Theistic morality

[Purple Rabbit]

Hmm, it seems to me that moral progress is only possible without moral absolutes in whatever dogma. So relative morality is needed for moral progress.

In a society where half of the people believe that euthanasia is right and half believe it's wrong, we should enable the ones that want euthanasia for themselves and protect the ones who don't want it against it. There is no simple right or wrong in moral to be found.

We should avoid conflating relativism and consequentialism.

Didn't know I was doing that.

Consequentialism bases morality on the consequences of an action, and is hence free of moral absolutes (this I'm in favour of),....

It may be free of moral absolutes (not an achievement reallly since "moral absolute" is an oxymoron if you are a relativist like me) but it isn't free from subjective moral judgement, i.e. subjective moral judgement of consequences. You know good consequences versus bad consequences.

...whilst relativism says that morality is essentially just the preferences of the society or individual. So consequentialism is relative, but only to the situation, not to anything else.

That's enough for me to call it relative. Why euphemize the relativism of consequentialism? Are we to shame ourselves for relativism? Every benchmark we set for moral goal we set

People's wellbeing (and that would include non-humans) is the best basis for moral judgement, IMO.

That's a relative moral judgement. I might share it, but it still is relative. That should pose no problem at all, as long as we acknowledge that fact and don't hide it under the carpet with fancy names like 'consequentialism'. In fact facing it head on should provoke new thoughts from a sceptical critical thinker in the same way as you do in this one sentence where you say "and that would include non-humans". For that in fact is a critique of the more common statement that "People's (as in humans) wellbeing is the best basis for moral judgement". In this one sentence you show how relativistic moral judgement enables moral progress.

I like that "IMO" addition to your sentence. It shows the relativism...

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PS: Beside the goal that you use to base moral judgement IMO there are others that need to be added because they don't necessarily follow from your goal. For instance, that autonomous, critical thinking is a valuable asset for everyone.