Is moral absolute or relative

My mum always tell me that in order to test if someone is retarded or not, ask them this very question.

> So Sup Forums, is moral absolute or relative?

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Relative. I think seeing moral as something absolute is extreme on a sjw level.

It is relative until you have morals. Then you see they are in fact, absolute.
The monkey brazilian will disagree but I am white and we hold ourselves to a higher standard.

moral doesn't exist, it is an illusion for soyboys

Absolute.
If it was relative, then it wouldn't be a moral, merely a custom.
Good post
Bad post

VERY bad post
literally how a nigger thinks

Your mom is obviously retarded.

Define morality

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>t.soyboy

It's absolutely relative and relatively absolute.

Morality can only be absolute. It must necessarily be true.

In truth, morality is relative, but one must live as if morality is absolute in order to maintain society once a morality has been set. To do less is to destroy the society based on those morals.

can you define morals then?

Relative.

You (or your society) create your morals by defining a goal or value to strive for, anything that is conducive to this goal or value is good. Anything that is detrimental to that goal or value is bad.

Also a society or individual possesses moral hierarchies. Some goals or values take precedence over others.

For example in america, the moral right to bear arms and defend oneself, takes precedence over the goal of having a society where people do not use weapons or are violent by any means.

So, now comes the question. As to how an individual or a collective comes up with these goals or values.

There are many ways, but most of them are biologically based and sociological derived basically it's based off of the individual nature.

Furthermore. In this worldview, morality is not confined to sentient beings.

Morality is rather an expression of the progression of that beings best interest.

For example any atom has the goal to obtain a full valence shell of electrons.

Anything that hinders the atoms ability to do this is morally wrong, and anything that helps the atom to do this is morally right.

TLDR: Morals are defined by our goals.
How you decide on your goals is an individual capacity of your nature.

>receiving advice on morality from a degenerate leaf

morality is, at it's core, entirely subjective. no two people experience life in the same way and there are many factors that determine a person's views of morally right and wrong. if you unironically believe that words on a page written by another person are an absolute guide to morality, then you're an easily tricked rube being played. fight me

No matter how much the mentally small scream otherwise, morality is relative. There is no objective determinant for morality. It is intrinsically a matter of personal feeling.

This doesn't mean that we have to personally accept all actions by others, especially when they harm other people. But that doesn't make it any less subjective.

Your mom always tells me harder and faster

Your mom is retarded then and by consequence so are you

Truth.

For some reason I was thinking about moral relativity vs moral subjectivity.

But morality is in fact always absolute in each frame of relative reference.

Morality is absolute.
Stoic philosophy can be a good guideline to it.

Question doesn't even make sense.
How would you verify a morality? Is it a system you make up like math? Look into the philosophy of math and branches like non-euclidean geometry. This stuff is all mental modeling. You can call it real, but it isn't real like physics.
If morals are real like physics, tell me how to verify they exist.
You have desires, others have desires, the universe has constraints, and actions have consequences. Sort it out.

it's self evident that morality is relative or doesn't exist at all. there's abundant evidence everywhere you look and throughout history. humans may agree on a few moral precepts but this is incidental and they are in no way a function of biology.

>Is moral absolute or relative
with spelling like that I don't think you are in any position to judge

I am a mutt I'll confess.
German, Norwegian and Polish.

white :^)

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>white
No.

>spic boi

So is it ever okay to kill someone? When is it okay? Self defence, when another human is in mortal danger, during war, as revenge for a murder, as revenge for a violent crime such as rape, as revenge for a non-violent crime like theft, as a preemptive defence such as killing someone who threatens you, when you are in physical but not mortal danger? Morality is relative because our experiences and upbringings shape us into individuals so that while general concepts may be seen as true for healthy humans (eg. don't kill people) the specifics can vary massively. Some people will say killing in any of those cases is wrong, others will say killing in any of those cases is acceptable, most people will say some of those cases killing is okay and in other cases it isn't with varying degrees of unity.

Your reasoning is nauseatingly self-serving, which is amoral.

