by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
I had in interesting argument the other night. Not interesting because of the content precisely. It was old ground about the rationale for being in Iraq and Afghanistan and this person took the position of the post hoc rationalization “to contain Iran” and that – and this was a new one, funny but new – that our reason for being there was based on our need as driven by the hostage crisis of the 70’s. It wasn’t a match against a skilled opponent. He was about as smart and skilled at argumentation as a house plant and that is really an insult to house plants. But what was interesting was when the topic turned to the idea of just wars and ethical relativism. I’ll summarize the just war argument to give some context and then show how ethical relativism came into the conversation because it got me thinking about ethical relativism (and its natural cousin moral relativism). Is it a good idea or a path to anarchy?
Summary of the just war argument:
A’s Primary Contention: We went to war in Iraq to contain Iran because we’re on a 70’s style revenge mission for the hostage taking. (Ed. Note: Seriously. That was the claim.)
B’s Primary Contention: The rationale given the public for invading Iraq was “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.” In the end, there were no WMDs, no support of terrorism, and the Iraqis were a lot better off before we removed the only stabilizing force holding their secular country together and destroyed their infrastructure. The just war would have been to attack those who attacked us on 9/11, the Saudis with help from Afghani terrorist training bases. It would have given us the same benefits as invading Iraq (oil, common border with Iran) and come at a substantially lower cost to materials and troops when combined with an in and out strategy in Afghanistan (which history has proven to be fairly immune to long term occupation because of geographic and societal factors).
A: There is no such thing as a just war. Name one.
B: I can name two. American entry into WWII and the Revolutionary War come to mind, but there are other examples of just war through history.
A: We went to war to make rich men richer.
B: Really. And that is a reason to wage war that is just?
A: I haven’t heard the term “just war” since Medieval History class. You’re a (*#$#($*#head.
B: That’s all very interesting but I think you don’t know what a just war is. %$*($%$.
A: I know there is no such thing.
B: I can think of a couple of examples. Coming to the defense of your allies in the face of outside aggression, in defense of attack or in retribution of an attack by foreign forces.
A: There’s no such thing as a just war. Just depends on your perspective.
B: No. It doesn’t. There are some ethical absolutes.
A: No there aren’t.
B: Saying there aren’t and proving there aren’t are two separate things.
A: You *()$(#)($#) $)#$()#$ ()$#$!
B: That’s still not proving there aren’t, )($#)()@head. Are there are are there no ethical absolutes? Yes or no.
A: That’s a stupid question.
B: It’s not stupid just because you can’t answer it. It’s a simple question.
[Much back and forth of “stupid” and/or ($#_)#@$#% combined with a rebuttal of “non-responsive, try again”.]
A: People make ethical judgements all the time.
B: That’s not what I asked. Are there ethical absolutes or not?
A: Have your ethics changed over time?
B: Yes they have but that is irrelevant to the question here: are there ethical absolutes or not?
A: You’ve got nothing!
B: You saying I’ve got nothing is not the same as you proving I’ve got nothing. Are you an ethical relativist?
A: Give me an example of an ethical absolute.
B: Human life has value. Protecting it is a good thing.
A: That’s true, but I just want to see some people die.
B: Then you are an ethical relativist and we really don’t have much more to discuss.
A: You’re jumping to conclusions.
B: No I’m not. If human life has value except when you “want to see someone die”, then you are an ethical relativist.
The rest of the conversation was basically A drunkenly ranting about how I (B) didn’t know $*(# and that he had me just where he wanted me (on my knees) before he called me a little girl and proclaimed victory. I was very not impressed. I’d say it was embarrassing for him, but he proudly proclaimed that “ignorance was not a problem for him” and that he thought “retrograde drunken Neanderthal” was a compliment. But I digress . . .
It all got me thinking about ethical relativism though.
