Today, a particularly insidious obstacle to the task of education is the massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism which, recognizing nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires. And under the semblance of freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own ego.
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Anonymous2007-03-16 7:52 ID:oapqn1Rx
>>40
Sometimes the pressure is so great it brings along some shit with it.
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Anonymous2007-03-16 8:04 ID:oapqn1Rx
>>33
Well if >>32 isn't actually going to tell me what exactly he thinks my beliefs are (he put words in my mouth, remember?) and tell me what his problem is with them, why exactly should I change my mind?
>>34
There are no conservatives here. Liberals believe in moral relativism because they are idiots as has been proven since it takes little thought to realise that some morals can be determinned logically from self-evident principles.
>>35
They say they are stupid for believing in god, yet they are also stupid for thinking all morals are relative.
>>36
Some morals are relative and some are universal. The golden rule is universal whilst the "having sex before marriage" moral is relative. For instance before modern medicine and 1st world economies when poverty was rife and women usually died during childbirth, being a single mother could be a death sentence and strict laws and social systems were enforced to make sure men looked after the women they impregnate. Nowadays this isn't much of an issue.
>>39
Even though >>26 might be a troll or a liberal apologetic, in his defense I think that was just a misunderstanding and he meant that there are both relative and universal morals. Generally how utilitarian a relative moral is depends on how it can be defined logically from universal morals. However sometimes situations are too complicated to define all actions rationally from universal morals and they must be defined empirically. This is where grey areas appear due to differring statistics.
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Anonymous2007-03-16 12:22 ID:jbD2220u
>>42
Because laughter echoes so well in the lavatory.
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Anonymous2007-03-16 12:45 ID:vNxo92ER
the only point of morals and moral tradition is to contain the people who don't dare or cannot think for themselves
so i guess its quite necessary for humanity
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Anonymous2007-03-16 14:36 ID:Vpm/HPwd
They say they are stupid for believing in god, yet they are also stupid for thinking all morals are relative.
I suppose it depends which "liberals" you're talking about. There are idiots on both sides, although bible-thumpers certainly are hard to resist poking fun at.
Besides, calling someone stupid isn't persecution. If it is, the whole human race is currently being persecuted.
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Anonymous2007-03-16 16:43 ID:qWLDABhe
>>45
your mom is frequently and thoroughly penetrated by my cock
I'm not saying it's not good, only that it's not universal.
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Anonymous2007-03-17 2:45 ID:GrvvrBku
>>47
Whether something is relative or universal doesn't depend on how many people know about it. The laws of physics apply everywhere all the time, just because we didn't know what they were 300 years ago it doesn't mean they were not applying.
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Anonymous2007-03-17 8:45 ID:OeKYX3Ei
The golden rule's effectiveness depends on the effort, information and intelligence on the part of the person utilising it. The golden rule's validity is not dependant on this.
You are right. There are however no laws in morals. If the golden rule was in fact a law, comparable to that of gravity, there would not be people who treat others in contradiction to how they want to be treated themselves. These people obviously exist. As a kid I once stole a candy bar. I do not want people to steal from me. I have now disproven the golden rule being a law that applies everywhere all the time.
By the golden rule I assume we all mean something similar to Kant's categorical imperative. I argue that this is relative to a desired outcome (possibly a society of equals), an thus a textbook example of morals being relative. For example: if I want to have more than everyone else it is not always in my interest to act as if my action could be made a universal law.
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Anonymous2007-03-17 13:08 ID:GrvvrBku
>>52
You missed the point. Let's say there is another planet with humans like earth orbitting another planet of similiar development. The people there have a completely different culture, except for those elements of culture needed to reac hthe same level of development as us. This culture has the same mathematics, except maybe they use hexadecimal system instead of a decimal system, regardless they have still discoverred pi and the golden ratio. Perhaps they don't think the golden ratio is particularly important apart from it's use in the fibonacci sequence, but they know of it nonetheless. This is because such things are universal laws and apply everywhere.
Extend this to philosophy, for the second time whether something is universal or not does not mean how many people know about it, we are looking at whether it is rationally determinned from self-evident principles or whether it is empirically drawn. As was explained in >>14, the golden rule is rationally determinng from self-evident.
Do you understand? Also it's obvious you know fuck all about Kant's categorical imperative. You are liberal. Yes?
What if there is a culture of huge brained aliens who telepathically know what comes after death and know it is a happy joyous place of fun and love and bunnies. Thus, these aliens view killing others as a good thing, because it is sending them to this place.
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Anonymous2007-03-17 14:49 ID:GrvvrBku
>>55
It still fits, it is just a difference of information.
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Anonymous2007-03-17 15:06 ID:BhtSu4HL
Wow, this is amazing! An intelligent discussion on 4Chan! I'm shocked, really
>>58
Well, if they're really smart, why do you think they're wasting their time going on a forum and talking about having sex with sheep, or posting the N-word 500 times? If they were actually smart people, don't you think they'd have something more productive to do with their time, like studying or crap like that?
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Anonymous2007-03-17 16:06 ID:WopPdseq
>>57 >>58
There was a time when 4chan was full of reasonably normal people who just enjoyed absurd humor and wanted to let loose in anonymity every now and then.
Unfortunately, now it's mostly a bunch of circle-jerking college nimrods working on Marketing degrees and swilling beer who think they're being cool and edgy by hanging out in /b/ and posting grotesque images and other people's clever wit.
Of course, what do I know? I'm a 78 year old man and music was a lot better when I was a kid too.
First of all I am not American so I don't belong to either of your "clans" or whatever you mean by liberal. Keep that shit out of here.
