Re: Morality and ethics: a provocative post

[Justin Schwartz <jschwart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Materialism," the position from which Jerry wants derive relativism, is a
vague term. I gather, though, from what he says below that what he means
by materialism is that moral beliefs depend on social (more narrowly on
economic) circumstances. That nobody can deny. But relativism moves from
this nontrivial but somewhat unexciting (at this point) empirical claim to
the further very exciting but not very appealing claim that which moral
beliefs are correct is relative to the social-economic circumstances of
particular groups. This doesn't follow. More argument is needed.

One such argument goes like this: the group-relativity of moral beliefs
precludes agreement on basic ethical principles and specific judgments.
Lack of agreement is so pervasive that there is no non-circular
justification of onew group's moral position which an antagonistic groupo
will not regard as question begging. Moreover, there is no outside
position from which to adjudicate such conflicts. Relativism, then--the
position that choice between group moralities is arbitrary, is unavoidable.
A "correct" morality is only "correct for" some group.

I regard this as a serious argument and have devoted a good deal of time
to trryong to answer it, both in several papers and on this list. The
published answer is in Against the Current 42 (1993)--it's pretty short.
You can check the archives for my discussion here, mainly around the issue
of historical progress.

Jerry dsoesn't like relativism in other fields of inquiry--why in ethics?
The opposite of relativism I would term objectivism. The claim would be
that moral claims are true or false, correct or not, objectively, and
independently of group perspective.

Jerry mistakenly thinks that objectvity in ethics is inconsistent with
different actions being prescribed in different circumstances. It's only
inconsist with a view which identifies morality, implausibly, with a list
of prescriptions, e.g., Never lie. But obviously it is OK to lie to the
secret police. So that view of morality is wrong. One objective morality
which allows for this sort of case--not mine--is utilitarianism, which
says, maximize happiness, always ano no matter who you are. If lying to
the secret polkice does taht, lie. If lying to your spouse doesn't, don't.
ANy acceptable ethic will allow for this and some of them are objective in
the sense specified.

Jerry is appropriately modest about the content of the worker;s morality,
noting that the workers often don't accept what we think is right and we
may be wrong (both us and the workers) about what's right. That's OK, this
isn't a defining issue in the relativism-objectivism conflict. I agree
with Jerry. What's right is often hard to discern. E.g., our ongoing
debate about how to oppose Mumia's execution and wherther it's OK, and
when to kill cops or advocate or applaud their death. Objective doesn't
mean easy to determine. (Consider that whether Goldbach's conjecture is
true is objective--and still unknown.)

Jerry's willingness to accept that exploitation, even slavery, may be
right from the exploiters or slaveowners point of view illustrates why
relativism is not an attractive position. In my view, any position which
has this conclusion must be wrong. Exploitation and slavery are always
wrong, for anyone. Of course this requires argument, which I have not
provided. But that makes two of us.

--Justin Schwartz


On Wed, 7 Jun 1995 glevy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> On Tue, 6 Jun 1995, Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
> >
> > From the following it is evident that Jerry is an ethical relativist. Now
> > the question is, why? What's your reason for this position?
>
> As I suspected, it wouldn't take long for Justin to respond to my post.
> The short answer to the question above, is that I am a materialist.  By
> the way, what is the opposite of ethical relativism (you'll have to
> excuse me as this is not my field of expertise)?  We are, first and
> foremost, products of our own (capitalist) society.  Our morals and
> ethical values are therefore shaped (but not crudely determined) by our
> class, gender, nationality, religion and ideology.  Who can say what
> determines whether a particular set of moral or ethical values is
> superior to another set without reference to the particular social and
> historical standpoint of that individual?  I would say that all such
> values are relative to the social, historical, ideological, religious (or
> atheist) positions of individuals and groups.  If one isn't morally and
> ethically relativist, what (non-idealistic, non-religious) standard does
> one apply to ethical questions?
> >
> > 1. The fact that different acts or policies may be indicated in different
> > circumstances is no grounds for relativism--any moral positioon with a
> > hope of success will allow that, e.g., violence may be permissible in some
> > cases and not in others.
>
> I'll accept the above position, but note that it seems to preclude an
> "absolute" position on morality.  If you can convince me that some
> non-relativist theory of morality can be able to be developed without
> grounding that theory in religious or idealistic dogma, then I'll
> certainly listen carefully to your position.  Are you perhaps thinking of
> some humanist perspective?  I don't know that we can say what is
> appropriate moral and ethical conduct for human beings.  From an
> anthropological perspective, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that
> moral and ethical values vary from culture to culture and historically.
> Many human societies have had "taboos" of one kind or another (for
> example, against parent-child sex or murder).  I believe that one can
> also show that other cultures did not universally accept these taboos.
> Doesn't the dominant class in any society determine the dominant set of
> cultural, ethical and moral beliefs?
> >
> > 2. The mere fact that different groups differ on which ethical principles
> > are correct doesn't show they're both right from their own point of view.
> > Mere disagreement doesn't imply relativism.
>
> I didn't say that all ethical principles are "correct" but that they
> reflect -- and "are not crudely determined by" -- the social norms of a
> particular culture/class/religion/nationality, etc.  Nazism had its own
> set of moral and ethical values but that doesn't mean that those values
> were "right." (although those values were consistent with the social norms,
> class and ideology of fascism).
>
> > 3. Jerry is pretty strong on upholding what he takes to be the worker's
> > perspective. Why? What's so great about that perspective? Could it be that
> > he thinks it's the correct one? Or is it just the one he likes?
>
> Well ... depending on the period of time and place, there are many
> examples of where workers act in a manner inconsistent with their class
> interests.  So the "worker's perspective" is not always "so great"
> concerning moral and ethical values.  Isn't that a question of "false
> consciousness", though?  I'm not so sure I know what  the "correct" set
> of moral and ethical values is for workers or what perspective I "like."
> Do you?  I would add that an appropriate set of values and beliefs for
> workers under capitalism may be very different from the moral and ethical
> beliefs of workers under socialism.
>
> > 4. Will Jerry allow that exploitation, racism, oppression, etc. are OK
> for > the ruling class, at least from their point of view?
>
> Sure. Although from the perspective of the ruling class, there is no
> exploitation of workers by capitalists.  Sexism and oppression are
> justified by the ruling class with a set of norms and an ideology that
> says that the oppression of women and nationalities are  OK (based on moral
> beliefs concerning male superiority and national chauvinism).
> Consequently, their morals are not immoral but are rather THEIR MORALS.
>  >
> > I
> don't want to be glib. I think there is a deep and hard problem about >
> relativism. We've been through my views on this from the angle of the >
> probability of historical progress, but I'm happy to go around again. >
> However, I think that relativism is a pretty unattractive position--not >
> just wrong, but unpalatable.
>
> In other fields of inquiry, I, also, find relativism to be rather
> shallow.  I chose this term because it was the one suggested by Justin in
> his previous post.  In the context of morality and ethics, how is
> relativism a) "unattractive" (standards of beauty are also social and
> historically specific); b) wrong (according to the standard of which
> class?); and "unpalatable" (a curious term)?
>
> Jerry
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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