What is ethical relativism? It is the philosophical theory stating that ethics are relative to the norms of one’s culture; whether an action is right or wrong depends on the ethical and moral norms of the society in which it is practiced. There are no universal ethical or moral standards and the only standards against which a society’s practices can be judged are its own. The implication of this is there can be no common framework for resolving moral disputes or for reaching agreement on ethical matters among members of different cultures. We know from history that this is not the case. Some acts are considered to by universally wrong or right among the human species. Most ethicists reject ethical relativism because while the practices of societies may differ, the fundamental ethical and moral principles underlying these practices do not. Consider cultures where euthanasia is practiced like some Eskimo tribes when parents declare they are ready to die because of old age or illness, their families would kill them directly or leave them on the ice to die at the hands of nature. This would be frowned upon in our culture, but if you look at the underlying principle – taking care of one’s parents – both societies hold this principle as valuable.
Secondly, it’s an important topic because a kind of ethical relativism is encouraged in law schools under the guise of giving all comers adequate representation and ensuring a fair trial. It’s also something you see more often now in public behavior than in the past: rationalizations of bad behavior based on personal desire rather than ethical or moral principle. “I wanted to feel what killing someone felt like,” said 17 year old killer of 9 year old Elizabeth Olten. Truly a sign of someone with a broken ethical compass probably based in mental illness, but it illustrates the first problem with ethical relativism. It injects ego into the equation.
Consequently and concurrently we cannot remove ego from the equation altogether. If the ethical rightness or wrongness of an action depends on a societal norms, then the logical implication is that to be ethical that one must obey the norms of one’s society because deviance would be unethical or immoral. This leads to an interesting conundrum. If a member of a society that believes that racial or sexist practices are ethically wrong but they are permissible within that society, then one must accept those practices as morally right. This view is both oppressive and narrow in promoting unthinking social conformity and leaves no possibility for ethical and/or moral reform or improvement within a society. Consider that a lack of uniform majority though on a matter may not have created an ethical or moral standard to follow with the members of a society holding different views. Consider the example of the United States. Need I say more than “abortion” or “animal testing” or “medical marijuana” to provide examples of such unsettled ethical questions?
One of the strongest arguments against ethical relativism comes from the assertion that universal ethical and/or moral standards can exist even if some practices and beliefs vary among cultures. In other words, it is possible to acknowledge cultural differences and still find that some of these practices and beliefs are wrong. Consider that although the Aztec had a society that was in some ways more advanced that their contemporary European counterparts, that their practice of human sacrifice is simply wrong. Just so, the barbaric treatment of the Jews, Roma, homosexuals and the mentally handicapped by Nazi society is ethically and morally reprehensible regardless of the beliefs of the Nazis. Ethics are an intellectual inquiry into right and wrong through applying critical thought to the underlying reasons of various ethical and/or moral practices and beliefs. Ethical relativism fails to recognize that some societies may have better reasons for holding their views than other societies.
However, although ethical relativism has much going against it, it does remind us to examine and consider that different societies have different ethical and/or moral beliefs and invites us to examine those forces influence within our own culture. The only way to reach universal ethical truths whenever possible is through examining and challenging our own ethical systems by comparing them to other systems.
Can ethical relativism lead to anarchy? When everything is relative, there are no true stable standards, so I think the answer is yes.
Should ethical relativism be discouraged in our educational systems and society as a whole or do you teach it with the proper caveats and perspective to make it a useful tool instead of a dangerous tool?
Is ethical relativism a good thing or a bag thing?
Or is it like most tools dependent upon the user’s intent and application?
What do you think?
~submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger.
Tony C.,
“The state of nature hypothetical pretends there is a choice to be made between it and society …”
What?!
You’re talking about Social Contract theories … in other words, you do not think there was any time before government?
Dredd,
I watched a program the other night … can’t remember the title as I was flipping channels when I happened upon it. The presentation went something like (and don’t quote me):
70 some million years ago a volcano erupted (Mount Toba volcano):
“The six year long volcanic winter and 1000-year-long instant Ice Age that followed Mount Toba’s eruption may have decimated Modern Man’s entire population. Genetic evidence suggests that Human population size fell to about 10,000 adults between 50 and 100 thousand years ago. The survivors from this global catastrophy would have found refuge in isolated tropical pockets, mainly in Equatorial Africa. Populations living in Europe and northern China would have been completely eliminated by the reduction of the summer temperatures by as much as 12 degrees centigrade.
