Relativistic Morality


This document describes my idea of relativistic morality. Although others may have thought along these lines, to the best of my knowledge and that of some very well read friends, I am the first to use this phrase. I apologize that this is not a well constructed argument; I'm still exploring the ideas and cannot yet write convincingly about them.

Most theories of morality try to either eliminate morality or apply it universally. Relativistic morality, though, applies morals within reference frames. For example, there might be rock morals. These morals are good for rocks and make sense for rocks, but not for cows or humans. But, since rocks don't appear to show goal oriented behavior, they cannot have morals or, at least, cannot employ any morals they might have.

There are cow morals, though. For example, cow morality might forbid cows eating humans. Thus, cows won't eat humans (except for mutant ones). Humans have more complex morals because they are more intelligent and can support complex morals. But, cow morality is not a subset of human morality, nor the reverse. A cow is not a simplified human; that's not how evolution works.

But there can be nested moral reference frames. What is moral for a mind in general is moral for all minds, regardless of type, though what is moral for humans is not necessarily moral for a mind in general. Thus, it would seem that there could be universal morals, though I have no idea how large this set might be. It's equally likely that it's empty.

I define a moral reference frame as a goal system. For example, there is a panhuman aspect to the human goal system in every human mind that evolved over millions of years. This is a moral reference frame which we can discuss. Humans have other aspects to their goal system, including a cultural and personal aspect, creating nesting of moral reference frames.

This theory is still in development and needs more examples and refinement, but the basic idea is presented here.

Posted: Wed - July 30, 2003 at 05:12 PM        

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