I see people talking about moral relativism a lot. It can lead to some pretty absurd stuff. I guess my question is... WHY? How is "moral relativism"... or whatever people mean when they say that... relevant at all to what people talk about? It seems to be tied to "liberals" and "Democrats" a lot, but... why?
A quick look at Wikipedia gives three definitions of moral relativism:
Descriptive: The notion that there are different moral standards.
Meta-ethical: The notion that there is no objective moral standard.
Normative: The notion that, if there is no objective moral standard, then we should tolerate each other's moral standards.
The first is obviously true. The second is false; I have to believe that there is an objective moral standard of some sort, because I believe that there is an objective reality, and morality is part of that objective reality because we can test for how much some moral standard is rooted in truth. The third is irrelevant, but I would say that the conclusion can be true without meta-ethical moral relativism being true.
What doesn't follow is that any of this applies in the way people seem to like to use it. The conclusion in the normative definition is the one that probably ought to be the most, erm, "controversial", but it seems as if people mean the meta-ethical definition. Yet, I can't imagine anyone actually literally taking this as true, if they gave it a serious, honest amount of thought. Sure, you could go the solipsist route ("THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE REALITY, MAN"), but then there's no point in anything.
I imagine that what people really mean by "moral relativism" is the notion that there is an objective moral standard, but we just haven't completely uncovered it yet. This is analogous to reality itself: there is an objective reality with universal objective rules, but we just haven't completely uncovered those rules yet (unless you suggest string theory, which is a whole other rabbit hole). Under this notion, it is perfectly consistent to pick a side on a moral issue that Mr. Moral-Fabric-of-America disagrees with. However, since there's nothing inherently bad about this notion (if anything it's probably true), critics must set up the straw man of meta-ethical moral relativism, which leads to inconsistencies and the kinds of hilarious claims that I alluded to in the beginning.
I conclude that the phrase "moral relativism", in its common usage, is merely a cheerleader slogan used by one sports team to bash another sports team. After all, we have to choose what I think is right, not what you think is right. What do you think?
A quick look at Wikipedia gives three definitions of moral relativism:
Descriptive: The notion that there are different moral standards.
Meta-ethical: The notion that there is no objective moral standard.
Normative: The notion that, if there is no objective moral standard, then we should tolerate each other's moral standards.
The first is obviously true. The second is false; I have to believe that there is an objective moral standard of some sort, because I believe that there is an objective reality, and morality is part of that objective reality because we can test for how much some moral standard is rooted in truth. The third is irrelevant, but I would say that the conclusion can be true without meta-ethical moral relativism being true.
What doesn't follow is that any of this applies in the way people seem to like to use it. The conclusion in the normative definition is the one that probably ought to be the most, erm, "controversial", but it seems as if people mean the meta-ethical definition. Yet, I can't imagine anyone actually literally taking this as true, if they gave it a serious, honest amount of thought. Sure, you could go the solipsist route ("THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE REALITY, MAN"), but then there's no point in anything.
I imagine that what people really mean by "moral relativism" is the notion that there is an objective moral standard, but we just haven't completely uncovered it yet. This is analogous to reality itself: there is an objective reality with universal objective rules, but we just haven't completely uncovered those rules yet (unless you suggest string theory, which is a whole other rabbit hole). Under this notion, it is perfectly consistent to pick a side on a moral issue that Mr. Moral-Fabric-of-America disagrees with. However, since there's nothing inherently bad about this notion (if anything it's probably true), critics must set up the straw man of meta-ethical moral relativism, which leads to inconsistencies and the kinds of hilarious claims that I alluded to in the beginning.
I conclude that the phrase "moral relativism", in its common usage, is merely a cheerleader slogan used by one sports team to bash another sports team. After all, we have to choose what I think is right, not what you think is right. What do you think?