Moral relativism

[Fantine]

This has been described by religious conservatives as the greatest evil of our time. We have lost our "sense of sin."

Here's my read on it. An act can be objectively sinful, but the person committing the act may or may not be sinning--his responsibility diminished or even erased based on numerous factors--cultural, situational, emotional, intellectual, etc.

Suicide, for example, is a sinful act, but the deceased almost always was mentally or emotionally ill, diminishing or erasing his responsibility.

A moral relativist recognizes the objective act but looks at each act in the context of the life and situational factors of each individual.

Obviously society needs to find a balance between toxic judgmentalism and unconditional acceptance.

I tend to fall closer to the second alternative and sometimes think it might be better if I did not always bend over backwards to understand people's motivations and issues.

I would like to hear what people on the other edge of the spectrum think of this theory.

I seek only greater understanding.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

We have lost our sense of sin as a (specifically Western) society. The moral relativism you're advocating for exists solely to deconstruct sin and ultimately in the end justify it on other considerations, most especially compassion. On suicide I think G.K Chesterton had the correct idea, our pitfful mental state does not justify it or give us an excuse, rather it only deepens condemnation of the person betraying life.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

This has been described by religious conservatives as the greatest evil of our time. We have lost our "sense of sin."

Here's my read on it. An act can be objectively sinful, but the person committing the act may or may not be sinning--his responsibility diminished or even erased based on numerous factors--cultural, situational, emotional, intellectual, etc.

Suicide, for example, is a sinful act, but the deceased almost always was mentally or emotionally ill, diminishing or erasing his responsibility.

A moral relativist recognizes the objective act but looks at each act in the context of the life and situational factors of each individual.

Obviously society needs to find a balance between toxic judgmentalism and unconditional acceptance.

I tend to fall closer to the second alternative and sometimes think it might be better if I did not always bend over backwards to understand people's motivations and issues.

I would like to hear what people on the other edge of the spectrum think of this theory.

I seek only greater understanding.

I believe the most extream form of " relativism " is allowing same sex marriage for both congregants and clergy. This can only be achieved by corrupting scripture. We have witnessed over and over again throughout the centuries how one can twist scripture in order to achieve a desired agenda. The purity of the Gospel remains and has not been diminished. It is the evilness of the flesh that quenches and diminishes His Holy Spirit therefore spreading works of iniquity.
Blessings.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

As Archbishop Fulton Sheen wrote, "everyone has a Mt Sinai within." They know when they are committing
moral sin, and no matter how they try to deny it, the truth will eventually come out.

As Dr Jordan Peterson has said, no one gets a way with the wrong they do.

He should know, he's treated countless numbers of people who confess to him when they did wrong.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

FYI, today I watched on YouTube, Jordan Peterson with a panel which included Denis Prager and other scripture and philosophical scholars discussing the book of Exodus. It was only an 8-minute segment, but it interested me enough to subscribe to The Daily Wire.

Anyway, I was able to watch one hour of the first part, which is two hours. It has much to do with the subject of this thread
and on the relative moralism.

I'm happy that I subscribed even just for this series.

 

[Fantine]

But how does that address addiction, for example. The first experience might be culpable but once an addiction is physical superhuman effort is required.

A friend who has gone to AA for many years moved here recently. She became close with a woman and thought that they were good friends. The woman has castigated her for continuing to go to AA meetings. My friend says that she needs them, but the other woman tells her it's just a decision and there is no such thing as addiction.

People experience PTSD, not only after wars, but after traumatic experiences in their lives.

As I said a sinful act is objective, but the verb of actively sinning is dependent on numerous variables.

If I were to have judgmental thoughts about people without knowing what their struggles were I would consider that sinful for myself. That is why I feel it is so hurtful and counterproductive for people to throw around epithets about abortion, sexual orientation, gender orientation, and more.

I also feel that the inflexible punitive images of God have probably driven more people away from him than anything else. And we can't blame that on God. We have to blame the purveyors of that image, but who knows what emotional scars and wounds they might be carrying to have given them the image of God they so freely share?

