An Attack on Absolutism

I don't really want to spend all my time blogging about controversial topics, but the premise of absolutism has been pushed on me a lot lately and I'd like posit a rebuttal in writing just to make sure that I'm clear. I think I'll post something argument-worthy on a weekly basis.

So some people seem to think that there is such a thing as an absolute morality that functions aside from the opinions of mankind. They typically uphold this argument  for religious reasons which are anecdotal and pretty much meaningless (we cannot logically debate using faith as a grounds for verification). They are not really stupid for doing so... if their religion says that there is an omniscient god who makes the rules, then it only follows that there are moral absolutes. What makes them stupid is the fact that they have faith in a god at all, but that's a different argument for a different time.

Absolutists also take the opinion that there is an absolute reality that functions apart from our perceptions and that we as humans use epistemology to comprehend that reality. This is a huuuuuge argument that has several elements to it. I'll only be able to hit on a couple of them.

Though faith is (generally) the basis for the belief in absolutism, absolutists still appeal to logic when trying to make their arguments. Recently I have been challenged with two arguments for absolutism and I am going to put forth rebuttals for both of them.

1. There is absolute morality because all people dislike pain and/or having things stolen from them. 

Rebuttal: Well, first of all, making a blanket statement like this seems a little unreasonable. I mean, how can anyone really say that "everyone" dislikes pain and/or having things stolen from them- there's no way to quantify that. There are two obvious examples that contradict this statement. Firstly, there are people who participate in violent, harmful sexual practices involving bondage, whipping, cutting and other absurdities that involve the infliction of pain. Clearly the people who participate in these less-than saintly practices do not have any problem with pain or having things stolen from them (their dignities for one). They even enjoy being violated and physically harmed. Clearly not all people don't like physical pain. (Please note that I'm not saying people shouldn't have violent sex... do whatever gets you off.) On a less vulgar note, the cutting of wrists has become a bit of an epidemic in the world today, with teenagers and adults alike eradicating angst and depression through razor blades and other sharp objects. I can attest to the cathartic effect self-harm has on an individual- I cut myself for several years. There is something soothing about feeling that you are still alive... that you're capable of feeling pain. There really isn't much loathing or ill feeling in it. Clearly people who harm themselves in this fashion don't resent the pain they inflict upon themselves.

What I'm arguing is that in order for there to be some universal standard of morality (in the realm of the observable world), what we deem to be right and wrong must be universal in some way. In short there must be some moral certainty that applies to all humans. I really think that there isn't.

2. Since making the statement "there is no absolute reality" makes a concrete (absolute) statement about right and wrong, a paradox exists and relativist theory is invalid.

Rebuttal: I'll start by saying that the existence of a paradox doesn't mean that a statement is invalid. An example of this would be Moore's Paradox. For instance, I could say, "It is raining outside, but I don't believe that it is raining". This statement (though it appears absurd), can be both true and valid. I can hold any belief I want :-).

In debate I concede again and again that reality has a general tendency, but there seems to be exceptions to everything. You can say that people don't like pain, but cutters like pain. You can say that people value their lives and would hate to have them taken away from them, but there are people who are so apathetic to life that they wouldn't care if someone killed them. And of course sociopaths and their unusual reasoning create multitudes of contradictions to social convention and general morality (as I like to call it). Then there's physics to be taken into account... Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity opens the mouth of the absolutist wide enough to gather even the largest foot.

I was recently confronted by an absolutist friend of mine who said that I was upholding absolutism when I spoke a sentence that included the word "mistake". He said that if I said that something was wrong, then it only follows that there is something that is right (absolutes). This is the same argument that those who point out the no truth paradox use. If one says that there is no absolute truth, they are stating an absolute.

My response to this is simple. We make statements everyday, and relativists do not make every statement with uncertainty. What I mean to say is that regardless of the limitations of our minds, we still use epistemology (reason) to make judgement about the world. This does not imply an absolute truth. There seems to be an element of relativity in all things. George Berkeley showed this by positing that the qualities of objects are relative to their location. For example, if you are mere feet away from a car, it appears quite large, but if you are far away from it, it seems small. Your perceptions are also limited in what they are able to perceive. If you see a cylindrical gas tanker from the side,  it appears to be a rectangle. But if you see it from behind, it appears to be circular. The old parable The Blind Men and the Elephant is another superlative example of relativity.

Also, we often do not know our own limitations. Recall that for thousands of years people had believed that the Earth is flat (Occam's Razor often fails us). Probably the most harmful feature of human nature is its fallibility. Now, an absolutist would say that the fact that I say that fallibility exists implies absolutism. To clarify what I mean when I make this statement I must return to the idea of epistemology and state the specific one that I subscribe to: Kant's Transcendental Idealism. Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant's doctrine maintains that human experience of things is similar to the way they appear to us — implying a fundamentally subject-based component, rather than being an activity that directly (and therefore without any obvious causal link) comprehends the things as they are in and of themselves. So in short, I trust Occam's razor in most cases and I live my life as if there is an absolute truth, but I do not believe that there is- and if there is, I don't believe that my senses are acute enough to properly perceive it. It's almost as if to comprehend the true nature of reality, one must possess omniscience. I am stuck in the phenomenal limits of my mind and I will never be able to find the true nature of noumenal world.

I hope that those rebuttals mean something to someone. They're a little convoluted- it's difficult to get all this down in writing.