This. To speak of morality as a metaphysical concept and say that its real is nonsense to me

>tips fedora

I have only Italian descent.

>can only argue with memes

Humanity only strives if it acts as if morals are absolute. If they act as if morals are relative they degenerate into absolute mayham. As contradicting as that last bit sounds, its true. Does that prove that morals are absolute? No, but they are only usefull if they are absolute, or worth having in other words. Relative morals are not worth having.
It's a tricky questions because chosing to live either way influences the answer.

It is okay to kill those who would do you and your kin harm. Would you lay down and die at the feet of your assailant? Would you watch them ravage your daughter?
How can you not know this? If you are serving the greater good you are moral. If you are serving yourself you are not.

memes, like stereotypes, are based in truth

good post.

no matter if they are absolute or relative, they are subjective in value, and only objective as a fact that they exist in humans. Nothing more nothing less.

>strawmans are real arguments
And I suppose his physical appearance and the type of hat he wears has anything to do with the quality of his argument, right? Fucking idiot

>if morals are absolute
That is completely dependent on the environment. Take the case of Uruguayan Flight 571. The survivors were all Roman Catholic but decided that it was moral to eat their friends and relatives who did not survive the crash, in order to survive. It's simple to believe in an absolute morality with a full belly and no survival pressures.

absolute

responsibility of morality can always be skirted with the cognitive dissonance of reducing it to a subjective "how do i feel about it today" kind of stance. Those who argue it is merely subjective are correct, but also lack conviction and, I'd argue, true morality. Absolute morality becomes real when it is committed to, like faith in god.
This backdoor of denial always exists and is necessary to relieve oneself of the responsibility of absolutism. We would be no better than programmed robots if it weren't. This is both the price of free will and also its reward.

Ask her to define moral.
Guarantee she fails.
Now who's the retard?

>pastanigger
>white

Mh yes, I would answer to that, that you would just have to specify your morals even more. Meaning you involved that rare case, and you are infact not doing anything bad according to your morals cause you included it in as good.
I think what OP meant with absolute vs relative is more like, is there a universal moral that is necessary for achieving a higher goal, or is achieving the higher goal not dependent on the morals, meaning a bunch of different moral would be okay enough. Though this "goal" is confusing enough also set by your morals in a way.
In a way saying "absolute vs relative morals" is like saying "dead vs living Dead", or "wet vs dry Water". I'm not sure though.

>Absolute morality becomes real when it is committed to
Again, morality is a function of evolving social customs and environmental pressures. That's why you can look back throughout human history and see the most barbaric behavior, much of it rooted in the belief that subjective morality was being violated, such as the Crusades and the Muslim conquests.

The answer is absolute, because if you say relative that makes you a moral relativist, which means you're the kind of fucking retard who thinks it's okay to cut off dicks and clits of kids because "well that's their culture" and other obviously disgusting and abhorrent practices.

>In a way saying "absolute vs relative morals" is like saying "dead vs living Dead", or "wet vs dry Water". I'm not sure though.
To add to that. Maybe you could say, that morals are created relative, but your held morals can only be absolute. Having relative morals is like having no moral at all, it's impossible. Your held morals have to be absolute, only by comparing them to other people you could say their creation is relative.

See

>Would you lay down and die at the feet of your assailant?
Would you? Do you value your life more than others'? Also what do you consider the greater good? Would killing the man who raped your daughter after the fact be considered for the greater good? Would driving to the house of the man who stole your wallet and shooting him be for the greater good? If the greater good is the only thing that matters why should you even have self preservation? If the greater good is what matters you should give away everything you own since you can help the greater good more by giving away all your shit.

General rules are fine but general rules aren't absolutes, and if you live by vague general rules like "help others" or "work for the greater good" than you aren't being a moral absolutist since your moral code is ambiguous and not absolute.

>humans may agree on a few moral precepts but this is incidental and they are in no way a function of biology.

They are absolutely not incidental to civilisation. Beliefs are evolutionary, as is our biology. And evolve to best serve us.

