Saturday, April 06, 2019
Moral relativism and the Holocaust
If you are a relativist, whether the Holocaust was OK is just a matter of human perspective. If the Nazis had won WWII, and history is written by the winners, then if Hitler had won WWII the history books would praise the Holocaust as one of Hitler's great accomplishment. It was how Hitler and those who followed him felt about it right, and if morals are relative to how people feel about it, then the history books would be right. When you say that there is no objective truth in the area of morality, this is what you have to swallow. Or, again, look at hatred for homosexuals (who were also slaughtered in the Holocaust). Lots of people hate homosexuals, and many for reasons that have nothing to do with religion. If morals are relative, that is how people feel, and there is nothing really wrong with that. If you are going to be a moral relativist, you've got to be a consistent one, but most people aren't consistent in their relativism, by any stretch of the imagination.
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https://metacrock.blogspot.com/2019/04/jason-thibodeaus-euthyphro-dilemma.html
Euthyphro dilemma On Metacrock's blog
This is an article on the Euthyphro dilemma as used by a friend on secular outpost. The Euthyphro dilemma ask if morality is good because God commands it, in which case it is arbitrary,or is it commanded by God because it';s good,in which case the good is operate from God. I show that is nonsense the founding premise has not been pulled off,
There's a book by Peter Haas called Morality after Auschwitz which I think addresses this issue.
There are few "must read" books in this world. Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi is one of them. Here are two quotes from the book, relevant to this posting.
The first is when Levi is subjected to an act of purposeless, senseless cruelty by a camp guard. In despair, he asks, "Warum?" (Why?) The answer: "Hier ist kein warum." (Here, there is no "why".)
The second is equally chilling. I will quote the entire passage.
"Here in [Auschwitz] there are no criminals or madmen. There aren't any criminals because there is no moral law to contravene. And there are no madmen because we are wholly devoid of free will. Our every action is, in time and place, the only conceivable one."
He's ripe or the Trump cabnet.
Seriously I knew a Holocaust survivor she was a professor who taught poetry and she liked my brother's poetry. She was an astounding professor not weepy but fiercely intellectual. Hungarian. Based upon knowing her I would say the victims maintained the moral law in their hearts,
If the Nazis had won WWII and had completed their genocide of the Jews in Europe, I think they would, today, view the Holocaust in much the same way as we view our genocide of the Native Americans. I think, the prevailing sentiment in the U.S. is that what our ancestors did was cruel but necessary.
watch movies online for free full movie
OP
"If you are a relativist, whether the Holocaust was OK is just a matter of human perspective"
True.
" It was how Hitler and those who followed him felt about it right, and if morals are relative to how people feel about it, then the history books would be right."
Only in the view of those whose moral sensibilities align with the Nazis.
Since morals are relative to individual sensibilities there is no absolute reference point to judge whether the book is right or wrong.
" When you say that there is no objective truth in the area of morality, this is what you have to swallow"
Non-sequitur. You did not establish that winning the war constituted a basis for correct moral judgement. How could that be the case? The lack of absolute moral truths remains the case irrespective of who won the war.
" Lots of people hate homosexuals, and many for reasons that have nothing to do with religion. If morals are relative, that is how people feel, and there is nothing really wrong with that."
If by "really" you mean "provably absolutely objectively", then yes, that is true.
" If you are going to be a moral relativist, you've got to be a consistent one,"
Here here. I tire of my atheist comrades who have such poorly reasoned and unsupported views on morality. I think this is due to a nature/nurture combination wherein people have such a strong sensibility of ought that they yearn for a fixed anchor for their moral judgements, yet they are sufficiently rational to reject the notion of god, leaving the individual to perform lamentable mental contortions in their internal conflict. Just a guess...
I will give you an ought from an is.
Ought is an emotion, a sensibility, a feeling.
Emotions, sensibilities, and feelings are brain function.
Brain function is material.
The sense that I ought to do this or that is due to brain processes, largely not monitorable in detail by my self aware consciousness, which are other brain functions performed in parallel by other processing networks in the brain.
When one of my emotion processing networks reaches some conclusion, makes a correlation, has prepared an output, it signals my self aware consciousness with what we perceive as a feeling.
Ought comes from is as a material mechanistic set of processes in the human brain.
Because we are genetically and physiologically and socially so similar most of us agree on broad basic principles, murder is wrong, freedom of speech is good, etc. We write these shared sensibilities into our laws and into our social behavioral norms.
These basic sensibilities are so wide spread they are perceived to be nearly universal and this leads to the illusion that there is some sort of moral anchor in the universe, and absolute moral reference point from which this widespread agreement arises.
