You’re banned.

Rick Moran

KA LASSIC!

For that to be true, in this case of homosexual rights and prospective war, this is obviously not true. The speaker obviously does not think that the situation of homosexuals in Iran is acceptable, nor do they think that America treats homosexuals in a way that is even on the same scale as Iran. They think that

(a) the greater moral outrage of a proposed war with Iran demands that the prevention of this is a higher moral requirement, and that the advancement (or lack thereof) of the rights of homosexuals in Iran is a lesser concern than avoiding war with the country

and

(b) That they might have a chance of changing the behaviour of America wrt war, but they have little chance of changing the behaviour of Iran wrt homosexuals.

“Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition’s truth;”

I would doubt very much that the person does not believe in an objective right for homosexuals not to be persecuted for their sexuality.

“Relativistic positions often see moral values as applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or in the context of individual preferences…”

For this to be the case the speaker would have to be OK with the situation of homosexuals in Iran which they are pretty obviously not.

A moral relativist is not someone who puts certain moral demands above others for reasons of expediency or efficiency, they are someone for whom the persecution of homosexuals in Iran was morally good, since it conforms with the cultural mores of the society in question.

Is that honestly what you think they meant? It seems very clear from a cursory reading of the text that they are simply saying that the priority must be opposing upcoming war and that other concerns must be subordinate to that. This is a perfectly rational position based on practical considerations and not in any way a suggestion that Iran’s record on human rights is acceptable.

But that is irrelevant. The thing that you ought to grasp is that a moral relativist would think that the oppression of homosexuals in Iran was morally good. Obviously this is not the case here so you are not looking at moral relativism.

I don’t cotton to being compared to Nazis.

You’re banned.

And you all are their willing propagandized subjects. The same, “create an enemy” approach to consolidate power worked using the Jews in Germany and the Totsies in Rawanda. This scenario is played over and over through history on those to ignorant to know the game.

The left applies a different moral standard to judge the US then they do Iran. And that fits this definition given by Wikpedia:

In philosophy, moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect objective and/or universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances. Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition’s truth; it is the opposite of moral absolutism. Relativistic positions often see moral values as applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or in the context of individual preferences…

By judging Iran and the US differently, the left sees the moral values of the two sides applicable only in the “context of individual preferences.” They see no objective moral truth that would allow them to judge the two sides equally.

It is not “hypocrisy” - it is a textbook example of relativism.

I figure this will dominate the news today…so I’ll just put a thread up. If you’ve got something on Ahmadinejad, please link it up via the open trackbacks.

Gateway Pundit: NY Times will run an anti-Ahmadinejad ad…from Freedo…

Duh.”

Selective morality isn’t relativism. It is hypocricy, a completely different thing.

In this case they think of “their political enemies lose” as meaning “The chances of a destructive, risky and criminal war being started are lowered”, and consider this a goal which is more important than any other.

Of course, they’re wrong. Hilary is just as likely to push the trigger on Iran as any Republican, but you’ve got to keep hope alive, haven’t you?

Actually, and quite literally, Ahmadinejad (need shorthand for that I think) hasn’t threatened war with anyone. You can interpret his Anti-Israel language in a avriety of ways of course, but he has certainly never said that Iran has any intention of doing anything active to help the end of Israel.

(Now, of course, you can suggest that he isn’t saying what he means, but threats really have to say what they mean or else they aren’t threats)

On the other hand (and no, this isn’t relativism, merely observation. I don’t think that relative ethics means what you think that it means) the US has and continue to threaten open war with Iran with monotonous (even tedious) regularity. It is, as far as I can tell, official US policy to pursue regieme change in Iran, and to pursue it actively. It certainly isn’t Iranian official policy to pursue regime change in the US.

Just out of interest, a relative ethicist could suggest that such threats from the US were acceptable, because such actions were considered fair and reasonable given the underlying assumption in the US that it is acting in the interests of humanity as a whole. Someone who holds that there are fundamentals to ethics beyond cultural norms would be forced to conceed that, if threatening war is a bad thing, then the US is as guilty if not moreso than Iran in this matter.

I have a feeling that, when you say “relative ethics”, you mean something more like “Ignorant, uninformed ethical comparisons which don’t use the full context”. That’s not relative ethics, it is just bad ethics. The idea of comparing the ethical situation between two societies actions is outside of relative ethical calculations as, by definition of the school of thought, since the two cultures are radically different, there could be no meaningful comparison. To compare you have to either;

1) Have an absolute standard to measure them against

or

2) Declare one of them to be the absolute standard and judge the other against that.

Hope this clears that up for you. It isn’t like it is important, as there are vanishingly few relative ethicists around to get upset about it, but I know that you like to be accurate.

” There are other means for engagement with Iran than war, and other means for disagreement with Ahmadinejad than the planned protest. We call on those who do not support a war with Iran to be wary of the vilification of Ahmadinejad, to avoid Monday’s rally, and to express vocally their opposition to military intervention.

Now here is relativism writ large. ”

Here in your writing is a great example of this error. The writer of the piece obviously does not think that it is OK to kill gays because they are in Iran, it is just that in a calculation of practical behaviour, in which is included a weighing up of various ethical demands, a certain course of action is calculated to be less harmful, or more productive than another. Do you see the difference here?

The true moral relativist would have no problem with the execution of Iranina homosexuals because they are in Iran, and should therefore conform to the prevailing society’s ethos. They would also consider gay-bashing in the US with abhorrence, as it is clearly against the prevailing ethos of the society at large.

This absurdity is why, of course, there are very few true relativists around. It was more of a handy way to enable anthropologists to watch the savages killing each other while avoiding the need to actually stop them. Kindof went out of fashion with the Pith helmet.

To sum up, you disagree with the translation of ethical pressures into action performed by this person. You do not (I assume) actually disagree with any of her ethical pressures (War is bad, killing is to be avoided if possible, and homosexuality is acceptable), just how she puts these into action.

And the reason you disagree with this translation is because;

“Plus a dash of laughable ignorance about the nature of the Iranian regime. ”

While you agree (I presume) with her ethics, you disagree with how those ethical pressures should be translated into action, because you consider her context for making such a translation to be flawed.