what a philospher means by moral judgments are universlizable?

Answer 1

Take this moral judgement --- to torture and kill a child is universally understood to be a crime. That means, all sane, reasonable people in all countries all over the planet believe this to be a crime.

That's regarding philosophic concepts, such as moral judgement, as intellectual game, i.e., as ideas to be discussed. Going deeper into a discussion, one can talk about, for example, child soldiers in Uganda where today children are shot and tortured by other children.. It's horrid, in my eyes. And much of the world considers the use of soldiers under the age of 15 to be morally wrong --- and under the age of 10 to be an outrage. Consider a recent popular novel on this subject, “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier,” by Sierra Leone native Ishmael Beah.

There are other examples of universal moral judgements. I gave the above example, on child soldiers, to help you understand that moral judgements occur on big and small scales, person to person and country to country.

Answer 2

I'm with the other answerer on this one... universlizable is not a word. And even if it were, I'd disagree with the premise so much as to find it uninterpretable. There are two considerations of the "moral judgments are universal" argument: 1) the they moral judgments have a universal source such as divine providence (cf. Immanuel Kant), and 2) we all derive a universal set of morals from a non-divine source, such as the law of the jungle (cf. Ayn Rand).

The problem is that neither of these philosophers or their philisophies (Kant's Categorical Imperative or Rand's Objectivism) lead to such a conclusion. Kant's Categorical Imperative says that we are compelled to act morally by the nature of things -- OK, so why don't sociopaths act morally, then? Rand says, in The Virtue of Selfishness, that we are not compelled to act morally, but sometimes end up acting that way by accident as a result of acting selfishly.

To me, neither is a compelling argument for the notion that moral judgments are universally derived or applicable. And the entire field of ethics would not even exist if moral judgments were universally understood.

And they're not. It only takes a few examles to shoot holes in the few examples of univeral moral codes that people offer up. Sure, we SAY that we all agree that killing is bad. Except that we don't all agree on what killing is, and we DON'T all agree that killing is bad. Some of us think killing animals is bad. OK, so only killing people is bad, then. Really? So it's bad to kill someone who's trying to kill you? OK, then killing is bad, except sometimes when it isn't. What started out as a moral 'universal' has now been reduced to a legal and ethical issue whose very nature is situational and subjective.

That's just ONE moral universal shot to hell and lying dead in the handbasket it went there in. It's possible to offer up more.

Is this a homework question? If it is, your professor needs a refresher course. Of course, that's my own non-universlizable judgment.

Answer 3

I think perhaps you are referring to EMMANUEL KANT'S CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE, the central idea in his moral ethics. He said:

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

To act morally, you must act only in ways you think everybody should act.

Answer 4

Sorry ... just done a search in Wikipedia and that word does not exist according to that site!

Answer 5

At first I was going to skip this question but could not resist the word at the end of the sentence. Priceless

Answer 6

It means that moral judegements are the same all over the world. Don't ask me to defend that statement.

Answer 7

wish i could help you out but universlizable isn't even a word