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If there's a supreme authority, it is absolute. If there is none, it's relative. Being Catholic, I think it's absolute.

>And evolve to best serve us.
We don't know if it actually does serve us best though.

>Maybe you could say, that morals are created relative, but your held morals can only be absolute.

I like it.

>is there a universal moral
And the answer is no, and I provided you with an example. Those survivors have all claimed that before the crash the thought of eating another human was completely immoral. They have revised their view based on their experience. Out of all of the crash survivors, only one refused to eat human remains, and he died and was in turn eaten.

Moral relativism is how you end up with transgender kindergarteners

Youre a autist and simply dont understand whats considered good and bad

Of course not. But we know they change and we know we are alive.

>who thinks it's okay to cut off dicks and clits of kids because "well that's their culture"
But as an American, you're probably circumcised yourself. And I can tell you as a European born American, that I think it's barbaric that your parents allowed it to happen.

What a poorly phrased question.
>Are morals absolute or relative?

Just because those guys didnt have their morals in order doesnt mean there could be no univerals morality. I'm not asking you to disprove or prove univerals morality. But you certainly didnt disprove it.

And you have yet to tell me what you believe as part of your moral absolutism.

When will user’s mum give her verdict?

>And evolve to best serve us
That's absolutely right. Given the right circumstances you will do unimaginable things to survive. This completely invalidates the thesis that there is a universal morality. We are survival machines, first and foremost. All of our values are completely dependent on the environmental pressures at any point in time.

Niggers

Your comprehension of the issue is terrible.

>Morality is the final refinemnt of human thought
I think I have to disagree with that. I tink Morality is the final refinement of subconscious abstract thought. And conscious thought is the very next step that is happening right now.
First Reflexes, Instinct, Dreams, Drama, Story, Morality and at last consciousness. Something like that. Our capacity to articulate everything has only been very recent and that's the hot new shit thats evolving.

Also I would questions why that beaver thinks number alone is enought to determine the "highest goal". If not every individual is as important as the other, then why is the greatest number of individuals more important than a lower one.

>Just because those guys didnt have their morals in order
They did have a very sophisticated view of morality that was based on Catholic social teachings. They quickly abandoned those teachings when it threatened their survival. Afterwards, a Catholic priest absolved them and found a loophole that would restore their sense of well being. I suggest you watch interviews of the survivors, it's a case study on cognitive dissonance. They have managed to convince themselves that the eating of their friends was some sort of holy communion sanctioned by god. Out of 100 people, 99 of them will eat their friends and family to stay alive.

Ironic because you phrased the question like a retard

It's absolutely relative.

>They did have a very sophisticated view of morality that was based on Catholic social teachings
Obviously it wasnt sophisticated enough if they had to do someting "bad" in order to survive. That's all I'm saying. If there is such a thing as an absolute and universal morality then it does tell you if its bad or not to eat those friends of yours.

>Obviously it wasnt sophisticated enough if they had to do someting "bad" in order to survive.
The choice was to eat human remains or die, they chose the former. And this is by no means an isolated case. I refer you to the Donner Party case. And if you are claiming to know what you would do under those same conditions, I suggest that you are fooling yourself.

I wonder if humanitie's ability to understand itself will every be big enough to fully understand itself. Or if it will always be a game of catch up, meaning if we grew our ability to understand ourselves more we also grew ourselves in total which gives more things about us to be understood.

>And if you are claiming to know what you would do under those same conditions, I suggest that you are fooling yourself.
I'm not. I'm not even sure what we're are arguing about. I told you already that your one example doesnt disprove if there is something like an universal morality. Something that is universally good or bad. It just shows the morality of that cannibals certainly wasnt universal. I'm not even claiming that there is such a thing, just presenting some arguments IF there is such a thing. It's fine if you belive there isnt, you didnt prove it though.

Absolute, if it was relative it would be non existant since everyone could make up his own morality.

Or relatively absolute?

>Then you see they are in fact
Umtil your perception of reality changes and your morals means jack shit.

