Perhaps the fields of psychology and ethics both exhibit a continuum of objectivity of a similar nature. If this is the case, then as surely as psychology is helpful, so could be a well constructed formal theory of ethical action. Certainly moral solutions are not clear cut, and many factors can play in to choosing how to act.
An Ethical system qua normative claims is effectively a system of heuristics for effecting an outcome. The normative claims represent our physical (neurological) response to external consequences, and there is definite interplay between situational parameters that weight the decision to act in one way or another. Many people, for instance, claim it is wrong to murder one person to save another, but various factors can come in to play that alter the weight of that conviction. For instance, it is generally considered acceptable to kill an attacker when it is necessary to prevent him/her from killing you.
I am not convinced that is is not possible to effectively model average (or any augmentation of) human morality, and I think that it is also likely that if we could do this we might be able to more effectively sort out which actions to take given certain parameters. However, like a healthy psyche, a healthy morality is defined via social standards. Due to that, it will not be absolute, but rather goal relative. As far as I can tell, a healthy psyche is most generally one that allows for adherence to the most commonly held social conventions for what is of value and how that which is valuable is acceptably obtained.
As long a certain basic reactions to certain consequences of one's actions are nearly universally accepted (and this seems to be the case when it comes to very basic questions of morality), I think that it is reasonable in theory (though I am fuzzy about how one might work out the details) to think that we could model moral decision making in such a way that it could effectively help us to make practical decisions to yield optimal results.
tl;dr: Relativism bottoms-out in realism by objectifying relations between subjective notions. This should be communicated using concrete examples that show its practical importance. It implies in particular that morality should think about science, and science should think about morality.
Sam Harris attacks moral uber-relativism when he asserts that "Science can answer moral questions". Countering the counterargument that morality is too imprecise to be treated by science, he makes an excellent comparison: "healthy" is not a precisely defined concept, but no one is crazy enough to utter that medicine cannot answer questions of health.
What needs adding to his presentation (which is worth seeing, though I don't entirely agree with it) is what I consider the strongest concise argument in favor of science's moral relevance: that morality is relative simply means that the task of science is to examine absolute relations between morals. For example, suppose you uphold the following two moral claims:
First of all, note that questions of causality are significantly more accessible to science than people before 2000 thought was possible. Now suppose a cleverly designed, non-invasive causal analysis found that physically punishing children, frequently or infrequently, causes them to be more likely to commit criminal violence as adults. Would you find this discovery irrelevant to your adherence to these morals? Absolutely not. You would reflect and realize that you needed to prioritize them in some way. Most would prioritize the second one, but in any case, science will have made a valid impact.
So although either of the two morals is purely subjective on its own, how these morals interrelate is a question of objective fact. Though perhaps obvious, this idea has some seriously persuasive consequences and is not be taken lightly. Why?
First of all, you might change your morals in response to them not relating to each other in the way you expected. Ideas parse differently when they relate differently. "Teachers should be allowed to physically punish their students" might never feel the same to you after you find out it causes adult violence. Even if it originally felt like a terminal (fundamental) value, your prioritization of (2) might make (1) slowly fade out of your mind over time. In hindsight, you might just see it as an old, misinformed instrumental value that was never in fact terminal.
Second, as we increase the number of morals under consideration, the number of relations for science to consider grows rapidly, as (n2-n)/2: we have many more moral relations than morals themselves. Suddenly the old disjointed list of untouchable maxims called "morals" fades into the background, and we see a throbbing circulatory system of moral relations, objective questions and answers without which no person can competently reflect on her own morality. A highly prevalent moral like "human suffering is undesirable" looks like a major organ: important on its own to a lot of people, and lots of connections in and out for science to examine.
Treating relativistic vertigo
To my best recollection, I have never heard the phrase "it's all relative" used to an effect that didn't involve stopping people from thinking. When the topic of conversation — morality, belief, success, rationality, or what have you — is suddenly revealed or claimed to depend on a context, people find it disorienting, often to the point of feeling the entire discourse has been and will continue to be "meaningless" or "arbitrary". Once this happens, it can be very difficult to persuade them to keep thinking, let alone thinking productively…
To rebuke this sort of conceptual nihilism, it's natural to respond with analogies to other relative concepts that are clearly useful to think about:
"Position, momentum, and energy are only relatively defined as numbers, but we don't abandon scientific study of those, do we?"
While an important observation, this inevitably evokes the "But that's different" analogy-immune response. The real cure is in understanding explicitly what to do with relative notions:
To use one of these lines of argument effectively — and it can be very effective — one should follow up immediately with a specific example in the case you're talking about. Don't let the conversation drift in abstraction. If you're talking about morality, there is no shortage of objective moral relations that science can handle, so you can pick one at random to show how easy and common it is:
"Teen pregnancy / the spread of STDs is undesirable."
Question: Does promoting the use of condoms increase or decrease teen pregnancy rates / the spread of STDs?
"Married couples should do their best not to cheat on each other."
Question: Does masturbation increase or decrease adulterous impulses over time?
"Children should not be raised in psychologically damaging environments."
Question: What are the psychological effects of being raised by gay parents?
I'm not advocating here any of these particular moral claims, nor any particular resolution between them, but simply that the answer to the given question — and many other relevant ones — puts you in a much better position to reflect on these issues. Your opinion after you know the answer is more valuable than before.
"But of course science can answer some moral questions... the point is that it can't answer all of them. It can't tell us ultimately what is good or evil."
No. That is not the point. The point is whether you want teachers to beat their students. Do you? Well, science can help you decide. And more importantly, once you do, it should help you in leading others to the same conclusion.
A lesson from history: What happens when you examine objective relations between subjective beliefs? You get probability theory… Bayesian updating… we know this story; it started around 200 years ago, and it ends well.
Now it's morality's turn.