The Relative and the Absolute

For many generations now philosophy has rested much of its thought on the linguistic relation between subject and predicate. Its distinctions between necessary and contingent truths, and synthetic and analytic propositions, utilize conceptions of the relation between subject and predicate. Let us, then, explore a given synthetic proposition, to see the nature of the relation between subject and predicate, and how it applies to phenomenal objects of sense.

Let us take the proposition, "The moon is yellow." Supposing I were speaking to a man born in some strange prison where he has never seen the moon. When I say to him, "The moon is yellow," he understands that it is in a class of "yellow things"; that is, he understands what I mean by relating the concept "the moon" with other yellow things he has seen; and so the proposition functions in a relative manner. He is able to relate the concept "the moon" with other things of the same color, the result being that he has learned something of the moon, by means of seeing its relation to other objects (other yellow things). This is how language functions: it communicates by means of drawing analogies, or in other words, marking out relations, between objects.

But when I look into the sky and see the moon, is its yellowness understood, when I see it, only in terms of relations to other yellow things? Suppose that the moon were the only yellow thing I had ever seen; suppose I had been cured of color blindness that very moment, and this was my first moment seeing the yellow of the moon's color, the first yellow thing I have seen in all my life. Subtracting the emotion involved in such a scheme, would the actual quality of the moon's color be any different than it would be had I other yellow things to relate it to? Actually, the quality of the color would be the same, whether I relate it to any other yellow thing or not, though there may be a bit of tainting in its image due to the emotion involved in such a scheme. But the bare perception of the moon's color would be an absolute for me - I need not relate it to any other yellow thing for its perception to appear to me as true yellow - the sensation is absolute.

Likewise with the man born in prison who has never seen the moon. My description of it may function, on the linguistic level, by means of a relative comparison; but the result of that language is an absolute. The man is able to picture the moon by means of relating it to yellow things he has seen; but apart from the way language functions, its result, if not the means by which it operates, is an absolute. The man can now picture the color of the moon - he pictures a round yellow thing according to my report - and nothing prevents him from now supposing this is the only yellow thing that there is in the world. He can comprehend it such that he need not hold in the mind any other yellow thing with which to relate it. So we see that though language functions by means of relations, the nature of the transition from speaker to listener functioning by means of these relations, on both ends of the communication - the communicator's end and the recipient's - lies an absolute.

And so we see the way in which language functions - it is akin to the optic nerve receiving a picture of the world upside down, which picture is inverted back to right-side-up by the brain to present it to the mind. Language functions by means of drawing relations; but both on the end of the communicator, and for the one to whom the language communicates, lies an absolute. This absolute is the absolute found in the world of perception.

Let us explore now the nature of subject and predicate as it applies to phenomenal objects. We have seen that a predicate, in its linguistic function, is fundamentally a relation - we are reporting in the proposition "The moon is yellow" a certain affinity of "the moon" to a given property our hearer has seen elsewhere, what we call the class of "yellow things". On the level of language, this functions by means of relations; but both the original perception, as well as the result held in the mind of the hearer, are in the realm of the absolute. Language, then, is akin to film being developed into a negative, which is the only way it can then be printed in a photograph back in its original state. The moon's appearance to me is an absolute; I then transform this information I have on it into the system of relations that language is; and my hearer, then, in his mind's eye, transforms it back into an absolute, in his imagination.

This is how the relative and the absolute to some degree are two sides of the same coin. As Bertrand Russell said in The ABC of Relativity, "if everything were relative, there would be nothing for it to relate to."

This union between the relative and the absolute should not be very astonishing at all. For any two objects that are what they are absolutely, there are bound to be certain ways they can be compared one to another, which is the way the two absolutes relate. They only stand relative to each other insofar as each is what it is on its own and in its own in an absolute manner.

In this way also we see that ethical relativity and aesthetic relativity, and their inverses of ethical and aesthetic absolutism, are two sides of one basic phenomenon. The proposition of ethical relativity, as it is presented in cultural anthropology, is a denial that there is any set of ethical criteria that applies absolutely to all peoples everywhere. Such an idea is obviously true, but trivial. Yes, there is hardly a taboo or obligation anywhere in the world that is not contradicted by some other culture somewhere else. That ethics are not universally held by peoples everywhere is not a theory at all but a datum. And it is an equally apparent fact that no single code of ethics would remain functional if applied to all peoples everywhere. But the ethical relativist makes a mistake if he supposes that from this follows the consequence that there is no such thing as right and wrong, absolute goods and absolute evils.

