CRITICAL MORALITY v. CONVENTIONAL MORALITY
Critical Morality: Morality regarding what is in fact right/moral; it does not depend on the societal idea of morality.
Conventional Morality: The morality which depends on the community’s mindset and culture.
By my limited understanding, the following points are worth noting,
1.Critical morality always existed as a truth, in a way it can be taken as the ‘grundnorm’ of morality. Whereas conventional morality changes in consonance with societal changes.
2. To explain it with an example, in 1800’s, sati was moral by the standards of conventional morality prevalent at that time, but even then it was immoral by the standards of critical morality.
3. The basic funda is, that critical morality is like a complete set in itself and it has always been present throughout the time space continuum, but the degree of its discovery has been changing throughout this continuum. Whereas, conventional morality is completely dependent on the societal values and hence is an ever changing set.
4. To explain the above with an example, till the time it was propagated that earth revolves around the sun, it was understood that the earth goes around the sun, but the fact that the earth goes around the sun always existed irrespective of the views held by the majority of human race. So, the fact that something is moral/immoral has always existed(critical morality), irrespective of what the majority of humans at that time think about it(conventional morality).
5. As far as X’s point goes that, if A=B was a part of earlier critical morality and later A#B became a part of critical morality, there can be two cases,
Firstly, if we can say that A=B and A#B is complete knowledge that is possible regarding A and B, then in such a case, X’s thesis that one of them will not be a part of the set of critical morality will hold true. It is because, critical morality as has been defined above cannot contain two mutually contradictory moralities, even if they are separated by the time continuum.
Secondly, if we cannot say that A=B and A#B is complete knowledge regarding A and B, then in such cases, X’s thesis cannot be held true because, that thesis is only true if the degree of discoverability of critical morality regarding A and B is 100 percent, which it isn’t.
My humble submission is that, as proving that one has complete knowledge is not possible, hence though X’s thesis is sound in theory it has very little practical application.
Critical Morality: Morality regarding what is in fact right/moral; it does not depend on the societal idea of morality.
Conventional Morality: The morality which depends on the community’s mindset and culture.
By my limited understanding, the following points are worth noting,
1.Critical morality always existed as a truth, in a way it can be taken as the ‘grundnorm’ of morality. Whereas conventional morality changes in consonance with societal changes.
2. To explain it with an example, in 1800’s, sati was moral by the standards of conventional morality prevalent at that time, but even then it was immoral by the standards of critical morality.
3. The basic funda is, that critical morality is like a complete set in itself and it has always been present throughout the time space continuum, but the degree of its discovery has been changing throughout this continuum. Whereas, conventional morality is completely dependent on the societal values and hence is an ever changing set.
4. To explain the above with an example, till the time it was propagated that earth revolves around the sun, it was understood that the earth goes around the sun, but the fact that the earth goes around the sun always existed irrespective of the views held by the majority of human race. So, the fact that something is moral/immoral has always existed(critical morality), irrespective of what the majority of humans at that time think about it(conventional morality).
5. As far as X’s point goes that, if A=B was a part of earlier critical morality and later A#B became a part of critical morality, there can be two cases,
Firstly, if we can say that A=B and A#B is complete knowledge that is possible regarding A and B, then in such a case, X’s thesis that one of them will not be a part of the set of critical morality will hold true. It is because, critical morality as has been defined above cannot contain two mutually contradictory moralities, even if they are separated by the time continuum.
Secondly, if we cannot say that A=B and A#B is complete knowledge regarding A and B, then in such cases, X’s thesis cannot be held true because, that thesis is only true if the degree of discoverability of critical morality regarding A and B is 100 percent, which it isn’t.
My humble submission is that, as proving that one has complete knowledge is not possible, hence though X’s thesis is sound in theory it has very little practical application.
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