(June 17, 2021 at 10:46 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I do accept the argument that relatavism is plain wrong, yes, and..yes, in the reliance on moral absolutes and the slippery slope of defeatism as an argument against relativism...well, I simply cant be so unfair to the position.
I do think boghossians argument relies on indefensible positions (to the realist) which paint an unrepresentative picture of genuine relativism, yes. A flase relativism, where the nihilist pretends to be a relativist, is what I would call it. I think that the critics of relativism have been very successful in framing the discussion.
Well, if you are going to assert that moral facts can only be true relative to a certain (arbitrary) moral code, then you're basically a nihilist. Just a nihilist with some arbitrary rules. (That's the criticism anyway.) I don't see the strawman. I totally see where Boghossian is coming from. Sure, relativists have a reply to Bogossian. But I think that they are replying to a genuine criticism. Not a fallacious argument.
If anything, I think Boghossian does a good job of questioning the sort of "default relativism" that many atheists (including myself) are prone to find appealing. At the very least, he raises good objections against a certain kind of relativism: a relativism that thinks it's more well founded than it actually is.
I'd need to think more about whether this is a slippery slope argument or not. Maybe his point is fallacious in this way. But maybe not. The problem with slippery slope arguments is that they are ambiguous. (Yes A leads to B, but that doesn't mean B leads to C, C leads to D, then D leads to E.) He doesn't seem to rely on ambiguity of this sort. I think he draws a direct line and explains each step, and explains the implications of each conclusion. But, as I said before, I need to give it more thought.
