North Lake College Philosopy Moral Relativism and Other Questions

• Moral RelativismMoral RelativismIn Section B of Chapter 8, you read about moral relativism (also called moral subjectivism). After reading the text and watching the video below, describe what you understand the moral relativist position to be, explain any problems you see with regard to accepting moral relativism, and then discuss at least 2 specific points from the Gilbert Harman reading in our text that you either agree or disagree with; explain why. Finally, ARE you a moral relativist? Or do you reject moral relativism? Defend your position.NB: Often in this discussion students discuss cultural relativism, a specific kind of moral relativism, but for this thread, we are discussing moral relativism in general rather than cultural relativism. Make sure to follow the instructions given in Unit 1 in the Discussion Forums: Protocol and Grading Criteria folder for making specific references to texts, videos, and podcasts; posts that do not make references according to these instructions will not receive full credit.Works Linked/Cited:“What is Ethical Relativism?” YouTube, uploaded by Philo-notes, 11 Dec. 2019, What is Ethical Relativism? – PHILO-notes Whiteboard Edition – YouTube. Accessed 3 June 2020.
• Obligations toward OthersObligations toward OthersIn Section C of Chapter 8, you read about egoism and altruism. Peter Singer, who appears in the video below, is a contemporary utilitarian (utilitarians favor an altruistic view) who argues that we should use our disposable income to help others, including the poor in countries other than our own. Tara Smith, whom you read in Chapter 8, discusses egoism, a view that opposes altruism. After watching the video below and reading the Smith text in Chapter 8, respond to the following questions: What is one point from the video that resonated with you and why? What is one point from the Smith reading that resonated with you and why? Explain your stance toward both egoism and altruism. Be specific; provide reasons and examples for your position(s).Make sure to follow the instructions given in Unit 1 in the Discussion Forums: Protocol and Grading Criteria folder for making specific references to texts, videos, and podcasts; posts that do not make references according to these instructions will not receive full credit.Works Linked/Cited:“Peter Singer – Effective Altruism, an Introduction.” YouTube, uploaded by Science, Technology & the Future. 28 Aug. 2014, Peter Singer – Effective Altruism, an Introduction – YouTube. Accessed 19 Aug. 2020.The Trolley ProblemThe Trolley ProblemWatch the below video version of the trolley problem, a well-known moral dilemma analyzed from a utilitarian perspective.The first version of the problem is sometimes called the “switch dilemma.” This is based upon the idea of a runaway trolley which is moving down the tracks toward five people who will be killed if it the trolley continues on its present course. You are a bystander and can save these five people by pulling a switch and diverting the trolley onto a different set of tracks. The added problem is that this switch will place the trolley on a different track that has only one person on it; however, if you pull the switch that person will be killed. Is it morally permissible to divert the trolley and prevent five deaths at the cost of one? Most people say it is, regardless of culture, gender, ethnicity, religion, or nationality.Next we have what is sometimes called the “footbridge dilemma.” In this case, the trolley is again headed for five people. However, you are now standing on a footbridge over the tracks. Leaning over the side of the bridge is a very fat man (fat enough to stop the trolley). You are standing next to him on the footbridge and realize that the only way to stop the trolley and save the five people is to push this man off the footbridge and onto the tracks. Is that morally permissible? Most people say it is not, regardless of culture, gender, ethnicity, religion, or nationality.Answer the following: What is your own moral analysis of these two cases? Provide reasons to justify your position(s). If you agree with the majority of people regarding these two cases, then what makes it acceptable to sacrifice one person to save five others in the switch dilemma but not in the footbridge case? If you disagree with the majority of people regarding these cases, what explanation do you offer?NB: In this thread, students often say what they would or wouldn’t do, could or couldn’t do, and then explain their feelings related to their choice (e.g. ‘I would pull the lever in the first scenario, but I could never push the man off the bridge because I would feel too guilty.’ Or ‘I would push the lever because I wouldn’t have to touch anybody, but I couldn’t push the man off the bridge because I wouldn’t want to directly murder someone.’) But a moral analysis is an analysis about why an action might be moral or immoral, with reasons. While we of course have emotional responses in considering what to do, such responses do not reason about the morality of an action. So, in your response, do not answer the question ‘how would you feel about each scenario?’ but rather ‘what would be the morally right action in each scenario?’To avoid simply saying what you would or wouldn’t do, could or couldn’t do, perhaps begin with something along the lines of ‘the morally right action in the first scenario is to do x because’….(give your justification for what you claim is the morally right action), and ‘the morally right action in the second scenario is to do x because’…(and again give your justification for what you claim is the morally right action).Make sure to follow the instructions given in Unit 1 in the Discussion Forums: Protocol and Grading Criteria folder for making specific references to texts, videos, and podcasts; posts that do not make references according to these instructions will not receive full credit.And just for fun, here’s a clip from The Good Place dealing with the trolley problem (and if you haven’t watched The Good Place, you should!):Works Linked/Cited:“The Trolley Problem.” YouTube, uploaded by Patrick Donovan, 7 Feb. 2008, The Trolley Problem – YouTube. Accessed 15 Aug. 2019.“The Trolley Problem. The Good Place.” YouTube, uploaded by Comedy Bites, 28 Jan. 2020, The Trolley Problem | The Good Place | Comedy Bites – YouTube. Accessed 28 Mar. 2020.