 

[Brad D.]

When there is no love for truth everything is relative (2 Thessalonians 2:10 ). I think if you really look to see who has been thrown under the bus You are far more likely to find Christ than any of the aforementioned segments of the population you named. So where is the true hatred? But With that said,. You are right the world doesn't need one more self-righteous finger pointer waging a political battle instead of speaking the truth in love. There are many like that who could use far more of Christ in their own life as well.

So it is true, there wasn't one person Jesus didn't show mercy, from the harlot to the hated tax collectors of His day. But at the same time when all the dust settled, all the miracles had been done, He was murdered on a cross, and there were only a handful of people in an upper room somewhere who believed. Those are not the results of someone whose words were easy. Those are the words rather of someone who said, "I love you. You are forgiven. Now pick up your cross and follow me." People like the first part of those words, but hate the second. I'll leave it up to you to conclude which segment of those sentences got Him killed.

We can make Christ whoever we want Him to be. But that is not love. That does not help anybody.

 

[Yekcidmij]

A moral relativist recognizes the objective act but looks at each act in the context of the life and situational factors of each individual.

Is what you describe here really moral relativism though? Seems like one could be a moral objectivist and still think it's right to consider situational factors in moral decisions. I think what would make one a moral relativist would be to say something like this: person X in situation S is obligated to do some action A, but person Y in the same exact situation S is not obligated to do A (because such obligations are by nature, relative). I think the objectivst would say that any person in situation S is obligated to do A. This looks like it's basically a version of Kant's categorical imperative.

 

[public hermit]

This has been described by religious conservatives as the greatest evil of our time. We have lost our "sense of sin."

Here's my read on it. An act can be objectively sinful, but the person committing the act may or may not be sinning--his responsibility diminished or even erased based on numerous factors--cultural, situational, emotional, intellectual, etc.

Suicide, for example, is a sinful act, but the deceased almost always was mentally or emotionally ill, diminishing or erasing his responsibility.

A moral relativist recognizes the objective act but looks at each act in the context of the life and situational factors of each individual.

Obviously society needs to find a balance between toxic judgmentalism and unconditional acceptance.

I tend to fall closer to the second alternative and sometimes think it might be better if I did not always bend over backwards to understand people's motivations and issues.

I would like to hear what people on the other edge of the spectrum think of this theory.

I seek only greater understanding.

I don't think relativism can be avoided. How do we distinguish between murder and killing in self-defense? Imagine someone is attacked and accidentally kills the perpetrator. That is killing, which is destructive and not good, but it stopped an intentional act to end life. Those are two distinct acts, based on motivation. One wanted to kill, and the other wanted to stop the killing but unintentionally killed in the process.

I think this issue is related to moral luck, as well; although, it is not exactly like the above scenario because it pertains to circumstances instead of motivations.

Given the notion of equating moral responsibility with voluntary action, however, moral luck leads to counterintuitive solutions. This is illustrated by an example of a traffic accident. Driver A, in a moment of inattention, runs a red light as a child is crossing the street. Driver A tries to avoid hitting the child but fails and the child dies. Driver B also runs a red light, but no one is crossing and only gets a traffic ticket.

If a bystander is asked to morally evaluate Drivers A and B, they may assign Driver A more moral blame than Driver B because Driver A's course of action resulted in a death. However, there are no differences in the controllable actions performed by Drivers A and B. The only disparity is an external uncontrollable event. If it is given that moral responsibility should only be relevant when the agent voluntarily performed or failed to perform some action, Drivers A and B should be blamed equally. This may be intuitively problematic, as one situation resulted in a death.

Moral luck - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Yekcidmij]

I don't think relativism can be avoided. How do we distinguish between murder and killing in self-defense?

Surely there is at least some sort of distinction between self defense and murder. Just because the area in between self defense and murder can be less the clear at times doesn't mean there is NO distinction WHATSOEVER. And to suggest otherwise is patently ridiculous.