Morals are an absolute relative.
That's why there is not one religion and countries have different constitutions.

Correct.

>I told you already that your one example doesnt disprove if there is something like an universal morality
The fact that humans have never had moral values that have completely aligned and that they also change over time, is all the evidence needed to invalidate the thesis that there is a universal morality. The fact that it doesn't exist across populations after millions of years of human evolution is the proof.

Alright.

When (for instance) a population (a tribe or a cult) had such absolute moral convictions that they’ll eradicate themselves rather than compromise does that not suggest that absolute morality can exist?

>Umtil your perception of reality changes and your morals means jack shit
Your perception has nothing to do with morals.

>That's why there is not one religion and countries have different constitutions.
So you want to tell me that no constitution is better than other and that each religion is correct in their beliefs?

Oh, you're one of those. Gotcha.

Morals will never be absolutes, but making can strive towards getting morals near to absolute. We are far from that at this point in time, due to our predisposition to greed and other organic impulses.

The only absolute in life is death. Everything else can't be absolute in reality.

>Your perception has nothing to do with morals
Since morals are a human construct, yes it has everything to do with what you make of reality.
>better
By saying that you agree that morals are relative.

>Absolute, if it was relative it would be non existant since everyone could make up his own morality.

Is it not the case that everyone can?

I mean many cultures jail murderers ... but all cultures have murderers.

>that they’ll eradicate themselves rather than compromise does that not suggest that absolute morality can exist?
I don't believe it does simply because of the fact that the earth has 7.6 billion people, all of whom are competing whith each other to stay alive. If you define absolute morality to mean survive at any cost and pass on your genes, then there's an absolute morality. And in that case it wouldn't be absolute, only relative. Any action that deviates from this survival strategy in any way invalidates the thesis.

Not at all. If you believe one belief/constitution is better than another you are comparing them both to some ideal which is absolute.

Lazy. Karl Popper would be pissed.

How can you have an absolute when everything about our reality is shaping itself on an environnement that is constantly evolving?
Sure the absolute exists, in the same way the present moment exists. As you say it it is already past.
Reality evolves but scriptures stay the same.
Sometimes we are up to date, other times we aren't.
The 2nd amendment is a great amendment, but how would you enforce it in a land 95% composed of peasants like in medieval europe? Or in a utopian future where guns become useless?

Moral comes from conscience. It is relative-a human raised by animal, can live without having human moral or conscience.
However, at normal condition (human society, family) it is absolute.
How absolute? Absolute enough that it still can exists. Hwo relative? Relative enough depending on the values held and shaped by the society.

I can kill you and it is perfectly okay. War has been killing civillians.

Absolute doesn’t only mean ‘universal’. It can simply mean complete ‘total’.

An individual can live by moral absolutes. Organised religions call them saints or martyrs. That they are outliers isn’t an argument against the existence of moral absolutism.

Its a requirement for civilization and any type of order.
Religion was just the fastest way to get that.

Don't play semantics, this is the definition of absolute we are talking about, as opposed to relative.

>Its a requirement for civilization and any type of order
Where life expectacy is 35 years old and you are a bad harvest away from dying, I can believe it.
In the current year this is insanity. Education and sanitation levels are way too high.
Innovation is haram tier.

Morality is subjective so it must be relative.

Absolute. Completely and utterly absolute. We just constantly fail to even approximate moral behavior.

absolute morality may exist, but no one has found it yet.

In the beginning a bunch of elders/wisemen decided absolute morality for their village/city/state/country/religion/whatever. Their situations were different though, and like all men they were flawed so they came up with some dumb shit. The along came the philosophers and scientists who said "wait a minute, none of this is provably better than the rest, so really its all relative." and that's where people are today mostly. If we could agree on a definition of what makes a decision "moral" instead of not, we could science out the behaviors that lead to that and produce an absolute code of morals. Unfortunately at the end of the day people have different values, so they have a hard time agreeing on what characteristics define a moral act. Maybe someday.

That’s funny. My mother told me to look at the flag at the top of the post.