[MD] Marsha's Relativism

[Steve Peterson]

Hi DMB,

On Aug 20, 2009, at 6:40 PM, david buchanan wrote:
> I don't understand this. How can Bob be "justified" in believing  
> what is "not true"? How can a moral claim about the dignity human  
> beings be compared to a mathematical definition? I think you're  
> using some unexplained distinctions here. Without some  
> explanations, all these questions seem pretty absurd. Please,  
> educate me.

Steve:
I wasn't saying that a moral claim is no different from a statement  
of mathematical fact. What I was suggesting is that there is no  
difference in what we mean by the word 'true' in the sentences "it is  
true that slavery is wrong" and "it is true that 2+2=4." Obviously,  
the sentences are very different, but I think 'true' is used in the  
same way in both. Do you agree or do you think that there is a  
difference in usage of 'true' in these two sentences?

When pragmatists of Rorty's brand decline to propose a theory of  
truth and justification, it is because they doubt that there is  
anything to know about truth or justification once we've learned how  
to use these words and once we've learned how these words function in  
language. What I was trying to establish in my numbered sentences is  
a consensus about how these words are used since the tradition of  
pragmatism suggests to me that if we want to answer the question  
"what does this mean?" we might consider asking the question "how is  
this used?" instead.

The distinction between belief, justification, and truth is usually  
considered in discussion of knowledge. There may be other ways of  
talking about knowledge but I think knowledge is generally taken in  
philosophy class to be "justified true belief," where each of these  
three terms is important. For more info, see: http:// 
plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#JTB

As an example to distinguish justification from belief and to answer  
your question 'How can Bob be "justified" in believing what is "not  
true"?' consider this situation: Bob is a member of a jury where the  
defense attorney did a horrible job. Bob may be justified in  
believing that the defendant is guilty when in fact the defendant is  
innocent. We are always in such a position as Bob where we don't know  
what we don't know, so we CAN be justified in believing things that  
are actually false.

Best,
Steve



>
>> From: peterson.steve at gmail.com
>> Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:02:04 -0400
>> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>> Subject: [MD]  Marsha's Relativism
>>
>> Hi Marsha, DMB,
>>
>> Do you believe that moral assertions can have truth-value? For  
>> example,
>> do you see statements like "slavery is evil" as either true or  
>> false in
>> the same way that assertions of fact such as "2 is the smallest prime
>> number" is either true or false?
>>
>> If you take X to be some such proposition, do you see any of the
>> following to be problematic?
>> (1) Bob is justified in believing X given his context, but X is not
>> true.
>> (2) X is true for Bob but not true for Rich
>> (3) I used to be justified in believing X, but X is not true and  
>> never
>> was true.
>> (4) I am now justified in believing X, but X may turn out to be false
>>
>> I would say that if you see no problem with any of these, your view
>> would typically be called relativism. I think that anyone who objects
>> to 2 but sees nothing wrong with 1, 3, or 4 is using the usual
>> understanding of truth and it's relationship to justification but may
>> still be called relativism by some. If so, I would call this second
>> version of relativism the good kind and the first version the bad  
>> kind.
>>
>> The bad kind of relativism says that a proposition can be true to one
>> person and false to another while the good kind admits that belief  
>> in a
>> proposition may be justified for one person but not justified for
>> another but holds that truth is another matter entirely. The cure for
>> the bad kind of relativism may simply be to say, "If you think that a
>> statement like 'slavery is evil' can be both true and false at the  
>> same
>> time depending on who makes the assertion, then I don't think we both
>> mean the same thing when we use the word 'true.'"
>>
>> Best,
>> Steve
>>
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