Theistic morality

[The Omnissiunt One]

You're falsely assuming that a moral statement (an ought) can be made into a factual statement (an is). So now you are deriving an IS from an OUGHT. To make a case for a moral statement it is not necessary to be able to state it as fact. The thing that is needed is a sufficiently strong rationale that explains how a certain act affects the balance between beneficial consequences and detrimental consequences and a norm that is accompanying it. This rationale can be argued for if it is informed rationale. That is, empirical facts undergird the rationale. For instance if it is known from medical experiment that HIV cannot be transferred through normal contact, normal contact with HIV-infected people cannot be a reason for different treatment (discrimination) of HIV-infected. Also, it is not true that factualness of a moral statement, should it exist, ensures that no-one can disagree with it. You would need th rationale just the same.

Ah, so morality isn't just what society believes, but has an underlying utilitarian justification. Okay, that's fine, we're in agreement. I'm not sure when I derived an 'is' from an 'ought', though.

The relativeness of morals is the thing that makes it possible that morals can evolve in the first place. If moral is absolute there is no room for improvement because that would mean that the moral absolute of yesterday is thrown out of the window tomorrow, which is silly when we want to adhere any meaning to the "absolute" predicate. So the relativeness of morals is what made the coming into being of the DOHR possible. There was room to improve and there will be in the future because we become better informed about consequences of actions and how that affect the rationale.

You confused me by referring to your view as 'moral relativism', which is generally the view that morality is relative to society's view. It seems your view would be better described as moral consequentialism, the view that morality is judged by an action's consequences. This seems like a very sensible approach to me.

As I've explained above meaning is created through a rationale about consequences of actions for a chosen (relative) goal. Just as an example:

Moral statement: abortion is allowed in the first month following conception
Rationale: the fetus has no conscious awareness in the first month following conception
Norm: no harm will be done to any conscious unborn child

Please observe that this all is relative. A traditional christian won't buy this, but the arguments he has left may get fewer over time when more about the development of consciousness is known.

Relative to the situation, yes. Not to anything else, like society's opinion.

See above. But what would you say? Do you really think that it suffices to say that you have decided that the DOHR is absolute?

I haven't decided that it's absolute. You've misunderstood my position. To me, the DOHR is a useful legal document, but seems a fairly arbitrary way of deciding who has what right. Weighing up the balance of harm and benefit is a much better method.

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The Omnissiunt One:

I have never come across this argument against theism before. However, I think it is a very strong argument.

Yeah, it's pretty devastating to theistic morality, I think.