Let us take up an example, to show that goods and evils are absolute even in customs that all agree are a function of arbitrary social mores. Here in the United States it is generally taboo for a man to marry his cousin. A man who sleeps with his cousin then, at least in most cases, will feel anguish that he has done something wrong. It is considered incest here; he will feel guilt and shame. This anguish he feels is absolute. The sensation of the moon is an absolute, separable from every other sensation and conceivably existing all alone without any context. So too can this man's guilty anguish be separated from everything, so that, conceivably, we could take that emotional anguish and congeal it so that it need not stand in relation to anything at all to be what it is in-itself. It would be an absolute emotional state, existing not by virtue of anything else. This is what evil is - it is pain, and pain as a sensation is absolute.

The same could be said for a man who burns his hand cooking; the sensation of pain exists in and of itself as pure, absolute evil, the sensation in this case being united with its evil and inseparable from it. It would be impossible for one to feel that sensation of burn - at least within the same social context - without it being to the mind also an absolute evil, evil self-sufficient and self-contained. This doesn't mean the sensation itself would be evil to all peoples everywhere; if it came in a rite of passage among a certain culture, and meant that the subject of the rite had passed to manhood, it may be experienced as a good. But to say absolute evil can exist only if it exists within every cultural context anywhere amounts to saying water can only truly boil if it can boil in every circumstance equally, including when it is at 50 degrees centigrade.

Let us go back to the anguish a man feels at sleeping with his cousin. Now suppose there is a man in the Yanomamo tribes of Brazil. In this case, marrying certain of one's cousins is not only sanctioned, but encouraged. A man in this culture who sleeps with or marries his cousin has not committed incest or any taboo; he feels no anguish or guilt, he is contented and happy. Now, no one supposes that goods and evils are universally regarded as such among all peoples. Nor need we even suppose that there is any evil one can commit in a given society that would not be sanctioned or even encouraged somewhere else. But nonetheless, if we look at goods and evils from within any culture, we find that the anguish evils cause men and women - whether guilt on the part of the perpetrator or the painful results to the victim - are, as perceptions and experiences, absolute evils; that is, absolute pains. The man who slept with his cousin among the Yanomamo feels contentment at his act; he is happy he did it; he feels no anguish. This happiness is absolute, and conceivably could exist on its own as an emotional sensation though nothing else existed. This is what it means for it to be absolute. And though the act itself - sleeping with one's cousin - may be regarded in different ways by different peoples, the emotional results of those different views on the morality involved become absolutes. Thus the American who sleeps with his cousin has committed incest and is in anguish; however relative the concept of incest may be, however little universal mores it has regarding it, the result, given the cultural circumstance the man happens to be within, is absolute anguish for him. The fact that the Yanomamo encourage such behavior, and the Americans taboo it, does not mean that there is no such thing as right and wrong. All it means is that what makes a man happy in one place, will make him despair if he were raised in the another. But both that happiness and that despair - which cannot be separated from their good and evil respectively - are experienced by the mind in an absolute sensation that needs relation to nothing, as bare emotional or perceptual sensation, for it to be experienced as an absolute. Universal emotional consequences for any given act do not exist; but those emotional consequences become absolutes for each individual, given the cultural circumstance in which he or she lives.

So yes, the ethical relativist is right if he means to say there is no one set of mores that apply to all people everywhere. It is obviously a counterfactual statement that there is, based upon purely empirical cultural anthropology documentation. And he is also correct in supposing that neither should there be imposed one set of mores on all people everywhere - morality functions differently among different societies, and no one set of rules can be beneficial among all peoples in all times. But should he conclude from this that there is no such thing as absolute good and evil, he has made an error. Whether we are talking about a burn on the hand or guilt at incest, the anguish felt with both are absolutes and need not exist in any system of relations to be experienced. True, one act in one place makes a man happy and the same act somewhere else makes a man anguished. But to conclude from this that the happiness and anguish of each, given their respective cultural contexts, are not true, absolute goods and evils, respectively, amounts to saying a man cannot be truly drowned in any physical context, unless he can be drowned equally in all physical contexts. True, goods and evils depend upon cultural context; but if I am in the context of the driest desert with no water anywhere, and I should suppose that if I cannot truly be drowned here I cannot truly be drowned anywhere, I think my error is obvious.

The relative depends upon the absolute everywhere it exists, since all it means to be relative is for things to be related, and in order for things to be related they must be something in and of themselves to begin with. And likewise the absolute implies the relative; since for any two absolutes to be considered together, and compared and contrasted, obviously relations between them will arise, which is the nature of the relative.

Angelhaunt.net: Because earth's madness is heaven's sense.