 

[public hermit]

Surely there is at least some sort of distinction between self defense and murder. Just because the area in between self defense and murder can be less the clear at times doesn't mean there is NO distinction WHATSOEVER. And to suggest otherwise is patently ridiculous.

I am agreeing with you; that is why relativism matters, because situations and motivations differ.

 

[YahuahSaves]

In Gods view, all sin is equal.
Jesus said whoever hates his brother in his heart is a murderer.
You don't even have to commit an act, you only have to think it.
In the case of true self-defense, where no ill-will is intended by the victim to the perpetrator, I'm sure God would not see that as deliberate sin, but the posture of the heart counts. HE knows when we're truly remorseful and when we're not.

 

[Yekcidmij]

In Gods view, all sin is equal.

Why didn't he command all sin to be punished equally? Seems to me he made a distinction - as do we. If I steal a loaf of bread from the store, something is qualitatively different from murdering someone. The two sins are not "equal" and nobody, including God, treats them as equal.

 

[Yekcidmij]

I am agreeing with you; that is why relativism matters, because situations and motivations differ.

Why is this relativism though? Considering situation and motivation doesn't strike me as relativistic, per se.

 

[Roymond]

This has been described by religious conservatives as the greatest evil of our time. We have lost our "sense of sin."

Here's my read on it. An act can be objectively sinful, but the person committing the act may or may not be sinning--his responsibility diminished or even erased based on numerous factors--cultural, situational, emotional, intellectual, etc.

Suicide, for example, is a sinful act, but the deceased almost always was mentally or emotionally ill, diminishing or erasing his responsibility.

A moral relativist recognizes the objective act but looks at each act in the context of the life and situational factors of each individual.

Obviously society needs to find a balance between toxic judgmentalism and unconditional acceptance.

I tend to fall closer to the second alternative and sometimes think it might be better if I did not always bend over backwards to understand people's motivations and issues.

I would like to hear what people on the other edge of the spectrum think of this theory.

I seek only greater understanding.

I'd say that you're mixing two different things; on the one hand, sin, while on the other, public morals/ethics.

For sin, there is no fudging; anything that falls short of perfect righteousness is sin, period -- there's no grade scale, no grading on a curve, there's just what an engineer would call 100% inspection and 100% compliance. It doesn't matter if an action is meditated and carried through, is done on impulse, is done without even thinking about it, or even is done without being aware of the action; all that matters is that it is not 100% compliant. This is what Jesus was pointing to when in the Sermon on the Mount He told the crowd, "You have heard it said.... but I say....", moving the "goalpost" from outward physical action to just the thought regardless of whether the thought is carried through. And His conclusion of that discourse was, "So be perfect/complete as My Father in Heaven is perfect/complete". If an action, or even a thought, isn't perfect/complete, it's sin -- and in fact the Apostle takes this theme to its ultimate conclusion, that "everything which is not of faith is sin".

But in society the concern isn't sin, it's public order and safety. Public order depends on what a society considers good and what it considers bad, not on any absolute scale, and thus public morals are by nature somewhat situational and also somewhat flexible -- and thus situational ethics can come into play, depending on the basic moral concepts of the society; a society where morals are defined according to standards of sin will be far less flexible, which means far less understanding, compassion, and mercy, while a society that is based on some shared understanding of what is good and what is bad will have much more flexibility and so have far more room for understanding, compassion, and mercy. This also means that whether a given system is objective can only judged by how much that society understands what is and what isn't actually harmful to others, and whatever standard is set will also bend according to what a society considers heroic or worthy of praise.

Ironically this means that for a society to be stable it cannot hold tight to rigid standards, i.e. to measures of sin, because that society will be less capable of compassion and mercy, while at the other end of the spectrum a society that is too flexible will also not be stable because there will be no agreed-on measure of justice, let alone its positive companion virtues.

