Any Moral Relativists in the House?

[Jackie]

Morality is not static. Never has been, never will be. Hitler thought he was moral, American slavery was once thought moral. 

Pro lifers today, live in an impossible utopia, and they also think they are moral.

I think the best humans can do is to simply try not to physically harm others, and where disagrements occur, make physical conflict the last resort.

But that takes too long. If I disagree with someone, I can either wait for us to work it out, or I can simply punch them in the mouth and get on with my day. I’ve got things to do, you know.

Boru

 
Pretty sure Martin Luther King Jr didn't think that way.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

But that takes too long. If I disagree with someone, I can either wait for us to work it out, or I can simply punch them in the mouth and get on with my day. I’ve got things to do, you know.

Boru

 
Pretty sure Martin Luther King Jr didn't think that way.

And just look what it got him.

Boru

[The Architect Of Fate]

Pretty sure Martin Luther King Jr didn't think that way.

MLK wasn't a total pacifist

[The Grand Nudger]

So if you want to say morality is a fairy tale, fine. Maybe a "useful fiction" if you're feeling charitable. But that doesn't making it true relative to anything. That's why I think relativism is incoherent. That's what it does.

In cultural relativism, as you noted before, the truth assertion of any moral proposition is a fact of a given society -  not a fairytale, or fiction, even.  

Specifically and explicitly true of a system held by a culture. You think there's more or some other metric, but, ofc, that doesn't make relativism incoherent, merely wrong in your view and by repeated insistence of your view. That there's something else, something more, and cultures get that other thing wrong.

[vulcanlogician]

[Angrboda]

[The Grand Nudger]

Objectivism posits that moral assertions are claims about an object which can be true or false. Relativism posits that moral assertions are claims about a set that can be true or false.

Nihilism rejects both equally and for the same reasons. It's pointless or absurd to say, as both a realist and relativist can and will say, that a person can be morally mistaken.

[vulcanlogician]

Given the early hour and that I've only had two cups of coffee, I reserve the right to deny that I said any of the above.

So I have the other problem. I'm fueled by quite a few espressos. So maybe we should discuss Rachels's "less caffeinated" version of the argument. There's also a Boghossian lecture that I'm drawing from that directly argues my thesis. I may rewatch it and try to reproduce some of his better points.

For now, I would specifically like to hear Nudger's opinion on Rachels's calling nonsequiteur on the provided relativist argument. Doesn't that at least somewhat speak to my point?

[brewer]

Anybody else uncomfortable with the terms 'fact' and 'moral' being tied together?

Seems to me that all descriptive terms for moral philosophical positions fall under the term relative,.......... maybe excluding objective. They all fall somewhere of a moral sliding scale.

That's about as philosophical as I want to get.

[The Grand Nudger]

The conclusion provided may be a nonseq, but I think it misrepresents relativism. It's not a relativist argument so much as the statement that descriptive relativism is true followed by the conclusion that relativism is not objectivism, therefore subjectivism, imo.

To be fair to cultural relativism we should probably respect the distinction between the opinions of a subject and facts of a culture in which that subject resides, and acknowledge that objectivism, relativism and subjectivism all make assertions to truth-in-general, that a moral claim can be true or false and at least some are.