Volcanic winter and instant Ice Age may help resolve the central but unstated paradox of the recent African origin of Humankind: if we are all so recently “Out of Africa”, why do we not all look more African?
Because the volcanic winter and instant Ice Age would have reduced populations levels low enough for founder effects, genetic drift and local adaptations to produce rapid changes in the surviving populations, causing the peoples of the world to look so different today. In other words, Toba may have caused Modern Races to differentiate abruptly only 70,000 years ago, rather than gradually over one million years.”
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/toba2.html
I think the program was based on Stephen Oppenheimer’s work
@Blouise: To deny the “state of nature” hypothetical is to presume that humans appeared full bloom on the planet in governed groups…
No it isn’t. To deny the state of nature hypothetical as I have written is to presume the reality of the situation for early humans, that they were already living in and dependent upon social groups (like chimps and gorillas) when whatever mutation(s) that produced modern cognition occurred.
It is to presume there was never a period in the history of our species in which people were not born into at least familial groups which they depended upon for survival and operated cooperatively, in which they cared for each other when sick or injured and shared their resources.
The ‘state of nature’ argument is the one that presumes a man is born a full scale adult with zero debts and zero ties to anybody and is capable of independent survival. That is the childish presumption that ignores infancy, and old age and periods of ill health, and the necessary societal investment (and moral debt to repay that aid) of any human that has ever attained adulthood.
The state of nature hypothetical pretends there is a choice to be made between it and society, but there isn’t. We do not accept that anybody can refuse that choice and do as they please; nobody anywhere accepts that it is okay for a man to live in the wild on an unclaimed island and murder anybody that stumbles onto his island. Even in the wild far from any society, we think it is fundamentally wrong for people to exercise those “absolute” freedoms.
Which logically renders those “absolute freedoms” just a straw man, an excuse to give a false front to what is actually inherent in our nature: That it is wrong to murder people for selfish gain. Not because we traded that right (explicitly or implicitly) for some benefit of society, just because it is inherently wrong in the normal human psyche, because other human lives have inherent value.
Rejecting the ‘state of nature’ argument does not weaken the case for government; and it does not require any fantasy. What humans feel is fundamentally fair and unfair can be determined by the science of talking to them. That is a basis for turning “philosophy” from a religion of dogma and received “truths” into a science of good government and bad; because good government increases fair treatment and bad government decreases it.
Swarthmore mom
1, October 22, 2012 at 1:52 pm
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I’m sorry for your loss. And whatever distress you went through as well. Sadly it just illustrates my point further….if the ‘law market’ is so out of reach to those in society that have been wronged, deliberately or unintentionally, then what has it become and what purpose does it serve and what good does it do?
Tony C. 1, October 22, 2012 at 2:20 pm
…
I read as a scientist, not a philosopher, and as a scientist my first principle is that I must be convinced of the assumptions, both stated and unstated, in order to be convinced an argument is sound.
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Are you convinced that the cosmologists, astrophysicists, and astronomers who say the the Sun will burn up the Earth and/or all life on it have a valid argument?
To Wit as I posted up-thread:
(http://jonathanturley.org/2012/10/21/ethical-relativism-a-good-idea-or-a-path-to-anarchy/#comment-436504).
Blouise 1, October 22, 2012 at 2:01 pm
…
Reading Locke, Aquinas, Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau, and even Filmer for crying out loud (and so many others) is vital when attempting to apply one’s own reason to this matter.
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Locke (1632–1704), Aquinas (1225 – 1274), Hobbes (1588 – 1679), Hume (1711 – 1776), Rousseau (1712 – 1778), and Filmer (1588 – 1653).
Correct?
In Colorado they have very low limits on wrongful death so that you can’t get enough to pay a lawyer unless the person was making a high salary. I think that’s wrong because it encourages behavior that results in death.
