Primal

I don't udnerstand how morals being products of evolution makes them relative. That is like saying since our pain/pleasure mechanisms evolved, no one practice satifies our pain/pleasure mechanisms more then any other. If anything it just means that there are variations, but that does not make morals or practices in relation to morals relative. Nor does it make moral beliefs relative.

Genes likewise vary from individual to individual, from group to group. I have yet to se how that would justify genetic relativism though.

Adrian Selby

Longbow:

I'm interested in an earlier post of yours.

Are you saying here that there is no meaning to relative truth? Is truth that is relative to different people or societies 'flaky', indeed, is that any kind of substantial criticism? I do not see it as meaningless to assert that person A believes 'X is wrong' to be a true proposition, but that this proposition might not actually be true. Person A might take to be true the statement 'It is raining on my head' and they can quite clearly be right or wrong about this belief of theirs.

The proposition 'X is wrong' isn't necessarily true or false, like 'It is raining on my head' is. This is because it is a normative not a purely descriptive proposition. For evidence regarding raining on my head, we can provide clear proof of drops of water falling and landing on my head, or we can't. For evidence of X being wrong, do we look to social norms, genetic predilections? I'd appreciate some clarity here. I find that one could say 'X is wrong' and back this up with, 'while a participant and citizen of this society, it is true that X is wrong'. I question whether the status of that proposition is equivalent to more 'coldly' descriptive/observational statements such as the raining one, with regard to your surety that such statements can be objectively true or false.

I think this is wrong. It can be shown that someone can believe 'X is wrong' is a true or false statement, but that doesn't mean they are right, and that therefore there is any kind of objective foundation to morality. Perhaps I misunderstand you. Are you saying, by your last sentence, that it can be known that X really is wrong or right, and that this is the case for everyone and for all time? That you can somehow provide evidence such that someone presenting the contrary must necessarily be mistaken? If so, I'd like to see such a statement. You do not have to assume that the statement has propositional content, you simply argue whether or not someone is right to assume it. In other words, you yourself assume it has propositional content, I do not dispute that you think it is objectively true or false, only that it is objectively true or false. It is not meaningless to say that within certain societies, it is true to say that X is wrong. Thus it can be objectively true that certain societies think X is wrong, but this doesn't of course mean 'X is wrong' is a true statement per se.

I would ask here what your justifications are for asserting that it could be true that eating ice cream is wrong, objectively, or that it could be false. If you're only saying that people think it could be true or false, that's not saying anything relevant to your position as I understand it. I personally do not understand how such a statement has anything to do with knowledge. How do we go about showing that it is true or false that eating ice cream is wrong? I really am confused as to how you go about finding evidence for your assertion that this statement is objectively true or false.

You may reply that your only interest is in asserting that this statement could be true or false, and we can't rule out that it isn't with sufficient surety. If this is the case, I again suggest that I cannot conceive of a way in which we could begin to show that there is truth or falsity to the statement 'Eating ice cream is wrong' because I find that suggesting a framework for resolving the problem is fraught with its own issues.