Assume for a moment that we can all agree on a basic form of truth. Not that hard of an assumption really, alot of relgions use it, and science uses it too.

Anyways, would we then classify truth as being amoral?

Is it impossible for there to be universal moral standards?

I believe there are certain moral precepts that are necessary for a society to run smoothly and need to be practiced at least on a massive level, outside of those precepts there is relativism and many things are situationly based. But things like you shouldn't kill, steel, etc. are necessary for a society to run smoothly. But what form of government you have and stuff like that is based on what your particular country needs at the certain time. Democracy works here. It doesn't mix with radical muslims in the middle east.

Yes.

I hate to play semantics, but it somewhat has to do with how you define morality.

"Moral," from the same root as the english word "mores" initially implied customs or ways--a culture's "morality" was not necessarily a PRESCRIPTION for how to live (except perhaps within that culture), but rather a DESCRIPTION of how that culture lived.

Now, however, morality both denotes and connotes a prescription as to how people SHOULD live.

Truth is descriptive, morality prescriptive.

In this sense, I would argue that truth in and of itself is amoral.

As you guys have said, morality is a thing that changes from one person to the other.

I don't believe in good and evil. I think those ideas have been invented by the human mind and do not exist in the real world. Good is just the word we use to speak about what we like, and bad is the word we use to speak about what we don't. In my opinion, God and the universe are neutral. There's no black and white, only gray.

And truth is not amoral. Denying truth means staying stupid and ignorant. Truth may sometimes hurt, but even though some people say that ignorance is bliss, I prefer being unhappy to being an ignorant and an idiot.

So a itself truth is moral. How?

Pretty much. Its no secret here that morals are probably not absolute, but I don't want this to turn into a topic like my med ethics one ;).

Anyways Psyc, I agree that truth is amoral, and I have a new question to build on that that I'll post later.

Then, by definition, the answer to your first question must be yes.

Yes and no. Morals are based on individual, and societal values. If some action breaks these morals that action was immoral. But that means there is a different truth for every culture which in turn leads to cultural relativism, which means there is no actual truth because morals are base on human nature and human nature is indecisive.

As I said, assume that we can get a defined truth, as we actually can but don't care to debate in this thread.

So, anyways, how does it make the "truth" itself moral?

Edit:

For those who agreed that truth is amoral;

So, if truth is Amoral, is fighting (violence) for truth immoral?

No. It is completely possible.

And Psycholopher's right.
Facts have to do with what is; morality is what ought to be.
This does not, however, mean that morality is in the eye of the beholder. There is a moral standard we ought to live by. And that also doesn't mean statements about morality lack truth. The statement "It is wrong to kill innocent babies" would be true, no?
I would say that while truth lacks morality (although it would be immoral to deny the truth and ignore it), morality is not without truth.

Morality is not relative. If it can change from person to person, then we have no morality. It is an impossiblity.

Ah, more relativism (I'm going to have to redo that old topic. It'll be tons more fun this time around). Good and evil, while they are in the human mind, are still there. Just because we all have different perceptions of good and evil, it does not mean that there is neither good nor evil. There is a right and there is a wrong perception. There are better and worse perceptions of good and evil. What you are promoting here is nihilism.

So what you're saying is that Hitler wasn't really evil, we just didn't like him and that's what made him bad? Not at all. This man killed 12 million innocent people in concentration camps. He caused World War II, which in turn caused the deaths of 60 million people (20 million of which were Russian).

So what you're saying here is that nothing can be known for certain?

Yes, I would agree. Morals are based on the values of a culture...

...but to say that because these morals differ, there is no morality and, in turn, no truth is absurd.
The sophist Protagoras once made similar claims. He told stories of how he went from culture to culture all over the Mediterrenean. One culture would worship one God and would live a certain way. And then another culture would worship another God. And so on and so forth. He then concluded that there was no such thing as morality or truth, since each culture differs so greatly.
Socrates then went up to Protagoras and stated, "So, if I were to go to one tribe, I would be a just man, but if I then went to another tribe, I would be unjust." Does this make any sense? Not in the slightest.


And don't get me wrong here, guys. I'm not pretending I know anything about the truth of the world. But while I may not know what the truth is, I have a semblance of what it is not. And that, my friends, makes all the difference.

To the extreme, truth is amoral. Fighting for truth is immoral for the mere fact of actually fighting, but a will to fight for truth isn't immoral.

On a less extreme note, truth is more a social faux pas than amoral; well, from my experience. There are certain truths, if uttered to the general public, that will cause chaos and potentially civil unrest/war. For example, the fact that American slavery wasn't right/moral was clear to all Americans, despite their unwillingness to admit it or do anything about it for a time. When Lincoln forced us to face the truth that American slavery was wrong (truth) the will to fight for that truth was moral, but the actual fighting and costing lives for that truth, immoral.

Or at least the above is my short take on the matter. Used for one's benefit and one's benefit alone, truth can be harmful to others, and because of the harm (in the extreme) that truth can pose, truth is or at leasat potentially amoral.

Over the course of the discussion we have tried to pin down "moral" and "truth," even in hypothetical contexts...but in order to answer the question "On what grounds can truth be considered amoral?" we have to show how something "true" or "false" is neither moral/immoral, and explain how this is possible. I will begin with the above example.

Philosophers have made a case that certain truths if revealed to the public, would cause social disorder. Therefore, in favor of maintaining "order" they create a noble lie. Now if we consider that this "lie" is moral, and that the truth of the lie is moral, then we can find no difference between the morality of a truth or a lie. Therefore truth is amoral.

Lemme explain further. Truth/Lie is an opposition. It is typically thought that "truth" is right, and "lies" are wrong (ethically speaking), if both truth and lies are "right" then there is no longer a moral difference. Therefore truth may operate entirely free of morality. A case could also be made that Truth and Lying are both wrong, in which case we have no choice in the morality of truth. "the truth hurts" so to speak. Truth is nihilistic in itself.

It is not so much that "truth" if we could ever get to one, is right/wrong, but how such "truths" are used. At this point, we must also remember that we can only assume/believe that something is "true" which actually undermines "truth" itself. This is why we must forever operate in the realm of human-manufactured knowledge, which we call truth, for our own devices. The USE of knowledge (truth as some will say) has moral consequences. And thus is up for moral debate. For instance the use of truth to kill people is just as wrong that the use of lies to kill people. Because the act murder is wrong. (at least in the cultural context in which I'm speaking).

The argument that truth is amoral because it is relative avoids the entire question of morality of "truth." This is because morality may also be relative. In which case, the relativity of either/both avoids the real thing we are trying to find out about the nature of truth. Relativity and Amorality are not the same, nor are they related.

It may appear to some that I have been highly contradictory in my argument, to those people I would tell them that any discussion of truth must abstract in the highest sense, for as I said, a truth is relies on our believing in that truth, but at the same time this suggests a doubt which undermines anything I try to claim as true. All I can do is operate as if what I'm saying were true, and try to form the best argument possible, while remembering that there is always contradiction and doubt underlying my argument.