In Steamboat Springs, Colorado, the site of my underlying lawsuit, they made a practice of only enforcing the regulations sometimes. They had really strict regulations but they officially waived or ignored them depending on unwritten criteria, probably who you paid off. So a David Engle died in a fire in a home with only one exit that was officially a garage and the family didn’t sue because he wasn’t making that much. But because of public protest they claim that they have decided to enforce the development code and now there is a complaint form.
The Tort Reform Lobby has thrown out the baby with the bath water. Now babies and seniors can be killed with essentially no liability so why should nursing homes be careful who they hire and how they supervise.
I would have thought Engle’s case would have been pretty easy to prove in court since the assessor said that in Steamboat there are many illegal buildings and enforcement of the regulations is lax and there was government officials errors and omissions insurance too. The government officials must have known about the property since it was about two blocks from their office and was painted a bright color and since it was sold and therefore paperwork was filed also. I think they are supposed to reassess and therefore visit when a property is sold. But I guess the family was told that they would be retaliated against if they tried to sue for his wrongful death.
@Gene: Then anarchy and lawlessness among social creatures is not a real phenomena?
I certainly did not write that, if you infer that you have failed to comprehend what I wrote.
@Gene: And there is no distinction between the state of lawlessness and a state of civil order?
Those are obviously (to me) two ends of a spectrum of states, neither of which is ever attained; much like the temperature scale. The spectrum in this case depends upon the extent to which people are subjected to fair treatment; which is very little in the anarchic state, and very much in states we would consider stable civil order.
I think it is funny how you resort to authoritarianism and a presumption of my ignorance whenever I disagree with you; Gene. Of course I have read Locke, and Malthus, and Darwin, and many others. I just do not read with reverence, and I do not assume that because the world accepts something that I must accept it also. I read as a scientist, not a philosopher, and as a scientist my first principle is that I must be convinced of the assumptions, both stated and unstated, in order to be convinced an argument is sound. The assumption of a ‘state of nature’ is not one I think is necessary in order to arrive at a philosophy of government. In fact I think by using an alternative approach based in reality, the arguments are strengthened.
All though the “state of nature” is hypothetical (how could it be otherwise?), it is the premise for the arguments put forward in all reasons for establishing government and thus the “state of society”.
To deny the “state of nature” hypothetical is to presume that humans appeared full bloom on the planet in governed groups … the gods created in 6 days nonsense.
Modern science even goes so far as to see the “state of nature” as actual rather than hypothetical in their studies of societies existing before or without a political state.
Reading Locke, Aquinas, Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau, and even Filmer for crying out loud (and so many others) is vital when attempting to apply one’s own reason to this matter.
Woosty, My mother’s death involved malpractice. Because of her age and the conservative nature of the community that she was living in we were told by multiple lawyers that the cost of the trial would not be worth it so we decided not to pursue it.
“In Jersey everything is legal as long as you don’t get caught …”
So, what Tweeter, Monkey Man, Undercover Cop, Sister Jan, Racketeer Bill, State Trooper, and the Boy Scouts of the Jersey Girls said:
No, Swarthmore, it is not just about ‘picking’….you know it’s a tad more complicated than that but as was said, access denied is Justice denied is wonky application of the Law blah blah blah….
Last weekend, I attended the Fall Conference of the Erikson Institute for Education and Research of the Austen Riggs Center, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
In part, I attended the conference as a way of obtaining relevant interactive professional development hours needed for my Wisconsin Professional Engineer license renewal in 2014.
The conference title was, “Untold Stories, Hidden Wounds: War Trauma and Its Treatment”
Conference presenters included Nancy Sherman, Brett Litz, Frank Ochberg, Jonathan Shay, and Gen. Stephen Xenakis (ret.).
One of the most important ideas I found presented at the conference is, in my view, strongly in accord with the core findings of my 1987-written bioengineering doctorate, the idea that “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” may wisely be better named, “Post-Traumatic Stress Injury,” or, perhaps even better, “Moral Injury.”
