103: Moral Relativity

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Moral Relativity
It's science!
Title text: It's science!

Explanation

This comic pokes fun at moral relativism, a philosophy in the field of ethics that holds that moral judgments are not absolute, but rather vary depending on the circumstances involved and the person (or people) committing it. Randall jokes about moral relativism by comparing it to the theory of relativity and creating a new related philosophy called "Moral Relativity." The scientific theory of relativity predicts (among other things) that measurements of an object change the closer to the speed of light it travels—length contracts, observed time slows down, the notion of separated simultaneous events is relative, etc. The graph is a parody on that of the Lorentz factor, which is the factor by which time is dilated and length contracted. It is humorous that the ethics of a situation would be relative the same way physical properties change as the speed of light is approached. This variation in ethics cited to explain why rap music, perhaps particularly Gangsta rap, which often has lyrics describing rape, murder, and substance abuse, is better when traveling at speed.

Note that relativity in Theory of Relativity (in physics) came from the principle of relativity idea that equations describing the laws of physics have the same form in all admissible frames of reference (as opposed to moral relativity).

Transcript

[A graph, rationalization as a function of speed, increasing asymptotically at c.]
Related to moral relativism, it states that ethics become subjective only when you approach the speed of light.
That is, it's okay to be self-serving, steal, and murder as long as you're going really, really fast.
(Note: This is why rap sounds better on the highway at 90 mph)


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Discussion

The issue date might be off. All files since #101 have been created on April 11th, 2006. Anyone with an actual issue date?

I've verified that the date is now correct. lcarsos (talk) 21:42, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Guys, there is actually such a thing as Moral relativism, which is "the positive or descriptive position that there exist, in fact, fundamental disagreements about the right course of action even when the same facts hold true and the same consequences seem likely to arise". e.g. oh... maybe whether a government should pay a ransom to some group for a kidnapped citizen? There's probably a far better example.

But, anyway, this also maps well to the whole "two observers moving in differing frames of reference cannot agree on various facts" form of the Space-Time relativism. (As referenced in 265 and 514, amongst others.) 178.98.31.27 21:56, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I think that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem is also related to Moral Relativity, and it happens to involve moving trolley. So you kinda can see it the way that the speed of the trolley affects moral choices.