[huxley]

There might be a confusion between a prescriptive and a descriptive stance of moral relativism.

You can be a moral relativist and take a pragmatic position that traditions or societal consensus are worth having without disappearing in a puff of logic.

[marbletiles]

> You can be a moral relativist and take a pragmatic position that traditions or societal consensus are worth having without disappearing in a puff of logic.

Not really, because if you believe the relativism you must believe that moral consensus can't be reached.

What you are saying is very close to "You can be a climate change denier and take the pragmatic position that we need to change our behaviour to stop the earth heating up"

[huxley]

I think you're talking about a very naive normative interpretation of moral relativism, the fundamental argument, as I understand it, is actually that societies do reach some form of moral consensus, but that this consensus has cultural and historical roots (and possible other contingent factors), it will vary and change over nations and time.

I won't throw a segfault if I take a descriptive moral relativistic position and simultaneously think that honour killings are wrong.

I am logical and well-read enough to realize that most of our Western courts have allowed honour killings but called them "crimes of passion"[1] and until not that long ago that could be a complete defence against a charge of murder. It is still an acceptable partial defence in some courts and some judges apparently advocate its return in others [2].

So by recognizing the moral relativism inherent in that situation, am I normatively obligated to think honour killings are A-OK? I don't think so, I am however apparently outside the moral consensus on that subject, so what do I know.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_of_passion

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9020632...

[marbletiles]

I think you're talking about the anthropological meaning of moral relativism (and we probably agree there). But the rest of us are talking about the philosophical sense. There's a very good overview of that here: http://www.iep.utm.edu/moral-re/

Among other things, one of the potential consequences of metaethical moral relativism is that you and I can't actually say anything meaningful to one another about honour killings beyond "I feel they are bad" or "I feel they are good".

Or to put this a slightly different way: your culture (apparently) thinks honour killings are OK. You disagree. On what grounds? If a moral statement is true relative only to the consensus belief of a culture, and your culture says honour killings are right, then you must necessarily be wrong to disagree. (See 4f in the link for more on that).

If you reject that, as it sounds like you possibly do, then you reject philosophical moral relativism. You can keep the anthropological one, though.

[huxley]

Obviously we disagree about what exactly that entails (at a glance, the article you cited seems to describe multiple modes of moral relativism, not all as logically muddled as the one you describe).

I'd be curious to know what grounds you would argue against a topic you find morally objectionable. What would you say are the proper foundations for moral axioms?

Update: and to answer your question, I'm not sure I have good reasons beyond "I feel they are bad", I do aim for coherence and consistency even when I'm not confident that I have a solid logical foundation, but it's hard to feel committed to any particular consensus. For background, I was raised in two different countries with two different cultures and languages, my politics were diametrically opposite those of one of my grandfathers who I still loved, I never met the other because he was an abusive alcoholic that thankfully abandoned the family. I am a bit of a Camusian outsider I guess.