Thread: Justifying Ethical Relativism

Can a Darwinist be appalled at certain "unethical" actions and yet remain consistent with ethical relativism, under the grounds that, as we evolved into our human state, our newly evolved cognitive faculties created the grounds for a much more complex attachment with others beings. Therefore with our new cognitive abilities the loss of a companion becomes much more significant, because our newly evolved ration creates deeper attachment. If we had no intellect and could not "get to know" other personalities besides touching and motioning, then murder would not be as big of a loss.

still waiting for some sort of answer...

No, he could not be appalled and still remain consistent with his worldview. At best all he could say is that his feeling of being appalled is just the way the chemicals in him react to certain stimuli. (But that takes away any sort of true "ethical" view)

CT

Absolutes are inescapable, even for relativists. That's because God's law is written upon the hearts of all men (cf. Rom. 1). Yet because men prefer to suppress the truth, they replace God-given morality with 'altruism' and argue that altruism is a result of evolution. Altruism can only be consistent with Darwinian natural selection on a species-collective level, rather than an individual level. However, this is contrary to human nature as we understand it from the Bible (cf. Gen. 6.5; Jer. 13.23) or from observing human society. Fallen man naturally and only pursues self-interest. Basically, Darwinian relativists want to dump God's law and replace it with ethics of their own making. As Voltaire said, "If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him."

He certainly would have no right to impose his "feelings" on someone else, this isn't relativism.

Where did I imply this?

Two problems are:

(1) This would be a naturalistic fallacy, i.e., just because I evolved this way does not imply that I *ought* to believe this way.

Maybe I'm just slow and you will have to simplify because I don't remember infering anyone "ought" to feel anyway.

An ethical relativist in this given situation, wouldn't say anyone "ought" to feel anyway, but would only be trying to make sense of their anger and sorrow at the murder of a relative as being dictated through "evolved" complex cognitive thought that they invested into an individual. Thus the negative feelings toward murder are not based on universal ethics but rather on universal cognitive evolution. Not making it right or wrong but just the effect of a newly evolved cognitive cause.

So if a Darwinist claims ethical relativity, and a Christian ask what he would want done if someone were to slaughter his family. The Darwinist could desire the murderer to be executed, but not because of moral means but because of selfish means derived from his cognitive attachment. Thus it's not immoral to slaughter a family for no reason because morals don't exist unless invented, but even in a world or no morals, the effects of such a cause of slaughtering a family can still be emotionally negative from our new increased attachment through evolution. So there is no "ought" only an explanation of evoleved cause-effect relationshipos in the complex homo-sapien.

(2) Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against Naturalism would be good here. Basically, why believe that the way our cognitive faculties evolved (i.e., *for survival*) give true reports about the world outside us? All that matters is your belief help you to survive. So, I could have evolved to think that every time I see a hungry lion, I form the belief that it is a cute kitten. In order to pet this "kitten" I must runa away from it. So, my belief would have survival value but would not marry up to the read world. On evolutionary assumptions why assume your beliefs must marry up to the real world?

This is a good point.

Pardon me! But I was assuming you were asking about morality. Above you just took this out of the ethical realm, so your original question is misguided. So, my answer was for someone who proposed and *ethical* position. If someone went the strictly evolutionary/physical route, then I gave another answer-to which you said-

This is a good point.

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Sorry, didn't mean to come off as rude or harsh.

ah ha ::blushes::