Since your question looks at associating with other people, then you have to find a balance that works for you -- a truth that requires you to be flexible and thus to some extent view things relatively. How do you decide on your public standards, then? St. Paul offers some advice: insofar as is possible with you, be at peace with all men. In more modern terms we might say, as much as you're capable, get along with people.

 

[YahuahSaves]

Why didn't he command all sin to be punished equally? Seems to me he made a distinction - as do we. If I steal a loaf of bread from the store, something is qualitatively different from murdering someone. The two sins are not "equal" and nobody, including God, treats them as equal.

All sin is equal in that it separates us from God, however all sin (no matter how big or small) can be forgiven by believing/following Jesus. (Saved by grace through faith/and faith being the constant). He will punish sin equally, the major sin is not believing in the Son of God and the redemption of the Cross and never knowing him.

 

[Roymond]

I also feel that the inflexible punitive images of God have probably driven more people away from him than anything else. And we can't blame that on God. We have to blame the purveyors of that image, but who knows what emotional scars and wounds they might be carrying to have given them the image of God they so freely share?

Inflexible punitive images of God only drive people away when Christians fail to make clear that His welcome and mercy are far, far greater. When God's mercy is shown to be so great that His punitive side practically vanishes, emotional scars and wounds can be opened to healing; as the inspired writer said, perfect love casts out all fear. And when one has abundant emotional scars and wounds and then meets mercy, one understands the Savior more than those who have not so suffered.

If you're trying to apply judgment, then you will never manage to avoid tripping over other people's emotional scars and wounds, but if you present mercy then those scars and wounds can transform to treasures.

 

[public hermit]

Why is this relativism though? Considering situation and motivation doesn't strike me as relativistic, per se.

Because the blame and responsibility is relative to motivation and/or circumstances. This is why the law of love covers more (moral) territory than specific laws. The law of love will always seek the good of the other; whereas, the specific law against lying might not always seek the good of others, e.g., do I lie to Nazi's when they come asking about hidden Jews, when I happen to be hiding some?

 

[Roymond]

When there is no love for truth everything is relative (2 Thessalonians 2:10 ). I think if you really look to see who has been thrown under the bus You are far more likely to find Christ than any of the aforementioned segments of the population you named. So where is the true hatred? But With that said,. You are right the world doesn't need one more self-righteous finger pointer waging a political battle instead of speaking the truth in love. There are many like that who could use far more of Christ in their own life as well.

So it is true, there wasn't one person Jesus didn't show mercy, from the harlot to the hated tax collectors of His day. But at the same time when all the dust settled, all the miracles had been done, He was murdered on a cross, and there were only a handful of people in an upper room somewhere who believed. Those are not the results of someone whose words were easy. Those are the words rather of someone who said, "I love you. You are forgiven. Now pick up your cross and follow me." People like the first part of those words, but hate the second. I'll leave it up to you to conclude which segment of those sentences got Him killed.

We can make Christ whoever we want Him to be. But that is not love. That does not help anybody.

Those who have been healed of deep scars and wounds will react joyfully to picking up that cross and following; it is those whose wounds were not so deep who find that cross a burden.

 

[Roymond]

Why didn't he command all sin to be punished equally? Seems to me he made a distinction - as do we. If I steal a loaf of bread from the store, something is qualitatively different from murdering someone. The two sins are not "equal" and nobody, including God, treats them as equal.

God does treat them as equal insofar as their being sin; as Paul reminds us, he who has failed in one point of the Law has failed it all. God "grades" on a Pass/Fail basis, but the only grade that is not a Fail is 100% correct.
God has decreed a difference in penalties in terms of society; that's where He doesn't treat them as equal -- but that is not a system where righteousness is measured, only public safety and public good. And He treats them that way not because it resembles anything heavenly but because our sinful mortal eyes cannot see that all sin is the same and run a society on that basis, we are by nature people who measure one thing against another and thus set wrongs on a scale from,"Oh, well, no one got hurt" all the way to "Off with her head!", and so God condescends with our weakness and gives societal rules that we can find reasonable.