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matter of practical reason, divorced from our personal interests and desires and based
solely on universal principles or laws. Thus, according to Kant, we cannot justify the
morality of our actions simply by appealing to the good consequences of our actions
for others or ourselves. We also consider subsequent efforts to support or criticize
Kant’s view.
• The ethical theories of the utilitarians, who argued in contrast to Kant) that moral rules
are merely rules of thumb for achieving the greatest good for the greatest number of
people, and who thereby tried to reconcile the interests of each individual with the inter-
ests of everyone else.
• The radical theories of Nietzsche and the existentialists, who insist that, in an important
sense, we choose our moralities and that this choice cannot be justified in any of the
ways argued by other modern philosophers. For Nietzsche, at least, this view also in-
cluded a retrospective appreciation of the morality of the ancient Greeks, and he argued
that we should inject some of their conceptions into our own. We also look at subse-
quent efforts to support the idea that morality is conventional—a matter of custom
within specific societies.
• Recent feminist theories, which argue that the moral tradition has overemphasized
principles and procedures and neglected the moral importance of interpersonal roles
and relationships.
A. Morality
Morality gives us the rules by which we live with other people. It sets limits to our desires and
our actions. It tells us what is permitted and what is not. It gives us guiding principles for
making decisions. It tells us what we ought and ought not to do. But what is this “morality”
that sounds so impersonal and “above” us? It is important to begin with an appreciation for
the metaphor, which so well characterizes moral rules. Nietzsche describes it this way:
“A tablet of virtues hangs over every people.”
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agency. Most often, this absolute and independent agency is God. St. Thomas Aquinas, for
example, refers to God as the source of moral law: “Therefore by divine law precepts had to
be given, so that each man would give his neighbor his due and would abstain from doing
injuries to him.” And in the Bible we read, “When thou shalt harken-to the voice of the Lord
thy God, to keep all his commandments, which I command thee this day, to do that which is
right in the eyes of the Lord thy God.”2
But whether or not one believes in God, it is clear that something further is needed to
help us define morality. Even assuming that there is a God, we need a way of determining
what His moral commands must be. One may say that He has given these commands to vari-
ous individuals, but the fact is that different people seem to have very different ideas about
the morality that God has given them. Some, for example, would say that it explicitly rules
out abortion and infanticide. Others would argue that God does not rule these out but
makes it clear that they are, like other forms of killing (a “holy war,” for example), justifiable
only in certain circumstances. In view of such disagreements, we cannot simply appeal to
God but must, for reasons that we can formulate and defend, define our morality for our-
selves. There is the further question, which has often been debated, but was raised originally
by Plato, in his dialogue, Euthyphro. Should we follow God’s laws just because they are His
or rather, because His laws are good? If the latter, then we have to decide what is good in
order to know that God is good. If the former, then one has to decide whether or not to be-
lieve in God precisely on the basis of whether we can accept those laws. Either way, we have
to decide for ourselves what laws of morality we are willing to accept.
Similar considerations hold true for that familiar appeal to conscience in determining
what we ought or ought not do. Even if one believes that conscience is God-given, the same
problems emerge again. Should we follow our consciences just because our “conscience
tells us to”? Or do we follow our conscience just because we know that what our conscience
commands is good? How does one decide whether a nagging thought is or is not the
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1 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Bk. III (New York: Doubleday, 1955).
2 Deuteronomy 13:18
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A. MORALITY 499
The “tablet of virtues” is morality. The prototype of morality, in this view, is those ancient
codes, carved in stone, with commands that are eternal and absolute, such as the two tablets
inscribed by God in front of Moses that we call the Ten Commandments. And they are indeed
commandments. They all say “Thou shalt” or “Thou shalt not.” This is the essence of moral-
ity. It consists of commands. These commands do not appeal to individual pleasures or de-
sires. They do not make different demands on different individuals or societies. Quite to the
contrary, they are absolute rules that tell us what we must or must not do, no matter who we
are, no matter what we want, and regardless of whether or not our interests will be served by
the command. “Thou shalt not kill” means that even if you want to, even if you have the
power to, and even if you can escape all punishment, you are absolutely forbidden to kill.
