This week’s reading from Mark Mitchell held a common theme of moral relativism. The moral universe has become relativized and has created areas where most of us don’t think that it is morally right to allow ppl to do morally unjust acts. At the visceral level there is foundational moral vocabulary created by society and there is to some degree a conforming to moral parameters that people have to adhere to. In order to be a consistent moral relativist one must think that everything that other people do is okay because we cannot morally judge them. We give up our autonomy at a certain level. In class we discussed examples like not being able to agree with someone agreeing to be murdered and cannibalized or someone willingly being someone’s slave. There is this moral distortion that occurs. Extreme acts like these create a moral vacuum. Left without a solution society rips itself apart and plays into this moralizing game. It is used as a mechanism to fuel revolutions and civil wars. Throughout time there has been an existing rift between transgressors and the morally pure. This is true with our current situation in the world and events like the bombing of civilians in Ukraine. This idea of the morally pure versus morally evil is a common theme evident in many religions as well. For instance in the case of Christianity Jesus was depicted as morally pure and was transgressed against and died for the salvation of humanity. Christians are taught that if they live morally pure lives in this world then their souls will be saved and they will be allowed to live in the utopia that is heaven. I think a lot of times it is not so simple or black and white with morality. There is a continuum and many gray areas of how we define moral acts. This varies greatly according to the moral and social conformity of different cultures as well.
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2 replies on “Week 12 blog part 1”
The example of moral relativism we talked about in class about being able to agree with someone agreeing to be murdered and cannibalized or someone willingly being someone’s slave made me think about what people can really do to prevent or punish people who do these types of things because that is really the only way you can stop it from occurring. We talked about how people cannot be allowed to give their body up allowing themselves to be murdered and cannibalized however, in this situation they are already dead by the time that the authorities will have found out about it so there is no way for the person to be punished. Obviously you can still punish the other person who was involved but we talked about the fact that someone should not be able to do that to themselves. This brings me to the point that certain things like this you can really control especially when it comes to people giving themselves up under their own will. At some point as a society, I think we have to accept that there are some people in our world who find enjoyment in some weird things like this and there’s really nothing we can do about it. The other side of this example that is complicated is that the person had consent to do those acts on the person who wanted to be murdered and cannibalized which is something that the authorties dont really deal with a lot in murder cases so how do they aprroach this situation. It is just very complex and I agree with what you said about it not being black and white. With cases like this there is always a gray area. Also, the idea of morally pure versus morally evil is a complicated one because what is morally pure and what is morally evil is up for interpretation and it varies from person to person, state to state, country to country, religion to religion, etc. It is impossible for everyones morals to be on the same page throughout the world which is why I agree with what you said about it being the cause of events like the bombing of civilians in Ukraine. The intellectuals who seek to achieve Utopia can try to do whatever they can to solve problems like these but I don’t think it is realistic to expect this to change. We just have to accept the gray area and deal with every situation individually knowing that there will not be one way to deal with these types of problems. Each problem will be unique in its own way and we may not be able to solve it perfectly but we can do what we believe is morally right. People have to accept that decisions they make will not always be accepted by others but that is why the people who are in positions of power to make these types of decisions are there. We cannot expect perfection from such complex problems.
This topic is extremely interesting. The point about religion and how religion is used almost as an excuse to make certain gruesome acts seem okay just because they are in defiance of a certain religious practice is something that has gone on for decades. This is something that is so prevalent in today’s society. One thing that came to mind was when women were named witches and burned at the stake. At the time, thousands of people were okay with this practice simply because they were afraid of these women and what they could do. Similarly, they listened to others who they believed were correct, making the act of burning human beings alive or hanging them for no valid scientific evidence okay. I think the gray area comes into play in certain situations which are deemed odd based on societal norms. An example of this would be the Salem witch trials. During that time, many people believed that was okay. Public hanging due to crimes was considered the norm, so many believed this was okay. Now, we look back on these acts as completely horrific and we see them as misogynistic, we know that these women were obviously not witches and should have never been murdered. At the time, however, this is not what people believed. This is an example of how beliefs can change over time. What people view as morally correct versus not is something that still today people have differences on. It makes it very difficult to make decisions that society will not have pushback on, because everyone has opinions that some people may completely disagree with. Another example that comes to mind is documentaries about serial killers. Many people believe that this is glorifying the acts in which a serial killer takes part. Others are extremely interested in the show, wanting to watch even more documentaries on serial killers. People who are against these documentaries believe that there should be more focus on the victims and less on the serial killer. Others believe that it is just bringing awareness to the crimes. This is an example of people who morally have different beliefs. Some are disgusted, others are fascinated. When it comes to today’s society I believe there is no solution to this problem. People will always have mixed beliefs, and a society in which everyone claims to have the same beliefs is corrupt. This can be applied to many different modern-day scenarios as simple as presidential elections. What people interpret to be true can look different across generations. This made me think about the idea of the truth and what it means to society today. People speak about “my truth,” in a way that seems that they interpret a certain scenario to be their truth. However, this does not mean that they can look at a fact and say the complete opposite because it is their truth. This is an example of how morality can change based on how people choose to operate in society. People view certain instances as morally correct because it is their truth. This idea is extremely philosophical and interesting and raises a lot of questions on how we can actually identify truths.