Statements on Moral Relativism

[Scott]

Anyone familiar with philosophers or others who have said that there is no objective way to condemn Hitler or guys like him? Any quotes/references would be helpful.

 

[Don]

Originally posted by Scott
Anyone familiar with philosophers or others who have said that there is no objective way to condemn Hitler or guys like him? Any quotes/references would be helpful.

Scott,

here is an article on relativism worth studying (both alethic and moral). Allen Wood is a professor at Stanford. He doesn't directly give quotes of what you are looking for, but I think this could be helpful.

Here is one paragraph under Cultural Relativism:

"Accordingly, a moral judgment such as "Joe's killing Sam was wrong" would be like the judgment "It is raining" in that both have implicit reference to a context which determines their objective truth. "It is raining" always means that it is raining at a certain time and place (e.g. in Peoria at 6 pm on September 12, 1994). "Joe's killing Sam was wrong" means that Joe's killing of Sam was wrong in a certain culture at a certain time (e.g. in white Anglo-Saxon Protestant Eastern seaboard American culture in the mid l990s, where acts like Joe's act of killing are widely disapproved). Cultural relativism then holds that what a culture believes about an act determines the truth about its objective rightness or wrongness in something like the way that spatio-temporal location determines the truth about the weather conditions obtaining then and there."

I think this is the best refutation of relativism that I've come across available for free on the internet. He also discusses how ethical relativism is self-refuting and how relativism is an infallibilistic and dogmatic (he contrasts this with their view of tolerance).

Don


[Edited on 3-11-2006 by Don]

 

[Cuirassier]

Bros,

A few years ago, a good brother in Christ got me hooked into Greg Bahnsen. Notwithstanding that I differ with some of his views, I think his works on helping believers see the fallacies and outright contradictions of humanistic worldviews are par excellence. My favourite recording of all time, I think, has to be "the Great Debate", in which he and Dr. Gordon Stein, a well-esteemd aetheist philosopher have a debate at USoCal.

I would HIGHLY suggest this recording. I have found a transcript here:

http://www.popchapel.com/Resources/Bahnsen/GreatDebate/GreatDebate_v1.3.pdf


... but it pales in comparison to hearing it. My favourite part:

I mean if there aren´t laws of morality, I can just take out a gun right now and say "œOkay Dr. Stein, make my day. Is there a god or not?" You see if he argues "œoh no! You can´t murder me because there are laws of morality", then of course he´s made my day because I win the debate. That shows that the atheist universe is not correct. But if he says "œOh no, there are no absolute standards; it´s all by convention and stipulation" and that sort of thing, then I just pull the trigger and it´s all over and I win the debate anyway.
[audience pause, then laughter and applause.]

I remember laughing and cheering so hard I had tears running down my cheeks. The power and discernment with which Dr. Bahnsen applied Scriptures was done in a way I've rarely seen before. The way he so soundly (and yet respectfully) undid the core tenets of the humanistic worldview are still an inspiration to this day.

dl

[Edited on 3-11-2006 by Cuirassier]

 

[Don]

Daniel,

This is off topic, but Gordon Stein was not well esteemed nor was he a philosopher. He was some kind of bird scientist. Notice at the beginning of the debate what the topic of his dissertation was and how even Bahnsen noted that it was irrelevant.

Don

 

[Cuirassier]

No problem Don - I stand corrected on his area of education--Physiology not Philosphy. Were I bad at spelling, I would claim that as my excuse, but in this case, it was ignorance of that particular fact.

Notwithstanding his initial schooling, the fact remains the majority of his lectures, writings, and recognition were focused on humanistic studies. http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=stein_16_4 I also feel same in the assumption that Dr. Bahnsen would not have made Christianity to look like a ridiculous charade by debating an utterly unqualified / irrelevant individual.


My point was not to extoll Stein's virtues--philosophical or otherwise. My point was to show that this debate brought to light some of the key tenets of the humanistic worldview, and Bahnsen's application of Biblical principles is both

a) a piece of material that would encourage believers in general, and
b) an example of the kind of material which Scott explicitlly requested in starting this thread.



dl

 

[Scott]

cool, thanks.

 

[Scott]

This is not a statement, but it is cool. I am going to do this with my group.

A pastor I know, Stephey Belynskyj, starts each confirmation class with a jar full of beans. He asks his students to guess how many beans are in the jar, and on a big pad of paper writes down their estimates. Then, next to those estimates, he helps them make another list: their favorite songs. When the lists are complete, he reveals the actual number of beans in the jar. The whole class looks over their guesses, to see which estimate was closest to being right. Belynskyj then turns to the list of favorite songs. "And which one of these is closest to being right?" he asks. The students protest that there is no "right answer"; a person's favorite song is purely a matter of taste.

Belynskyj, who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Notre Dame asks, "When you decide what to believe in terms of your faith, is that more like guessing the number of beans, or more like choosing your favorite song?" Always, Belynskyj says, from old as well as young, he gets the same answer: Choosing one's faith is more like choosing a favorite song.

When Belynskyj told me this, it took my breath away. "After they say that, do you confirm them?" I asked him. "Well," smiled Belynskyj, "First I try to argue them out of it."