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People argue about tastes all the time. That tastes can't be argued over is what we tell ourselves, not what we actually do. Why else would we say "he has bad taste"?

I use taste just because it's the most widely-accepted instance where subjectivism applies. But, certainly, a substantial minority will hold that for certain kinds of tastes, objectivism holds. If you think there are meaningful disagreements about taste, that makes you an objectivist. In which case, you already agree that there are facts about these kinds of things.

charlesism 4112 days ago

"If moral sentiments were mere opinion, then there'd be no point to arguing over whether some action is right or wrong."

...who says there is? Whether that makes you uncomfortable or not has no bearing on whether it is the case.

I do accept other's moral sentiments as taste - maybe I'm some sort of sociopath? To hell with me. I see arguing over right and wrong as the mob enforcing its rule.

But the point is that, as a society, we don't treat moral sentiment as taste. For instance, when someone murders another person, we don't say: "Well, that person just likes murdering people. Who are we to disagree?!" Instead, we say they did something wrong, and we punish them.

If you're not prepared to give up all claims on how others should act, then you're not really a moral relativist. And the point of the author is that, as a society, we seem to have an inconsistent position.

If you're not prepared to give up all claims on how others should act, then you're not really a moral relativist.

I disagree completely. The claim might simply be based on might. We as a society are more numerous and stronger than the occasional murderer, and therefore we'll act on our moral taste and punish him.

I agree that people don't actually think like that, but that doesn't prove that moral facts exists, just that many people think they do.

marbletiles 4112 days ago

It's not the punishment that's relevant, it's the claim, or the ability to judge behaviour by a moral standard. You can judge behaviour even if you're too small and weak to enact punishment.

But if you're a moral relativist, you can't judge at all — you can't say "that killing was wrong, it was murder". The best you can say was "that killing was morally wrong by my standards, but might well have been acceptable by his, therefore the discussion can go no further".

Relativism reduces morality to little more than a preference, and makes it as impossible to reason or debate about morality as it is to debate about whether you should like your eggs sunny side up. Very few are really moral relativists; the logical consequences of believing in it are usually too much for people to stomach.

(This doesn't mean moral facts exist, though! There are more options available than just moral relativism or moral objectivism, not that the article bothers thinking about any of them)

Sure you can judge - based on your own, subjective morality. "To me, that killing was wrong, it was murder". All you need is to acknowledge that other people will judge it differently, and that their judgment is just as objectively valid. And you can still judged them for judging so!

And it doesn't make it impossible to debate about morality - merely futile.

I don't see what's so difficult to accept in this, frankly.

marbletiles 4112 days ago

> I don't see what's so difficult to accept in this, frankly.

Because you're stopping once you reach the conclusion you like and not seeing where it leads.

Debating about morality is a pre-requisite for, for example, coming to agreement on a community standard on a moral question of behaviour. And if it's futile to debate about morality, then of course it's futile to try to define a community standard on a moral question of behaviour.

Without consensus on standards of behaviour, communities and societies fall apart. People value communities and societies. Therefore people value being able to debate about morality.

> "I agree that people don't actually think like that, but that doesn't prove that moral facts exists, just that many people think they do."

I think this is all the author wants to prove. We, as a society, seem to be of two minds about this. He's not trying to prove that moral facts exist.

May be, but I think you're reading a more interesting article than it's actually there :)

"Might" is pretty much how I think about it anyway.

Crito 4112 days ago

Moral relativism is not incompatible with not tolerating practices which you personally disagree with. You may simultaneously believe that morality is relative, and not have any particular regard for other systems of morality. You may enforce your system of morality on others simply because you can and because your morality, which you recognize as relative, permits such enforcement.

> "Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."

Sir Charles James Napier may not have earnestly bought into cultural relativism, but the sentiment he expresses is not inherently incompatible with it.

You don't need to believe that your system is "correct" in some sort of universal way. You merely need to believe that your system will be best for your personal interests.

Moral relativism is incompatible with judgements that other's moral judgements are wrong. You can judge someone else's views as wrong while still tolerating them.

One other things:

> "You don't need to believe that your system is "correct" in some sort of universal way. You merely need to believe that your system will be best for your personal interests."

Relativism is not egoism.

Crito 4112 days ago

> "Moral relativism is incompatible with judgements that other's moral judgements are wrong."

Right or wrong have absolutely nothing to do with it. It can't, because without a universal morality any notion of universal "right" or "wrong" evaporates. This is about refusing to tolerate another culture not because "it is wrong" but rather because it is beneficial to you to do so.

Your problem here is that you seem to be assuming some sort of universal "respect the right of others to coexist" or "live and let live" morality, where you should not stamp out other cultures unless you have determined that they are "wrong". This sort of universal tolerance for other systems of morality does not exist. It really simply doesn't; history would be far less bloody if it did.

People that do not believe in universal morality are still very capable of acting only in their own best interests, at the expense of others. Egoism is not incompatible with moral relativism.

Moral relativism is incompatible with judgements that other's moral judgements are wrong.

How so, as long as you accept that those meta-judgements are still subjective?

Under moral relativism, you can accept that other people have different moral tastes, just as you can accept that other people have different tastes for food. But you cannot accept that such tastes are subject to normative assessment, making them 'right' or 'wrong' in any meaningful way.

So a moral relativist can say something like "I dislike your approval of female genital mutilation", but this is not a claim about the rightness or wrongness of the approval of female genital mutilation. It is instead a claim about their own sentiments. This is just like saying "Well I don't like sushi" in response to a friend saying that they like sushi. You'r not saying that them liking sushi is wrong.

Well you picked a good one with murdering and the death penalty and so forth.

> If you're not prepared to give up all claims on how others should act, then you're not really a moral relativist.

My only claim extends as far as I can act or influence others to act to serve my own needs and wants. Am I not a moral relativist?

I'm not sure that the author is commenting on society, but young people who are morally relativistic. I think he badly misrepresents their argument and doesn't really make one of his own.

> "My only claim extends as far as I can act or influence others to act to serve my own needs and wants."

That egoism, not moral relativism.

I took it that the author was making the following point about our society: we teach them in school that things like "cheating is wrong" is mere opinion, and yet similar judgments like "tax-evasion is wrong" aren't treated as mere opinions when they grow up.

egoism sounds about right. i wonder are they mutually exclusive. reading wikipedia, i'd disagree with normative moral relativism and agree with meta-ethical/descriptive moral relativism. just because i'm an egoist doesn't mean i think everyone else is.

> and yet similar judgments like "tax-evasion is wrong" aren't treated as mere opinions when they grow up.

I don't see anything like that written in the article, where did you take that from?

huxley 4112 days ago

We do argue that all the time, we just call killing something other than murder if we don't want to impose a negative judgement on it.

You don't have to be a moral relativist to see that the foundations of moral facts are often built on sand.

The author blustered about how awful his strawman was, played semantic games on his son, and proved nothing at all.