pragmatist comments on Subjective vs. normative offensiveness - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (86)
No it wasn't. Relativists have no non-subjective notion of "normativity", thus the subjective/normative distinction makes no sense to them.
Edit: In practice of course, most relativists are willing to treat things like murder as if they are objectively wrong. However, this is a case of their System I protecting them from the consequences of their System II beliefs, similar to the way New Agers who don't believe in objective reality manage to avoid walking out of high story windows.
This is not true of all relativists. There are relativists who believe in entirely objective agent-relative moral facts. In other words, they would say something like, "It is an objective moral truth that X is wrong for members of community Y". The normative force of "X is wrong" would apply even to members of community Y who don't believe that X is wrong (hence the objectivity), but it wouldn't apply to people outside community Y (hence the relativism).
Exactly what I going to say. Thanks.
Maybe a word other than normative would satisfy those relativists who don't believe in any kind of normative morality, but still believe that morality within a society is the closest thing we can have. Although, this appears to be more a terminology issue than anything else.