absolute vs. relative morality

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The following quotation is in my email signature:

"... the modern challenge is how to live with uncertainty. The basic fault lines today are not between people with different beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an element of uncertainty and people who hold these beliefs with a pretense of certitude."

— Peter L. Berger, sociologist

I am not a sartrean, but just like that quote. Frankly though, I am not aware that the "existence precedes essence" really disproves absolute truth so much as objective truth. A few of Sartre's sayings involve man relating to an absolute truth(more along the lines of man creating new absolutes), but there is no statement that any truth that man relates to is objective that I can see. Perhaps I am misunderstanding Sartre though.


Well, I don't think so. I think that moral constructs can be increasingly contextualized, but not completely so, and thus still will have some universality to them, especially given the human tendency towards some form of framework for understanding their relationship with the world.

My understanding is that Sartre was arguing that all truth is subjective, not, as you correctly wrote, objective. Absolute truth, to Sartre, would be the truth which an individual discovers. Since Sartre was, in a sense, a personalist, he made no assumptions concerning whether the truth of one person's existence would agree with the truth of another person's existence.



I guess I don't believe that there is a human tendency to do anything. To me, humanity itself is a construct.

Just a quick question...

Can someone explain to me what the different prefixes to "truth" mean. I have seen objective truth, and absolute truth in the last few posts. I was not aware there was more than one kind. I thought truth just meant "Relates to reality" (correspondence.) so in any respect a "truth" is both objective and absolute at the same time.

I am having trouble understanding what you two mean...

There are many different theories of truth. For instance, here is a short sampling:

1. objective idealism: Truth is external to any single individual and nonmaterial, i.e., a universal mind.
2. subjective idealism: There are as many truths as there are individuals. Each person creates truth or reality with her or his own mind.
3. materialism: Truth is a function of material forces, such as the economy.
4. historicism: Truth is historically and culturally relative.
5. personalism: The ultimate truth is personhood.

I didn't ask for a list of different truths. I know there are more than one kind.

What I meant was is that you two seem to KNOW what you mean by Objective Truth and Absolute Truth, but it was never really outlined. If you are talking about Objective Truth and Absolute truth context would say you are meaning something close to Correspondence theory. I.e. Truth is the identification of a fact of reality.

Because that is what Objective and Absolute entail. However, if that was the case there can be no distinction between the two, and hence my confusion.

So... what do you two mean by the different terms?

At least as I understand them, objective truth and absolute truth refer to two different issues. Objective truth is epistemological and would be closer to the correspondence theory of truth. Absolute truth is ontological and assumes the supposed existence of real essences.

Well, I never said that Sartre believed in objective truth, my assertion was that he believed in absolute subjectively created truth. I say X is true about the universe, therefore X is true about the universe. You say Y is true about the universe therefore Y is true. X and Y may disagree, based upon our subjectivities but they are absolute statements. I did not argue he made assumptions that all truths would be the same, or similar or anything like that. So, even though he may say that the choice of truth was subjective in that quote, he also said that this choice was universalized by saying "nothing can be good for us without being good for all"


Ok... well, seems like nothing to argue over then. If there are no categories to examine, how can any analysis be done? It can't.

Okay. He believed in personal resolutions of existential angst.



What I am saying is that they are nothing more than categories.

I think the only sketchy thing that needs to be defined is 'absolute' - I'd say yes on the front that there is one reality, just many different types of people living in it; quantitatively and qualitatively we do make adjustments accordingly.

First of all, there is just a nature of pure cause and effect - ie. a person grows up in environment x it has effect x just like if person y grows up in environment y and has a, b, and c, happen to them from a young age it will show in how it effects them. I have a bit of a utilitarian outlook on that as well, not absolute utilitarian but really I think if people did aim to improve society through their actions and subvert damaging behaviors (violence, aggression, exercised altruism, honesty, and good discipline instead) it would have loads of positive impact.

Dennis Prager had a guy on today that wrote a book on good and evil, of course that being good and evil of intent and altruism rather than a codified religious sense per say - main argument being that its much more difficult and rare to find people who are or even want to be good people in environments where evil is promoted and good is punished. I think in that sense, buddhists have it right in the sense that goodness spreads just as much as evil does. My take on evil of course is like my take on goodness, goodness is people wanting longterm happiness and trying to stablize their surroundings to they can let their best selves flourish whereas evil is sheer ego and animalism at its core, Machievellian, rule-by-fear, etc. Evil of course has a tremendous effect on hardening good people and stealing their happiness and best selves, unfortunately it doesn't work the other way around - ie. for good people to really claim this world they'd need a very realistic way of dealing with evil and expect that goodness just doesn't rub off on some people where as if there's a long term threat most people around that threat harden and almost try to become pseudo-bullies themselves just as not to be messed with by the bully in question (I'd imagine the answer would be far from politically correct but at the same time, if truely 'good' people were at the helm and would pitch out anyone who got corrupted by their own power until they sorted themselves out - that much unity and determination would make for a fair system and probably a much better world).