What do you think of the phrase "there are no absolutes"? It seems to me that the phrase itself is an absolute, therefore rendering it false. But excluding that minor quibble, what do you think? Is everything really relative, or are there some (or possibly many) inescapable truths?
Even the statement "everything is relative", because of it's use of the word "everything" is an absolute statement and therefore violates the law of noncontradiction. For the statement to be true, the statement "everything is not relative" could also be true.
well, there are physical laws that could be considered absolute as far as the controlled enviornments we're in.
As far as worldview, i dont think there will be one absolute truth, because everyone has their own perception on what others see to be "true"
If one's worldview does not include physical laws, then by definition, it is not a worldview. I think you may be speaking of metaphysical issues. All my perception of what you believe to be true does is demonstrate that I have a perception of what you believe to be true. It has no bearing on whether what I believe, asside from my perceptions of your beliefs, is true or not.
if we are talking about philosophy, anything that can be argued with is not an absolute.
If that is the case, then the world being circular and the existence of AIDS is not even an absolute since they have been argued. Beleive it or not, there are people who unfortunately still argue whether or not AIDS exists. All an arguement proves is that there is someone who does not agree with certain claims. Their reasons for disagreement could be completely illogical. It doesn't automatically disqualify the statement they are disagreeing with to be true. If that were the case, then one could disagree with a statement with absolutely no reason for it and their disagreement would be true. Then again, the word true would need no definition
. If
THAT were the case, then there would be no good reason for argueing in the first place being as how there is no base for why one is disagreeing . Taking that statement to it's logical conclusion just becomes a crazy illogical circle.
when talking about morality, i believe there is one universal truth, and that is "hurting someone unjustly is wrong" - how you interprit "hurt" and "justly" is personal, but you get what i mean
How can morality be a "universal truth" if it is dependant on one's personal interpretation of the word "hurt" and "justly". Being dependant on ones own personal interpretation is the very essence of subjectivism. You bring up a really interesting point though. There are indeed people who will go to their philosophical arenas to boast that there is no such thing as an absolute truth and then in the next breath, go to their political arenas to complain about moral wrongs commited as if morality was an absolute issue that everyone should agree with them on and for anyone to disagree would be a horrific crime against humanity as a whole.
When you take a phrase like "there are no absolutes" the first thing I try to do is look for context and contingencies. What I mean is I take the phrase and place it in various contexts and with various contingencies to assess the validity of it.
The only way there could be various contexts and contingencies in the statement "there are no absolutes" is if there was something added to the statement to qualify various contexts and contingencies. Take for instance, the context and contingency of the statement, "there are no absolutes in metaphysics", would be metaphysics. When you look for contexts and contingencies in the statement "there are no absolutes", you are attempting to superimpose context and contingency into the statement that is just not there in order to make the statement true. When taken at face value, the statement "there are no absolutes" is supposed to cover
everything since there is nothing in the statement that would qualify it to be anything else.
Like Mike said, morality is subjective, so if the contingency is something that is subjective, like morality, than the statement is true within that context. I would wager to say if we chewed on this enough the two prevailing factors that would make the statment of, "there are no absolutes" would be subjectivity vs objectivity and number of variables present that could afflict change. If this were true it may be more accurate to say "there are no absolutes within the context of subjectivity and multiple variables that could result in various contingents." However, as a marketing catch phrase it doesn't hold near the weight of "there are no absolutes" despite differences in validity.
I
LOVE your point here!!! Talk about a "fast food generation". We even want our philosophical catch phrases to be fast and conventient. Where the disagreement occures is what exactly is defined as being objective and subjective.
I do think you can have subjective absolute truths.
But isn't that like saying one can have a factual opinion? Just taken at face value, the definitions of the words are anonymical.
But the problem with this is that people either fail to see or recognize that people are constantly functioning and seeking both
Even being dependant on our discovery of something to be absolutely true does not disqualify that thing to being objective. Aside from people discovering it, it could still be objective and absolute. Just because nobody was around to hear a tree fall does not automatically make the tree falling or the noise it makes a subjective issue. The only subjectivity is our perception of it which was dependant on our objective availabilty to to percieve it at the moment.
Only being open to one (objective) and not the other (subjective) makes no sense. It would be like being thirsty, but no water exist.
Being that way is just foolish extremism.
Morality is ALL OVER our world and it affects us on daily basis. It's subjectivism affecting objectivism.
Where most Christian Theists strongly disagree with this statement is that being as how the statement acknowledges moral effects as being objective, it is a contradiction to call the moral actions themselves subjective. The very essence of what defines something morally is it's effect. If that were not the case, then there is really no need for a judicial system and it's varying sentences usually based on the effects of an action. If actions were not morally considered in an objective fashion, then rape could logically be considered no worse than stealing a loaf of bread and the consequences of both actions could be the same thing.
There is no collection of atoms that makes up a certain wrong or right. There is no collection of atoms that makes up a certain wrong or right. We simply rationalize things on a daily basis. To ignore such a monolithic thing simply because it does not follow parsimony is like denying that water doesn't exist because our tools can't find it. Even though we seek water (morality) every day.
That does not negate that moral effects can be scientifically studied. There are many scientific studies on moral actions based on their effects. Now, ofcourse, if something does not have an effect, then how can it be studied. But, once again, an action is defined morally by it's effect anyways so to call something moral that does not have an effect is just pointless anyways.
Sincerely,
SoliDeoGloria