Your case for philosophy being universal is flawed. As I have already stated: in order for you to argue that a moral system is superior you need a point of reference: in achieving what goal is it superior? By defining this goal you also admit that your morals are relative to it. If I don't share your goal I won't agree to your morals.
Besides, I have already disproven your claim that the golden rule is universal. People steal, rape and murder every day. It is obvious that the golden rule does not apply to them. The laws of physics apply even if you don't know about them, true. I am still bound by gravity even I don't know what it is. However, If the same were true for the golden rule it would not be _possible_ for me to act in contradiction to it. But quite obviously it is. In my actions I am limited by the laws of physics. I am not limited by your morals.
Again: the golden rule is not an example of universal morals. If it were everyone would have to abide by it. Do _you_ understand?
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Ton Phanan2007-03-18 6:16 ID:7IBX+m/P
The definitions of liberal vs. conservative have been so bent under the weight of political sniping and ego stroking in America that few people care what it actually means, they are merely buzzwords to be broadly labeled to those who follow a different thought process.
Stating that liberals are unintelligent is inherently inept, because one is drawing the wrong conclusion from the data provided. You may be correct, but for the least correct reasons. Liberals are people who deny the status quo, thereby fostering ideas that may or may not work, and often act upon them. Many are younger and unwilling to accept that the world is not inherently fair and fail to realize that the status quo is in place for a reason, and experience in this area will moderate them. Others are older and maybe guilty or stubborn about their place in life and try to affect a change to allow others to get by as they have done, or attempt to force the world to think as they do to impart, in their minds, some sort of parity. None of this is 100%, maybe some of them do it because liberal stances tend to be more populist, who knows?
Morals cannot be defined like a formula or equation, even if their impacts can. Moral relativism should be, as all things, taken in moderation: Taken too far, one can justify anything, anytime, for any reason and without it, interpersonal conflicts would flare over the smallest difference of opinion and foster crippling intolerance.
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Anonymous2007-03-18 6:35 ID:cuvkFd5r
>>60
people whining about 4chan is the cancer that is killing 4chan
>>61
I was going to reply to you until I read this.
"People steal, rape and murder every day. It is obvious that the golden rule does not apply to them."
Strawman etc.. Why don't you go back and re-read my argument instead of trolling.
>>62
No one is doing the liberal vs conservative thing here. People are only criticising liberals because they tend to be moral relativists, possibly as some sort of reaction to conservative christians. So you see when I criticise liberals I am in fact also crticising the liberal vs conservative debaucle in the US.
That is not a strawman. You are claiming a universal fact, to disprove it all I need is a single exception. That's basic logic. As far as I'm concerned you're the one trolling.
You seem convinced that I am a "liberal", let me do some guessing of my own. Judging from your posts I would say that you are a religious moralist, possibly muslim but probably some sort of christian. You aren't as much a scholar as you are a traditionalist, relying chiefly on what you were taught as you grew up. With atheism and nihilism on the rise worldwide you know that you are part of a dying breed and feel frustrated that you can't do anything to help your cause. You scour the internets for messageboards on which to post your desperate pleas for the attention of the masses. You tell yourself that this is to convert people, to defend what’s right, but in fact it's little more than a way of staying sane – you need to prove to yourself that you are not wrong. You know that a thread dealing openly with religion would immediately draw heavy flak, so you venture into a realm you aren't too familiar with - that of logic and reason, hoping to engage the infidels in their own back yard. With thinly veiled religious fervor you go to battle, imagining yourself being the last bastion of everything right and decent in a giant cultural war against hordes of godless marxists, liberals and mexicans. But deep down you know that you are going to lose, that you will be overwhelmed by sheer numbers and that your kind is doomed to obscurity and extinction. You take solace in the knowledge that your heroic last stand will appease the higher powers and that after your death you will have life eternal in the next world (you won't).
As for the discussion itself, it is obvious that you would sooner resort to pejorative language and personal attacks than listen to reason. Should I choose to withdraw in the face of such childishness you would no doubt take the opportunity to declare victory. Thus, my only option is to stoop to your level and resort to those same tactics. And that, you should know, is not at all below me.
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Anonymous2007-03-18 12:56 ID:bu8T1a5L
>>67
This is what I meant when I said liberals were idiots. It seems you cannot understand the point of people's arguments so you just assume they meant something else and rant on about christians/rednecks. Strawman.
No. I never meant that the golden rule is universal because it is a law of physics. I said it is universal because it can be determinned rationally from self-evident principles like physics. If you cannot distinguish between the two you're an idiot or a troll. A failed troll at that since you've written far more than me.
If I cannot understand the point of your argument it is because it's obscured by your clumsy and inept writing. And since you even now seem to propagate that I am a "liberal" I take it that my previous post struck close to home.
Your claim that the golden rule is self-evident is bold at best and ridiculous at worst. It is obviously self-evident to you, just as my morals are self-evident to me. Howeever, the arrogance you display in claiming that your morals are somehow superior to everyone elses is stunning.
The principles from which you derive the golden rule, although you haven't shared them with me, could very well be self-evident. But I don't see how you could argue that the way you interpret them is, especially since you aren't by any stretch in majority. It seems that you are trying to patent "rational" and apply it exclusively to your way of reasoning. As I have already stated, whether a code of reciprocity is rational or not depends on what your goal is. If I desperately want to be the richest guy in town it simply isn't rational to be nice to other people when lying and scheming would benefit me a lot more.
The argument that the golden rule can be observed independently in different cultures is poor. Slavery, for example, can also be observed indepently all over the globe and 2000 years from now som other weird custom will be popular.
As for me writing more than you, I actually enjoy writing.