JERDOG

This question is for the ones who claim that morality is relative and not objective.
Is it possible ,in your mind, for the claim that all men are created equal to really mean something?
Thesis believe that men are created equal and have equal rights because of god.
Objectivist believe that men have equal rights due to reality.
Is it possible for someone who believes reality is relative to believe that all men have equal rights?

bd-from-kg

Yes. It can be taken as a moral injunction, which is just the way theists take it. Of course it can't be taken literally. But then, Christians don't take it literally either.

Nonsense. Historically theists have been among the last to accept the idea that all men are created equal. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible, or in Jesus' teachings, to support this idea. According to the Old Testament the Jews are God's "chosen people". He ordered the Israelites to massacre hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people because of their race. He also ordered that those with certain deformities must not be allowed into the Temple. The New Testament orders slaves to obey their masters and women to obey their husbands. Is this your idea of "equal rights"?

The plain reality is that theists make up thier morality like everyone else, but then have the audacity to attribute their personal preferences to God.

Nonsense. Some objectivists have believed this; lot of others haven't. Moslems believe that it's OK to kill people for refusing to convert to Islam. Nazis (who certainly were objectivists whatever else they were) believed that Jews and Gypsies were vermin to be exterminated and that no non-Aryan had any rights that any Aryan was bound to respect.

Non-objectivists do not believe that "reality is relative". They do not believe that moral principles have a "real" existence in the sense of existing regardless of what anyone thinks, believes or feels.

In any case, saying that men "have" equal rights is really just a way of saying that people should treat other people in a certain way. (The details are complicated, of course.) There's no reason why a non-objectivist can't believe this just as well as an objectivist. Of course, what he means will be somewhat different from what an objectivist mean, as will be true of all moral statements.

JERDOG

I agree 100%. But I am saying that this is what they claim. You know the typical conservative southern American rants about god given rights etc etc etc.

I'm talking about Randian Objectivist. I'm not familiar with any other type. If someone claims to be an Objectivist and doesn't believe that rights are backed up with reality then they are not an objectivist.

Well I am talking about relativist. People who do believe that it is relative.

So my question pertains to those who...
1) Believe that morality is relative, and
2) believe that all men have equal rights

How is this reconciled?

Ihatecheese

So is it relational or absolute?

DRFseven

Well, JERDOG, all men, as well as all women, are NOT "created" equal, and do NOT have equal rights, and this is something that anyone can look around and see, regardless of whether they call themselves objectivists, subjectivists, or whatever.

Dr. Retard

99% of the time, when people talk about everyone having equal rights, they're not talking about legal or conventional rights. They're talking about moral rights.

Alonzo Fyfe

bd-from-kg is correct in that religious doctrine does not support the doctrine of equality.

The dominant argument in defense of slavery in the United States before 1860 were biblical passages explaining who may be legitimately enslaved and how slaves were to be treated. Before that, biblical passages were used to support the divine right of kings -- the idea that God himself selected who would be rulers and who would be ruled.

The most influential argument against slavery came, perhaps, from John Locke who -- though he did mention a God -- did not derive even the least bit of his ethical theory from scripture. Rather, Locke turned his attention to the idea of man in a state of nature, and looked for the moral principles that could be derived from reason.

Within this framework, his argument for equality was quite simple. He simply challenged any who would support inequality to explain how they would derive a natural right of rulership of one person over another. There simply is no natural mark or property from which it logically follows that A has a right to rule over B; whether in the form of king and subject, or in the role of master and slave.

If not for the rise of secular moral philosophy in the 17th and 18th centuries, I have little doubt that we would still be ruled by kings, with most of us being serfs or slaves.

DRFseven

And moral rights mean the rights that people think others should have. Here again, most people do not think everyone should have the same rights, so, no, people don't have the same moral rights. Defenders of inequality range from among the most prosperous and independent to the most down-trodden members of a society. Debate over whether all people should have equality are endless and get bogged down in logistics. And why stop at people?

JERDOG

OK excluding people who murder or do immoral acts. Give me an example of a man and his counterpart in where one man has more of a right to life than the other.


Let me be a bit more specific when I say "mans equal rights". Lets take life for example.
Who or what says that everyone here reading this right now has the right to be alive? (now exclude people who murder from this question because that would bring us into a death penalty discussion).

If morality is subjective then my supposed right to life really does not exist does it?
There is no one or no thing that supports any notion that a right to life exist if you believe in a subjective morality correct?

DRFseven

Well, I don't know if you're a man or not, but let's say you are. An example would be you and an Iraqi man who expressed admiration/relief for the Coalition forces and was subsequently beheaded. There are similar examples all over the world illustrating the lack of the right to life.

A document exists asserting my right to life, but it is meaningless as far as actually giving me the right if someone decides to kill me, or if I die from some other cause. The minute I die I lose my "right" to life. I had a sibling who died as an infant; where was his right to life?

Your only right to life exists as a legality and many people all over the world don't even have that, whether you are subjectivist or not. Just as many subjectivists as objectivists would say that all people SHOULD have the right to life.