Are you more of an absolutist or relativist?

Question

I am a relativist and it drives me crazy when people make broad ideological identifications; If you believe x then you must beleive all of y because x is part of y.

Answer 1

I am more of an absolutist when it comes to morals. I hate moral relativity; it seems like the coward's way out to me. It's easier to say "well, it was right for him/her" than it is to stand up and say "it was wrong/a mistake/a poor choice" and risk being labeled judgmental. Truly, I find the whole thing to be sickeningly PC and it really gets up my nose. It's as if people like that are too afraid to have or voice an opinion. Why?

I don't believe everything is relative. I think that right and wrong really do exist. It is wrong to kill someone. It is wrong to cheat on your spouse/partner. It is wrong to abuse your spouse or a child. It is wrong to molest anyone. Etc. etc. There are absolutes in this world.

Answer 2

I have grown up to understand/believe that all criteria of judgment are relative to the individuals and situations involved, which, by the way, is part of the definition of relativism. So I would call myself a relativist.

Answer 3

Absolutist. Murder and rape are wrong. Helping is right. I cannot be relatively wrong when I murder someone.

Answer 4

I'm with you fellas.

Answer 5

I have one word to say to you relativists: HOLOCAUST.  Think about that and read some Eli Wiesel.

Answer 6

I have to be a relativist, because I recognize that we do not live on a black and white world....there are indeed many shades of gray (or is it grey?)

Answer 7

A relative absolutist

Answer 8

I don't agree that being a relativist means you can justify Hitler's actions.  It simply means that you can see the shades of grey, and that you realise no one has perfect perception ~ no human being or ideology/religion has a monopoly on truth.

Some absolutists would say, for example, that only a fiend could do what Hitler did, therefore Hitler was a fiend, and the rest of us human beings are let off the hook.  I would say all human beings have the capacity for fiendish cruelty, but most of us choose not to indulge it.

I am a relativist because I can imagine myself in the shoes of most people [though not of Hitler], and also because absolutism has historically led to appalling abuses, such as the attempt to exterminate all Jews.  Other examples are the attempts of Protestants and Catholics in England to exterminate each other at various times, and the genocide in Cambodia.

Answer 9

I'm a relativist to the core, and I don't care who doesn't like it.

Answer 10

I have considered relativism but ultimately I am an absolutist. I do not believe in shifting defintions of right and wrong according to who, as that attitude leads to resting complacently on ones own selfishness and justifying even the most base and degraded behaviour. If relativism is okay then that means Hitlers moral disposition in killing 6 million jews and despising genetically deformed humans along with his vegetarianism was okay. I do not believe so.

The point is there are too many relatives . It is too individualistic.

Having said this I am not an entire absolutist if it means entirely adhering to some extraneous creed that tells me how to behave and what to think!

Answer 11

I am an ablutionist, I use a bidet.

Answer 12

I am more of a relativist. There are just a few things I see as absolute.