Morals can be objective only in the sense that we first agree on a common set of moral axioms that are not provable, but some group of people communicate a willingness to accept these axioms mutually. Then we can navigate with objective reasoning within that closed axiomatic moral space. But any conclusions reached by such reasoning cannot be reasonably considered as absolutely proved since the whole system of moral thought rests on unproved and unproveble axioms.
On material atheism there is no is/ought problem and there are no absolute moral propositions.
I'd been worried about you! Dropped off the entire internet, was hoping you were okay.
Thank you very much Legion, I can sense your sincerity in your words.
I'm fine, just got involved in other things. I had said my piece for a while.
Then I got to watching Feser on the Shapiro show, so silly me, I went here
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/03/five-proofs-on-radio.html?showComment=1555187608128#c5256587072340591066
and got all sucked in again :-)
Aside from all the structural defects of the First Way I posted in a fairly organized way at the David Haines site (comments since lost, probably in a server revamp) I have come to develop a more fundamental argument against A-T from mutual causation.
"Here here."
Grammar police: Should be, "Hear, hear."
Skepies Biog Attack
Atheist apologist "I am Skeptical" misunderstands my TS argument for God and lanced a big exposition on it, He does not understand the basics,I explain penitently in this post, why he doesn't get it. This is an important argument for me because I;ve written a whole book to defend it one that will be out within a year, I am the only one who makes this argument,
story of empty tomb dated to mid first century
This is my contribution to a book Called Defending the Resurrection edited by J.P. Holiding. I urge the reader to buy it as there are many fine arguments made in it. Not all of this article was used. This is its original form it was changed substantially in several ways, such are the needs of editors.
@Joe
"Atheist apologist "I am Skeptical" misunderstands my TS argument for God"
What does a TS argument, that nobody else makes, have to do with
"Moral relativism and the Holocaust"
???
On April 13, 2019 11:15 AM I showed the OP has some critical errors and provided a self consistent materialistic accounting for morality.
Whatever TS means, the fact that nobody else makes the argument should be an indicator to you that it has flaws, but perhaps you can explain how TS is the source of morality, and not materialistic evolution of a social animal, as I assert.
On April 13, 2019 11:15 AM I showed the OP has some critical errors and provided a self consistent materialistic accounting for morality.
Whatever TS means, the fact that nobody else makes the argument should be an indicator to you that it has flaws, but perhaps you can explain how TS is the source of morality, and not materialistic evolution of a social animal, as I assert.
, It's my own original argument,I;m the only one who makes it because i thought of it,Imbecile
On April 13, 2019 11:15 AM I showed the OP has some critical errors and provided a self consistent materialistic accounting for morality.
no you didn't
Ought is an emotion, a sensibility, a feeling.
Emotions, sensibilities, and feelings are brain function.
Brain function is material.
grand canon leaps in logic, who says ought is an emotion? that extremely stupid,.
stardust psychotic
Emotions, sensibilities, and feelings are brain function.
Brain function is material.
how do you know sensibilities are brain function? they cause brain function that doesn;t mean they are brain function
@Joe
", It's my own original argument,I;m the only one who makes it because i thought of it,Imbecile"
How very clever then you must be, obviously, because it requires the greatest of wit to call me an imbecile.
"no you didn't"
Perhaps your next rational argument will be of equal logical force, such as "sez you"
"who says ought is an emotion? that extremely stupid,."
Ok, perhaps you do not feel a sense of ought, most of us do, but you seem to be in the minority of human beings who lack that emotion, more's the pity.
"stardust psychotic"
Oh, you are clever indeed, I can see now how such a brilliant wordsmith would of course invent a new and heretofore unknown argument for god.
@Legion
"Legion of Logic said...
I'd been worried about you! Dropped off the entire internet, was hoping you were okay.
April 13, 2019 2:12 PM "
Again, your thoughts are much appreciated. I have considered similar feelings about posters who drop off, wondering if perhaps something happened to them, how would we ever know?
It was exchanges like the above with Joe that contributed to my disinterest. It is really very difficult to get a productive exchange going with a theist of any sort on almost any subject. Theists, generally, simply do not engage rationally to any significant depth.
Victor runs a very open blog, so kudos to him for that, but on the other hand, his OP on this thread was so obviously flawed by a glaring non-sequitur, and he has not chosen to engage on the subject, so, well, par for the course. Kind of disappointing for a person schooled and published with some recognition in philosophy.
The 2 folks who tried for a while to engage on my argument from mutual causation against the first way obviously have little education or understanding of physics or causation, so they dropped off after I had dispatched all of their feeble attempts.
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/03/five-proofs-on-radio.html?showComment=1555187608128#c5256587072340591066
Feser has no capacity to engage me either. All he can do is either remain silent or delete my comments.
