President Obama: Do you really love America?

[DeistPaladin]

Yep. I'd consider that moral relativism makes a lot more sense than moral absolutism. The idea that morality exists as a binary state, or exists independently of context and environment makes little sense to me. But I'm available to be persuaded on that one if you can offer a few universally applicable moral absolutes and provide the basis for them.

Two words:

"Social Contract"

Allow me to pick one example to illustrate my point: female genital mutilation.

Sane societies consider pinning a screaming four year old girl to a table while someone else takes out a knife and hacks away at her genitals, maiming her for life and rendering her unable to ever enjoy sex and possibly killing her if she bleeds to death, to be a horrid, barbaric and immoral practice.

Moral relativists will say that it's only "our cultural perspective" that causes us to be sickened by this act and that some societies consider the act to be one of "sexual purification" and a good thing. So gee whiz, when one society deems it wrong and another society deems it right, who can say...

Who can say?

How about the screaming four year old girl?

I'm sure she's have an opinion worth considering.

At best, moral relativism is sloppy and lazy thinking. At worst, it's morally bankrupt, at its heart asserting that morality doesn't really exist and any assertions about right and wrong are merely opinions enforced by whoever has the might and numbers to enforce them.

EDIT: Oh, and by the way, once you've asserted "moral relativism", you've abandoned any right to be morally indignant about anything. If you really believe in moral relativism, then pretty much anything goes. So at that point, you've have no cause to judge anyone's drone strikes. "They consider it good. You consider it bad. Who can say..."