The image of morality as coming “from above” is appropriate. First, because moral laws
are often said, and not only in our society, to come from God. Second, because we learn
these laws from our parents, who literally “stand over us” and indoctrinate us with them
through their shouts, commands, examples, threats, and gestures. Finally, and most impor-
tant, morality itself is “above” any given individual or individuals, whether it is canonized in
the laws of society or not. Morality is not just another aid in getting us what we want; it is
entirely concerned with right and wrong. And these considerations are “above” tampering
by any individual, no matter how powerful, as if they have a life of their own.
This characteristic of morality as independent of individual desires and ambitions has led
many people to characterize morality simply in terms of some absolute and independent
agency. Most often, this absolute and independent agency is God. St. Thomas Aquinas, for
example, refers to God as the source of moral law: “Therefore by divine law precepts had to
be given, so that each man would give his neighbor his due and would abstain from doing
injuries to him.”1 And in the Bible we read, “When thou shalt harken—to the voice of the Lord
thy God, to keep all his commandments, which I command thee this day, to do that which is
right in the eyes of the Lord thy God.”2
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p. 500
500 CHAPTER 8
ETHICS
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prompting of God? Probably on the basis of whether what it demands is good or not. (Thus
one readily attributes to conscience the nagging reminder that one should not have cheated
an unsuspecting child, but one does not attribute to conscience the nagging thought that
one could have gotten away with shoplifting if only one had had the daring to do it.) If one
believes that conscience is simply the internalization of the moral teachings of one’s parents
and society, then the question takes an extra dimension: Should we accept or reject what we
have been taught? Since our consciences often disagree, we must still decide whose con-
science and which rules of conscience we ought to obey. Identifying morality with the
promptings of one’s conscience is both plausible and valuable, but philosophically it only
moves the question one step back: How do we know what is, and what is not, the prompting
of conscience? And is it always right to follow one’s conscience? But these two questions are,
in fact, just another way of asking what is moral. What should I do?
Morality is not just obedience—whether obedience to a king, a pope, the law, or one’s
conscience. Morality is doing what is right, whether or not it is commanded by any person or
law and whether or not one “feels” it in one’s conscience. One way of putting it—defended
later by Immanuel Kant—is to say that morality involves autonomy, that is, the ability to think
for oneself and decide, for oneself, what is right and what is wrong, whom to obey and whom
to ignore, what to do and what not to do. The danger is that this conception of morality as
autonomy seems to leave us without a place to learn morality in the first place. How do we
learn to judge right and wrong but from our parents, our friends, our teachers, and our soci-
ety and its models? But if we try to tie morality too closely to our upbringing and our society,
then it looks as if there is no room for autonomy, no way in which we could disagree with our
family or society, no way to criticize the way in which we have been raised. Furthermore,
tying morality to particular societies raises an additional question: whether morality
(or moralities) may not be relative to particular societies and cultures.
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ety and its models? But if we try to tie morality too closely to our upbringing and our society
then it looks as if there is no room for autonomy, no way in which we could disagree with o
family or society, no way to criticize the way in which we have been raised. Furthermore,
tying morality to particular societies raises an additional question: whether morality
(or moralities) may not be relative to particular societies and cultures.
• In your opinion, which is the more appropriate interpretation of the view that moral-
ity coincides with what God commands: (1) the moral law is right because God
commands it? or (2) God commands the moral law because it is right? What are the
advantages and disadvantages of each view?
• Why does it make you uncomfortable when you ignore your conscience? Does it
help if others tell you that ignoring it is right?
B. Is Morality Relative?
Moralities, like lifestyles, vary from culture to culture and even from person to person. But
while there is nothing surprising about the fact that lifestyles vary, there is a problem in
the variation of moralities. Morality, by its very nature, is supposed to be a set of universal
principles—principles that do not distinguish between cultures or peoples or lifestyles. If it
is morally reprehensible to kill for fun, then it is morally reprehensible in every society, in
every culture, for every lifestyle, and for every person, no matter who he or she is. It will be
true even if the society or person in question does not agree with that moral principle.
Aristotle, for example, discusses at length what he calls “the wicked man,” who does evil
because he believes in immoral principles and therefore acts without regret, unlike the
person who acts badly from momentary weakness, force of circumstances, desperation, or
misinformation. But on what grounds can one society or person claim that another society’s
or person’s principles are immoral? How could European Christians, for example, be justified
in criticizing the sexual morality of Polynesians in the South Pacific? The Polynesians they