Last year I took Dr. Johnson's Existentialism class, and now reading Kelsen, I see a lot of overlapping ideas in the philosophies. The moral relativism that Kelsen is known for and Existentialism are often given bad raps of being philosophies that rely too much on the individual, and inevitably never really stand for anything. However, it is important to remember that existentialism does not say that there are no objective truths, only that the Truth is not objective. I think some people look at existentialism as a depressing philosophy because it seems like people are alone, every man for himself, but perhaps instead it could be looked at as a philosophy that makes people responsible, because they give value to things, and they are responsible to themselves to follow it. And this is exactly what moral relativism does alos. Like in existentialism, it takes away the "chicken door" of God or reason or human nature. It strips away all the other things that could possibly explain or be an excuse for our actions. So what is left are humans who must make moral decisions about what is just, and what is the right way to live and they are the only ones that can be held accountable for their actions.
The problem that I am left with is the question that we began to ponder in class on Friday. How do we pass judgment? Especially in terms of international law, if all states are seen as sovereign, and all have their own ideals of what basic human rights are, how can one state tell another that they're wrong? And he can we justify intervention? What makes our beliefs more important than anyone elses? In dealing with international issues, isn't there something enticing and maybe even worthwhile about creating more objective ways to look at justice? Is this what bodies such as the United Nations are trying to do?
While I very much like Existentialism, and Kelsen's philosophy of moral relativism, there seem to be times when it is more comforting, and even downright more practical to have objective, black and white rules that everyone must abide by. But I realize then brings up the tricky part that we've been grappling with all semester, of who should make those rules? And I don't have an easy answer for that. In a perfect world, I think that moral relativism would work perfectly, and it woud be wonderful to have a whole bunch of rules that people made up for themselves, and everyone follows along with their own ideals, but I worry that our imperfect world, a system such as that would be very messy.
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I think that there are two very distinctive sections of your post. I think the beginning where you speak about relativism, not the lazy kind, making you take responsibility for ones actions is very correct. Because we are the only arbiters of our own ideas it forces us to take responsibility for them and not blame them on others, or other systems., i how ever think the second half of your post the section about moral relative sim working perfectly in a perfect world seems like a cop out. I mean in a perfect world everything would indeed work perfectly for that would be the nature of the world that it existed in. Just as the nature of our world is "i think as most people would contend" to be imperfect. But, none the less i liked your post and found your ideas interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like the conclusion of this post is that (international) justice itself is impractical. And I have to agree with that. I mean, we can't even agree on what proper justice theoretically is within the confines of our comfortable classroom, so imagining an international, global justice in which millions (or billions) of people participate just seems insane. My solution: Someone take over the world in the classically insane, powerhungry kind of way and just lay down the law by force.
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