[Vision2020] What is relative moralism

[Aldoussoma@aol.com]

Forum Members:

Modern science has proven that there is no one time for the whole universe, only local times.  Einstein's relativity theory in fact states that time travel into the future is possible.  If you travel fast enough far enough away from Earth and return, you can return in your life time to find all your contemporaries dead and witness a future on earth you would never have otherwise.  

The time traveler would age normally, but a clock on his space ship would read a different time than an identical clock on earth that was set identically and left behind awaiting the time travelers return, even with both clocks keeping perfect time.  This is because each clock due to the relative speed they are traveling to each other would in fact be in different local times.  

A friend of mine once had the time dilation equation from relativity written on a tiny piece of paper laying around their house just for amusement, I guess, or to puzzle curious visitors, or perhaps to remind them of the relative nature of time.

What this has to do with relativism in morality?  Well, maybe, if we are all in our local time zones, none of which exactly correspond in the sense of a universal time, then perhaps we are also in our own local moral zones, each of which does not have a universal reference moral standard, or "clock."  

People often use the laws of the government to guide their moral actions, but governments vary in what conduct they deem illegal, and during the Nuremburg trials the fact that Nazi war criminals were following the laws of Germany at that time was used a defense.  Government's thus sometimes appear to be in their own moral "time zones" that are not universal.  To convict Nazi war criminals the Nuremberg courts had to appeal to a more universal source of moral codes than just the laws of the state, using what is sometimes call "natural ethical law."  

Some people think that the only way to have universal unchanging ethical standards is via revelation from a God, thus the appeal of some forms of religion.  Of course if your ultimate moral standards come from religion, then how can you sensibly enforce a separation of church and state?  And differing "Gods" give differing moral standards.  This debate continues, even here in Moscow, Idaho.

But really the discoveries of modern science, like relativity and evolution, though they often are credited with up-ending universal moral standards, might have nothing to say on the issues of Ethics.  It still remains possible there is a God who issues universal ethical standards that apply across the whole universe, while relativity and evolution remain valid scientific principles according to how the universe operates, both for living and non-living events.  

A good case can be made that science says nothing about how people should behave in a moral sense, although science informs us of many of the consequences of our actions that can increase the knowledge we have that we can use to influence moral equations.

Ted