J_Thomas2 comments on The Bedrock of Morality: Arbitrary? - Less Wrong

16 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 August 2008 10:00PM

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Comment author: J_Thomas2 17 August 2008 01:20:00AM 0 points [-]

People keep using the term "moral relativism". I did a Google search of the site and got a variety of topics with the term dating from 2007 and 2008. Here's what it means to me.

Relative moral relativism means you affirm that to the best of your knowledge nobody has demonstrated any sort of absolute morality. That people differ in moralities, and if there's anything objective to say one is right and another is wrong that you haven't seen it. That very likely these different moralities are good for different purposes and different circumstances, and if a higher morality shows up it's likely to affirm that the different moralities you've heard of tend to each have its place.

This is analogous to being an agnostic about gods. You haven't seen evidence there's any such thing as an objectively absolute morality, so you do not assert that there is such a thing.

Absolute moral relativism accepts all this and takes two steps further. First, the claim is that there is no objective way to judge one morality better than another. Second, the claim is that without any objective absolute morality you should not have any.

This is analogous to being an atheist. You assert that there is no such thing and that people who think there is suffer from fallacious superstitions.

I can be a relative moral relativist and stil say "This is my morality. I chose it and it's mine. I don't need it to be objectively true for me to choose it. You can choose something else and maybe it will turn out we can get along or maybe not. We'll see."

Why should you need an absolute morality that's good all times and all places before you can practice any morality at all? Here I am, here's how I live. It works for me. If you want to politely tell me I'm all wrong then I'll listen politely as long as I feel like it.