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MixedNuts comments on How to annoy misanthropes and bleeding-hearts - Less Wrong
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Moral relativists are people who think morality is a preference. "I prefer the absence of murder to its presence" is like "I prefer the absence of anchovies on my pizza to their presence". If cosmic rays strike your brain so that you think "Murder is good" rather than "Murder is bad", murder thereby becomes good. If I like murder and you don't, we don't disagree, we just have differing subjective preferences.
A subtler form is cultural relativism, where the defining system is not individuals, but society. So human sacrifices so the sun god are bad in San Francisco in 2011, but good in Mexico City in 1411.
thanks - that's a good, clear explanation :)
Can you point me to why that would apply to the original quote above? I've tried fitting it round the idea of blaming vs credit-giving... but I'm not sure what I'm thinking makes any sense.
Many people who think of themselves as moral relativists refuse to give any credit or assign any blame for many actions. (Few are consistent enough to avoid blaming other educated Westerners for rejecting moral relativism, but that's another story.)
Aha - now I get it. Thanks. :)
They aren't refusing to assign credit or blame - they don't believe in credit or blame.