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From: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Hitler and Moral Relativism
Message-ID: <504@mcnc.mcnc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Apr-85 00:19:00 EST
Article-I.D.: mcnc.504
Posted: Wed Apr 24 00:19:00 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Apr-85 03:18:39 EST
References: <5178@cbscc.UUCP>
Reply-To: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Organization: North Carolina Educational Computing Service
Lines: 122
Summary: 

In article <5178@cbscc.UUCP> pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) writes:
 
>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.  
 
I wasn't aware that I was avoiding the question.  For the record, I believe
Adolph Hitler's actions and policies to be anything but moral.  I qualify
that by saying my judgement of what is moral and immoral is done on the
basis of cultural precepts I have internalized from living 40+ years in this
society.  Without that (or some other) cultural envelope there is simply
no basis for judgement.

Culture provides the filter through which history is viewed.  As
culture changes, so perceptions of the "morality" or "immorality" of an
act changes.  Consider the Hiroshima nuclear attack.  In its time it
was considered a moral act.  Today, among many in the U.S.,  there is
considerable doubt as to its morality.  (Among Japanese, there is little
doubt as to its immorality.)  I submit there are no binding judgements as
to any event, ever.  As culture changes the definition of morality changes.

At the risk of getting into a Rich Rosen-like argument I am not weighing the
comparative virtues of "absolute" vs. "relative" morality.  I am simply
saying the former does not exists despite protestations to the contrary.
This is demonstrated by inconsistencies in the way similar historical events
are viewed within the same moral framework.

>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've been following my argument you know that I cannot propose a 
standard for evaluation that is binding for all across time.  I simply
took, for example, two cases of attempted genocide and asked why is one
of them considered moral and the other immoral?  What *I* think is
irrelevant.  I am asking *you* to show *me* the common standard.  You
are the absolutist, remember, I am the relativist.
 
>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?

Paul, you are making the general mistake of believing that moral relativists
have no morality.  I'll guarantee you I have a set of principles that I hold
absolutely as firmly as do you.  If you have been following this discussion
you know that as well.

The difference would seem to be that I do not believe my standards apply to
everyone, of every species, at every place and every time.  I do not believe
my standards to be Gd-given, but derived from my culture and my experience.
In another place and time they might well be different (but held absolutely
as firmly.)  

We abridge rights regularly in this society.  The culture provides rules
under which such sanctions can be invoked.  These rules aren't always clear
and are often in flux, but they are there.  The rights you speak of aren't
considered inalienable, even though the boilerplate says they are.  The 
notions of whether they should or shouldn't be are up for debate.  That I
may be able to see things from the Nazi or the KKK point of view does not
mean I am compelled to agree with those points of view.  Moral relativism
does *not* mean amorality.  How many times do I have to repeat this?

>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?

No.  I agree with you that a moral standard, relative or absolute, describes
what ought to be within a given domain.  The inconsistancies in the way
various historical events are viewed indicate, to me, that there are not
absolute principles of morality (please name some that are demonstrable!)
This does not deny the possibility of moral judgement within some more
restricted domain.

>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.

I hate to disillusion you, but the Civil War was fought over taxation, not
slavery.  Slavery proved to be a good call to arms for northerners but to
be truthful it had begun to die of its own weight well before the Civil War.
This is more properly discussed in net.politics.

>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).

Not at all.  I simply see no evidence for an absolute morality, but rather
I see the belief in an absolute morality allows people to believe the world
will not shortly become unhinged.
-- 

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