Any Moral Relativists in the House?

[The Grand Nudger]

I did manage to dig up an article by Boghossian where he argues my thesis. The thesis is: realism and nihilism are tenable positions (ie coherent positions that take a clear stance on the status of moral facts) while relativism is not. Why? Because relativism simply lists what is permitted according to the values of culture x, y, or z. And thus gives only a factual account of these cultures' beliefs. But the debate about moral realism's status isn't a debate about what a given culture believes. It is a debate about whether there can be any truth value in a normative claim.

Relativism accepts this claim, as a cognitive theory.  Affirmatively stating that moral utterances are statements which can be true or false, and at least some of which are true, of a given subjects societal arrangement.  They could conceivably get it wrong.  Mistake the disposition of their society or another's toward a given act or state of affairs, and so, be morally mistaken.

Or put better:

Most moral relativists say that moral right and wrong are to be relativized to a community’s “moral code.” According to some such codes, eating beef is permissible; according to others, it is an abomination and must never be allowed.  The relativist proposal is that we must never talk simply about what’s right or wrong, but only about what’s “right or wrong relative to a particular moral code.”

The trouble is that while “Eating beef is wrong” is clearly a normative statement, “Eating beef is wrong relative to the moral code of the Hindus” is just a descriptive remark that carries no normative import whatsoever.  It’s just a way of characterizing what is claimed by a particular moral code, that of the Hindus.  We can see this from the fact that anyone, regardless of their views about eating beef, can agree that eating beef is wrong relative to the moral code of the Hindus.

It's manifestly clear, even in the statement above, that eating beef carries normative import in hindu society.  If we drilled a little deeper, we might find a generalizable statement that applies more broadly and beyond hindu society.  Eating beef is a threat to the good order of hindu society, and threats to the good order of society are routinely taboo in moral systems.  

These objections all seem to boil down to the idea that relativistic utterances carry no normative import and are in some sense fact free, but only fact free in the novel sense of the term which excludes those sets of facts the critic deems unworthy or insufficient. Facts of a society may not be facts of an act, but relativism is not objectivism.

I can't stress enough that there is no disagreement between any cognitivist position as to whether or not there is or at least can be truth or moral import to a statement. Cognitive theories are distinguished by their referents. I get that these objections express the dispute between objectivism and relativism, but again suggest that they can be reduced to something like "relativism is not objectivism, therefore relativism is false" - "or "relativism refers to the wrong set of facts, therefore is false". That it is a form of psuedo realism. In command of some body of true statements, but not the proper one - and perhaps this is why we believe (or some of us believe) that morality is objective. It presents itself that way, in subtle error.

-and I want to point out, that the essay above is arguing for absolute moral facts, which is a bigger lift than bog standard realism. OFC no contingent fact will satisfy a person looking for absolutes. Most of the positions under realism wouldn't satisfy that criteria.