At the conference, I voiced the following, bioengineering-based view:
“Palliation of clinical signs is not remediation of neurological injury; moral injury is neurological injury.”
To the question of the scientifically-verifiable existence of moral absolutes, I state, as an absolute, that there not only are moral absolutes; I further state that the presence of violated moral absolutes, as moral injuries, take the form of brain-scan-clearly-evident neurological injuries which so physically damage human brains as to severely modify their functional structure in ways that are blatantly obvious to anyone who is adequately qualified to accurately recognize physical brain damage that is the inescapable result of moral injury.
The belief that there are no moral absolutes is itself of the form and function of moral injury, which is necessarily neurological injury, which is necessarily physical brain damage.
Deception is the social/psychological basis of moral injury and its resulting physical brain damage. The predicament of deception in the life of a deceived person is, however tragically, that a person who is deceived has to be rendered incapable of being consciously aware of being deceived, this being an inescapable consequence of the directly observable fact that being consciously aware of being deceived is pragmatically indistinguishable from being not-deceived.
In my work, I find that Post-Traumatic Stress Injury is even better named, “Neurological Trauma Injury.” because I find the biological response of the human nervous system to be an appropriate biological response to trauma-creating events, such that moral injury/neurological trauma injury are biologically optimal responses to actually experienced harmful events.
Post-Traumatic Stress and its effects are not disorders; the actual disorder is in the beliefs which coerce people into traumatizing other people while mistakenly believing that they are doing otherwise.
For those who sufficiently understand set theory and nested self-referential sets, the problem of absolutes is trivial.
Were there no absolutes, the statement, “There are no absolutes,” would necessarily be an absolute. Thus, given that it is impossible for one or more absolutes to not exist, the relevant socially operant question is not whether absolutes exist, but how to accurately recognize and understand such absolutes as absolutely cannot not-exist.
Ode to Ayn Rand, one of the more confused absolutist cum ethical relativists known:
Woosty, You are the client, and you chose the lawyer. That’s how it should be.
Lawyers are plutocrats if they can pick and choose who gets representation….
There are a lot of lawyers that are not making much money at all. Then, there are those at the top that are making millions. Top attorneys and surgeons come no where close to making the billions the plutocrats do.
I will not argue that the economics of legal services is not out of kilter. The same can be said of many services, including medicine. A big part of this is due to the ridiculous costs of education and insurance in both fields of practice. But that’s a whole other article. 😀
also, what Malisha said regarding rate of $$$$$….which is more of an indication of the disconnect that the Law currntly seems to hold in Society….much like the Corporate Beasts….
Tony C….brava, yes!
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Otteray Scribe
1, October 21, 2012 at 11:50 pm
Woosty, you wrote:
“The fact that the access to appropriate and equitable representation in ‘Law’ in this Country is not available, due basely to the socio-economic conditional standards of the practitioners, makes the practice of Law absolutely that of a state of ethical relativism and essentially immoral.”
I may be misunderstanding you, but I read that as the fact lawyers are not available for free, or for low (read ‘affordable’) fees, as being “unethical.” I based that on your reference “…to socioeconomic conditional standards of the practitioners.” If that was not your intention, help me understand what you meant.
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The ‘ethical relativism’ philosophy is just that…philosophical. The practical application of the Law is what is current, what is real and what is essential in the Society. When people like Kay Sieverding have been mistreated by the Law, and there is no recourse simply because her new, real, tangible condition, as a result of that treatment, no longer meets the requirements of those who practice the Law, to be willing to assist her to a just attainment, then it is, by practicality or whatever you want to call it, no longer the practice of Law but the practice of renumeration through the personal application of the Law . It’s societal effects are then hardly able to be called Just and no more than disconnected and whimsical.
I would add that in my understanding of the topic in the discussion, it appears that what is being discussed is ‘criminal law’ (I’m not a lawyer so that’s a guess), but the Law is practiced in almost every facet and aspect of societal behavior and that means that much of what is required by the ‘Law’ is obligatory, not just a choice or need because of bad decisions or situations….