Hi all, By request, the following are suggested definitions for terms relative to discussions of morality and relativism. I have taken much of the below from Jeffrey Stout's book exploring relativism, Ethics After Babel. Some definitions have a "good sense" and a "bad sense" to distinguish conceptions that are consistent with the MOQ (i.e., good sense) from those that are inconsistent with the MOQ and represent the SOM understanding (i.e., bad sense).
Knowledge: justified true belief. A term that is best understoof by distinguishing truth, justification, and belief. What one may be justified in believing to be true may not actually be true. Truth is independent of justification and belief. Truth (bad sense): an essence that we have a duty to conform to and to construct a theory about. Truth (good sense): One among many values that we want our theories to have but do not need a theory about. A transparent concept about which we learn all we need to know by considering how the word "true" functions in sentences such as, '"The cat is on the mat" is true if and only if the cat is on the mat.' "Truth is warranted assertability": A false theory of truth, associated with pragmatism (bad sense) and refuted by familiar cases in which we are justified in asserting a proposition at a given time but later discover the the proposition to have been false; also a snappy but misleading way of summing up the idea, characteristic of pragmatism (good sense), that in a pragmatic view of inquiry seeking warranted assertability replaces seeking Truth (bad sense). Moral realism (good sense): The view that moral propositions such as "slavery is evil" have truth value; the view that moral propositions do not suffer in epistemological standing when compared to scientific statements. Moral realism (bad sense): The idea that to explain the truth of a moral proposition we have to establish correspondence with a "Moral Law." Relativism (bad sense): the idea that any theory is as good as any other; the idea that the same proposition can be true relative to one conceptual scheme and false relative to another. Relativism (good sense): the idea that what you are justified in believing or warranted in asserting or able to treat as a candidate for your assent depends upon what concepts or modes of reasoning are available to you; the idea that what makes a theory or an interpretation good or bad depends upon the purposes you might reasonable want it to serve. (Claiming to subscribe to this sort of relativism renders one vulnerable to misunderstanding because the term "relativism" is usually taken in conversation as the "bad sense.") Moral nihilism: The view that there is no such thing as truth in ethics Moral skepticism: The view that if there are moral truths, we do not justified beliefs about them. In other words moral knowledge does not exist. Moral relativism (bad sense): the view that what may be wrong for one group based on its fundamental assumptions may not be wrong for another group whose moral reasoning is based on different assumptions. Associated with a denial of moral realism (good sense and bad sense). Moral relativism (good sense): the view that what may be justifiable for one group based on its fundamental assumptions may not be justifiable for another group whose moral reasoning is based on different assumptions, but the truth of a given moral proposition is independent of whether or not anyone is justified in believing it; asociated with moral realism (good sense) and denial of moral realism (bad sense). In other words, justification is relative to an epistemic context, but truth (whether ethical or scientifc) is truth (good sense). (Claiming to subscribe to this sort of relativism renders one vulnerable to misunderstanding because the term "relativism" is usually taken in conversation as the "bad sense.") Moral absolutist (bad sense): one holding to moral realism (bad sense) and claiming to have access to the Moral Law. Moral absolutist (good sense): one holding to moral realism (good sense) and claiming Dynamic Quality to be a constant. Relativist: a epithet used to accuse someone of holding to moral relativism (bad sense) and denying the existence of truth (good sense as well as bad sense). I hold out little hope for redescription of the label "relativist" for someone who subscribes to moral relativism (good sense) and truth (good sense) because the term is currently associated with all the "bad senses" which assume a subject-object metaphysics. In my opinion, one who denies SOM and subscribes to the MOQ is both a relativist (good sense) and an absolutist (good sense) at the same time. These terms are mutually exclusive in SOM. As a rhetorical startegy, I think we should generally deny being absolutists (unspecified sense) as well as a relativists (unspecificed sense) because they both apprear to buy into an SOM "either/or" and are generally taken in converstion as the "bad senses" of the terms. Best, Steve Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