Care to pick up where they left off? Maybe you could read up a few posts and find some flaw in my reasoning.
@Joe
", It's my own original argument,I;m the only one who makes it because i thought of it,Imbecile"
How very clever then you must be, obviously, because it requires the greatest of wit to call me an imbecile.
hardly
"no you didn't"
Perhaps your next rational argument will be of equal logical force, such as "sez you"
"who says ought is an emotion? that extremely stupid,."
Ok, perhaps you do not feel a sense of ought, most of us do, but you seem to be in the minority of human beings who lack that emotion, more's the pity.
establishing an ought is primary to any deontological ethical theory,it is at least as much a logical process as it might involve emotion.
"stardust psychotic"
Oh, you are clever indeed, I can see now how such a brilliant wordsmith would of course invent a new and heretofore unknown argument for god.
Just trying to appeal to your level
April 15, 2019 8:20 PM
If you are going to be a moral relativist, you've got to be a consistent one,"
Here here. I tire of my atheist comrades who have such poorly reasoned and unsupported views on morality. I think this is due to a nature/nurture combination wherein people have such a strong sensibility of ought that they yearn for a fixed anchor for their moral judgements, yet they are sufficiently rational to reject the notion of god, leaving the individual to perform lamentable mental contortions in their internal conflict. Just a guess...
moral realism seems to be really in vogue these days, your comment is behind the times
@Joe
Your comments are devoid of any rational argumentation.
"Hardly" is not an argument.
"in vogue" is not an argument.
"behind the times" is not an argument.
I used rational argumentation to establish that the OP is not valid since it employs a logical fallacy, that of the non-sequitur.
You are continually trying to generate traffic on your site by going around posting links to your site that are completely off topic. You would get more traffic on your site if you demonstrated at least a small willingness to engage in a coherent, civil, on topic, rational argumentation discourse, as opposed to the snide, off topic, and pointless phrases you generally post.
Joe,
I totally agree with Stardusty about your habit of posting advertisements for your own website in conversations that have nothing whatsoever to do with the subject you are writing about. Not cool, and quite annoying. I'd wager that most readers of DI would appreciate it if you stopped. How about linking to your own site ONLY when it's relevant to the discussion at hand?
"If you are a relativist, whether the Holocaust was OK is just a matter of human perspective" doesn't logically lead to "there is nothing really wrong with that." For one thing "really wrong" in the latter statement means absolutely/objectively wrong. So you are begging the question; you disprove an opposing argument by using language that doesn't belong to that argument, but to your own.
From my perspective - and of course that's the perspective that matters most to me - the Holocaust remains totally wrong. Subjectively wrong. "Really wrong" is meaningless on subjective morals. You ignore that conveniently.
Moreover, what's incorrect with christian absolute/objective morality is demonstrated by those apologists who defend the Canaanite genocide (CG) - by making it relative to the christian god, who has commanded it. WL Craig even goes so far to defend the CG with the same argument war criminal Paul Blöbel used when tried at Nürnberg. The quite christian prosecutors and judges rejected it. Go figure.
There is no need for any Christian (or Jew, for that matter) to "defend" the supposed Canaanite genocide. It never happened! There is nothing to defend. The entire episode is allegory, which fact is amply confirmed by archeological evidence. The Canaanites were never eliminated from what would eventually be the Kingdom of Israel. There are there when Saul ruled, when David ascended to the throne, and even at the height of Solomon's empire. As late as the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, during the period of the return from Babylonian exile, they are still there (note the prohibitions against marrying them). The Woman at the Well in John's Gospel was likely a Canaanite.
Only a wooden literalist needs to defend a non-event.
Stardusty,
I can look over your stuff, but I honestly have little interest in Aquinas. The last go around was a perfect storm in which I was curious about it right when you and Cal began participating.
"If you are a relativist, whether the Holocaust was OK is just a matter of human perspective"
True. (Great, they finally accept this)
" It was how Hitler and those who followed him felt about it right, and if morals are relative to how people feel about it, then the history books would be right."
Only in the view of those whose moral sensibilities align with the Nazis.
Since morals are relative to individual sensibilities there is no absolute reference point to judge whether the book is right or wrong.
(Though I'm not sure what the Op means about right history books, I agree that one can not say that a person is wrong to think Hitler as moral superior than Mother Theresa).
" When you say that there is no objective truth in the area of morality, this is what you have to swallow"
Non-sequitur. You did not establish that winning the war constituted a basis for correct moral judgement. How could that be the case? The lack of absolute moral truths remains the case irrespective of who won the war.
(Not sure what your point is, the Op's point is if you think Hitler sucked then that is your opinion.)
" Lots of people hate homosexuals, and many for reasons that have nothing to do with religion. If morals are relative, that is how people feel, and there is nothing really wrong with that."
