EM

Ethics class 1

Absolutism

  • definition: there exist absolute values; values do not vary from person to person or culture to culture; there is an objective morality.
  • caveat: a culture may be wrong about a value; e.g., Plato’s example: a culture may think killing strangers is alright, but that doesn’t make it right.
  • epistemic stance: even when we disagree now due to limited knowledge, there is an objective answer to moral questions; future generations may uncover it.
  • euthanasia example: should euthanasia be morally allowable? Absolutists would say there is an objective answer, even if we don’t know it yet; our intuitions or collective decisions may point toward it, but an objective answer exists.
  • Plato: sees an objective moral answer; if we lack current knowledge, we still must acknowledge there is an objective resolution.
  • Aristotle as realist and absolutist: he believes in objective values, but they are not grounded in a transcendent realm (e.g., not necessarily tied to God); rather they are based on human nature in general.
  • Kant (referred to here as Emmanuel Kant): another absolutist; holds that there are absolute moral values; his view in the eighteenth century anchors objective duties; moral law has a universal force.
  • relationship to human nature vs transcendence: the text emphasizes values can be grounded in human nature rather than in God or transcendent realms.

Relativism

  • position: moral values vary by culture or environment; there is no single objective standard across cultures.
  • anthropological genesis: early 20th-century anthropologists documented cultural differences and defended relativism: you should judge a culture by its own values.
  • Margaret Mead anecdote: claimed Samoa had looser sexual norms; later admitted the claim was not accurate and described it as a youthful work; she admitted lying about the Samoa findings.
  • environment shapes morality: in the tropics water scarcity may make certain restrictions morally salient (e.g., wasting water could be a sin), whereas in water-rich Scotland such restrictions may be less salient; environment influences what is considered moral.
  • link to the Sophists: relativism is linked to Sophist thought (not necessarily radical relativism, but close in spirit).
  • summary: most anthropologists are relativists in the sense that moral beliefs arise from and vary with specific cultures and environments.

Realism and Absolutism in Aristotle

  • Aristotle is described as a realist and an absolutist; he believes in objective values but not grounded in transcendent beings; rather they derive from human nature in general (shared human traits).

Subjectivism

  • Nietzsche as a subjectivist: moral truth claims are relative to individuals; there may be some sense of truth-value, but it is not universal or objective.
  • connection to postmodernism: Nietzsche is said to usher in postmodernism, the contemporary era in which these themes are prominent. The note mentions that postmodernism will be explained later.

Emotivism

  • two key figures: Ayer and Stevenson.
  • Ayer (G. E. Moore and logical positivism era context): statements about facts are either true or false; but statements about morality are not meaningful at all; moral claims express our feelings rather than describe facts.
  • Stevenson: builds on emotivism; argued there is no rational way to solve moral conflicts because moral disputes are about attitudes toward facts rather than objective truths.
  • historical note: Stevenson taught at Yale; he was denied tenure there for his claim; he had spent much of his career at the University of Michigan; the debate occurred in the context of post-WWII moral philosophy.

Historical and illustrative cases

  • The Melian Dialogue (Athens vs. Melos): Athenians demand obedience, threatening: you are either with us or against us; justice depends on power; the Melian council answers that justice is not universal but depends on equality of power; the Athenians retaliate violently, killing adult males and selling women and children into slavery. The speaker argues that justice comes “up only among equals”; Athens enforces its rule because it can.
  • Socrates’ trial and life:
    • Charges: not believing in the city’s gods (impiety) and corrupting the youth.
    • Athens’ political climate: the city’s religious and social norms; debate over what counts as belief in the gods; Socrates challenges conventional pieties and emphasizes rational discussion of divinity.
    • Socrates’ defense themes:
    • He denies atheism and argues for reverence toward divine matters; he emphasizes that if the gods are rational beings, then they know good and bad and would not do wrong.
    • He criticizes Homeric gods as morally flawed (examples: Aphrodite’s infidelity, Zeus’ misdeeds) to argue that the gods should be understood as virtuous and rational.
    • He often frames piety and virtue in terms of truth and justice rather than mere tradition.
    • The “divine sign” (daimonion): Socrates claims a divine inner voice warned him against certain actions; various interpretations exist about what this sign was or meant.
    • Meletus and the accusation of atheism: Socrates argues that he is not an atheist; he points out that truth and divine matters matter; his defense includes the claim that he asks others to examine him and to speak the truth.
    • Episodes Socrates cites in his life to illustrate his stance against injustice:
    • Refusing to arrest an innocent man when ordered by the Thirty (the regime that preceded the trial).
    • In wartime, when there was a law requiring the rescue of survivors from a battle, Socrates chose not to participate in prosecuting or coordinating a case against a captain who did not rescue survivors; he says he would not participate in actions that he believed would involve unjust conduct.
    • Purpose of Socrates’ life claims: to show that he would not commit injustice or disobey the law merely to please others; if the Thirty had prevailed, he might have been arrested otherwise.
    • The attorney’s and jury’s reaction: Socrates emphasizes that the accusers spoke without truth; he promises to present the truth, even if painful.
    • Philosophical context and interpretations:
    • Early Christians sometimes viewed Socrates as a prophet-like figure in the tradition of speaking with divine guidance.
    • Hegel’s view: conscience evolves historically; Homer’s heroes lack a developed sense of conscience; conscience appears with the evolution of human spirit.
    • Nietzsche’s critique: guilt is a Christian invention (and Nietzsche sometimes conflates Christian and Jewish frames); conscience and guilt are historically contingent rather than universal moral features.
    • A modern Princeton professor speculated that Socrates might have been schizophrenic due to hearing “the divine sign,” but this view is not widely accepted; the consensus rejects that interpretation.
    • Socrates’ cross-examination and final stance: He emphasizes the importance of truth and justice; he defends his life as a defense of truth against political expediency; he claims that not following injustice is consistent with his life mission.
    • Epicurus on politics (briefly mentioned): politics is a life of betrayal, where friends become rivals when entering political life; this is used to reflect on the moral complexity of public life.

Postscript and connections

  • The instructor notes that these positions and figures help classify philosophers into categories (absolutism, relativism, subjectivism, emotivism) and to place historical events (Melos, Socrates) within these frameworks.
  • The lecture foreshadows further exploration of postmodernism and related themes, indicating that the era we live in now has its own moral-philosophical framework that will be explained later.
  • Throughout, the thread emphasizes that moral questions often involve conflicts between intuitive judgments, cultural norms, rational argument, and historical context; the aim is to map these ideas to the positions on morality (absolutism, relativism, subjectivism, emotivism).