I’ve never heard a rational defense of moral relativism that made any sense. If there are no moral truths, then serial killers have done nothing wrong for example. If a moral relativist admits that there are some moral truths, then moral relativism is completely indefensible. At that point, you’re just arguing over what is and what is not a moral truth.
How about the fact that all morals are made up and therefore obviously relative to those who made them up? There may be instinctual preference on many, but that doesn’t make it a universal rule.
The fact the morality was invented makes it synthetic but not necessarily relative. Numbers are also “made up”.
Its possible that moral truths are objective but our interpretation of these objective truths is imperfect and therefore seems relative.
To use another commenters example, the fact that killing is not morally blameworthy in some cases doesn’t mean that an absolute moral truth doesn’t exist but just that our concept of killing is just too broad to express it.
Universal moral truths. Like absolutes. We can say killing is bad, but many would say killing a mass murderer currently on a murder spree would be more moral than letting them kill a bunch of people.
Just because there aren’t moral truths doesn’t mean a serial killer did nothing wrong. You seem to be stuck on finding a single contradiction and using that to dismiss everything else related as irrelevant. That’s not actually how the world works.
Similarly in physics, the existence of non-newtonian fluids, doesn’t invalidate Newton’s work in fluid dynamics.
If there are no moral truths, then serial killers have done nothing wrong for example.
This is a sort of circular argument, it’s premised on the notion that serial killers have done something objectively wrong.
If you start with the notion that some things are objectively wrong, then of course you’ll come to the conclusion that objective morality exists, because it’s one of the assumptions you started with.
It all starts with defining what morality means. The way I would define morality is behaviors that maximize flourishing for sentient creatures and minimize suffering. While it is clearly difficult to quantify flourishing and suffering, there are behaviors that clearly cause suffering in this world and impede the opportunity for flourishing and, by the above definition of morality, are plainly immoral. The way I see it, rejecting the possibility that flourishing and suffering can be quantified at all is the only argument that can be made against moral absolutism. Everything else is just quibbling over relevant variables across the spectrum of available behaviors to determine what makes them more or less moral. There is always a behavior that is objectively the more moral choice, but it might be difficult in practice to determine which is the more moral choice due to a lack of available relevant data. The absence of said data shouldn’t be assumed to be because it doesn’t/can’t exist, but rather that it hasn’t been collected. Rejecting the idea that there is always a more moral behavior amongst several choices is the dangerous assumption, imo.
I’ve never heard a rational defense of moral relativism that made any sense. If there are no moral truths, then serial killers have done nothing wrong for example. If a moral relativist admits that there are some moral truths, then moral relativism is completely indefensible. At that point, you’re just arguing over what is and what is not a moral truth.
How about the fact that all morals are made up and therefore obviously relative to those who made them up? There may be instinctual preference on many, but that doesn’t make it a universal rule.
The fact the morality was invented makes it synthetic but not necessarily relative. Numbers are also “made up”.
Its possible that moral truths are objective but our interpretation of these objective truths is imperfect and therefore seems relative.
To use another commenters example, the fact that killing is not morally blameworthy in some cases doesn’t mean that an absolute moral truth doesn’t exist but just that our concept of killing is just too broad to express it.
Universal moral truths. Like absolutes. We can say killing is bad, but many would say killing a mass murderer currently on a murder spree would be more moral than letting them kill a bunch of people.
There’s a fundamental misunderstanding here that seems suspiciously like a bad faith argument.
Just because there aren’t moral truths doesn’t mean a serial killer did nothing wrong. You seem to be stuck on finding a single contradiction and using that to dismiss everything else related as irrelevant. That’s not actually how the world works.
Similarly in physics, the existence of non-newtonian fluids, doesn’t invalidate Newton’s work in fluid dynamics.
This is a sort of circular argument, it’s premised on the notion that serial killers have done something objectively wrong.
If you start with the notion that some things are objectively wrong, then of course you’ll come to the conclusion that objective morality exists, because it’s one of the assumptions you started with.
It all starts with defining what morality means. The way I would define morality is behaviors that maximize flourishing for sentient creatures and minimize suffering. While it is clearly difficult to quantify flourishing and suffering, there are behaviors that clearly cause suffering in this world and impede the opportunity for flourishing and, by the above definition of morality, are plainly immoral. The way I see it, rejecting the possibility that flourishing and suffering can be quantified at all is the only argument that can be made against moral absolutism. Everything else is just quibbling over relevant variables across the spectrum of available behaviors to determine what makes them more or less moral. There is always a behavior that is objectively the more moral choice, but it might be difficult in practice to determine which is the more moral choice due to a lack of available relevant data. The absence of said data shouldn’t be assumed to be because it doesn’t/can’t exist, but rather that it hasn’t been collected. Rejecting the idea that there is always a more moral behavior amongst several choices is the dangerous assumption, imo.
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Sure, and how does your understanding contend with the concept of a serial killer of Nazis? Or a capitalist?