If by "really" you mean "provably absolutely objectively", then yes, that is true. (Agreed again, because YOU decide what is truth and morally correct, no one else.)
" If you are going to be a moral relativist, you've got to be a consistent one,"
Here here. I tire of my atheist comrades who have such poorly reasoned and unsupported views on morality. I think this is due to a nature/nurture combination wherein people have such a strong sensibility of ought that they yearn for a fixed anchor for their moral judgements, yet they are sufficiently rational to reject the notion of god, leaving the individual to perform lamentable mental contortions in their internal conflict. Just a guess...
(Afraid you are bit of a hypocrite here, you are saying they are being wrong when that is only according to you. To them they are 100% rational and morally superior)
...and unsupported views on morality. (Unsupported by who or what, you ? Are you saying that you are more moral than them ? What unbiased standard do you base that on ? Can't be an objective one any way.)
Part 2
Ought is an emotion, a sensibility, a feeling.
Emotions, sensibilities, and feelings are brain function.
Brain function is material.
(Are you saying my feelings are objectively based in reality.)
The sense that I ought to do this or that is due to brain processes, largely not monitorable in detail by my self aware consciousness, which are other brain functions performed in parallel by other processing networks in the brain.
(So murdering infants is okay ?)
When one of my emotion processing networks reaches some conclusion, makes a correlation, has prepared an output, it signals my self aware consciousness with what we perceive as a feeling.
Because we are genetically and physiologically and socially so similar most of us agree on broad basic principles, murder is wrong, freedom of speech is good, etc. We write these shared sensibilities into our laws and into our social behavioral norms.
(But they are still only relatively wrong, and ought is just an emotion. There for I see no objective reason to abuse infants. Agreement is irrelevant, my truths are.)
These basic sensibilities are so wide spread they are perceived to be nearly universal and this leads to the illusion that there is some sort of moral anchor in the universe, and absolute moral reference point from which this widespread agreement arises.
( We should dispel all illusions. If there is no moral anchor, to say someone is morally better than other is only saying one is in a different location. How is London better than Auschwitz ?)
Morals can be objective only in the sense that we first agree on a common set of moral axioms that are not provable, but some group of people communicate a willingness to accept these axioms mutually. Then we can navigate with objective reasoning within that closed axiomatic moral space. But any conclusions reached by such reasoning cannot be reasonably considered as absolutely proved since the whole system of moral thought rests on unproved and unproveble axioms.
( Morals can never be objective in any sense under relativism.)
Then we can navigate with objective reasoning within that closed axiomatic moral space. (God according to atheists rest on unproved and unprovable axioms and yet you accept unprovable axioms about morals ? You are not making any sense.)
On material atheism there is no is/ought problem and there are no absolute moral propositions.
(Why am I morally responsible to listen to you ?)
Non-sequitur. You did not establish that winning the war constituted a basis for correct moral judgement.
(Who say it does, the Op is not establishing that at all. He is arguing you can't objectively disagree with Hitler.)
"If you are a relativist, whether the Holocaust was OK is just a matter of human perspective" doesn't logically lead to "there is nothing really wrong with that." For one thing "really wrong" in the latter statement means absolutely/objectively wrong. So you are begging the question; you disprove an opposing argument by using language that doesn't belong to that argument, but to your own.
(Huh ? Are you saying it is only relatively wrong to think the Holocaust is wrong ? Are you saying that relativism is not objectively true ? That is irrelevant. You still haven't solved anything though. Tell me why I shouldn't worship Hitler ?)
From my perspective - and of course that's the perspective that matters most to me - the Holocaust remains totally wrong. Subjectively wrong. "Really wrong" is meaningless on subjective morals. You ignore that conveniently.
(No you do, besides I think the Holocaust was the best thing ever according to the best moral source in the world, me. Why should I care about some Jew, does intolerance make me any more morally evil when I believe I am morally superior to your puny morality ?)
Moreover, what's incorrect with christian absolute/objective morality is demonstrated by those apologists who defend the Canaanite genocide (CG) - by making it relative to the christian god, who has commanded it.
( And what is morally wrong with that ? If God wants to wipe out civilizations, let him do so. I can't stop him. Can you ? Do you have any reason to say God is morally evil besides your own views ? How effective is your problem of evil if God can decide his own morality with no one to stop them but some foolish weakling mortal like your self. Why must God do good to you and not evil ? Because you want it?)
WL Craig even goes so far to defend the CG with the same argument war criminal Paul Blöbel used when tried at Nürnberg. The quite christian prosecutors and judges rejected it. Go figure.
(Again what is so morally wrong with that ? You are being very inconsistent.)
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