuc 	cbscc!pmd