I admit that I have done things that I knew to be wrong in order to satisfy some want that, at the time, was higher on my priority than moral correctness.

Your argument is shredded and you cannot argue with me.

At the moment you chose it, you chose it thinking it to be some good. If subjective morality is right, then you did in fact do what is moral for you...the problem isn't with the immorality of the act. The problem is (as Sartre would say) that you are in bad faith about what you've done.

Your failing to take account that what is good for one should be good for all. Therefore, if an individual crosses the boundaries of others and does things that are not good for others, then they were not good to begin with. The individual that crossed the boundaries is guilty of shortsightedness.

The difference for me lies in the existence of a multitude of agents. Sure, Suzie may decide to bomb an abortion clinic killing doctors and decide this is good, and if she lived in a vacuum it certainly could be good (setting aside the non-existence of doctors in a vacuum). However because Suzie lives in a society in which other agents have agreed to live by a definition of good involving the preservation of the lives of doctors, Suzie's determination of blowing them up as good simply doesn't matter.

Are you saying that only morality informs are decisions? Are there no other values that influence our decisions?

No person is ever of one mind when making a decision, and there are always costs to any course of action. Sometimes, and it may be the only definition of sin, it is our sense of right and wrong that suffers.

Are you referring to values of others or values that are intangible and not created by others?

If you're referring to values of others then why would not using those values to help guide you be wrong? I thought a relativist standpoint was subjective always. So others values are of no importance. Course you can take them into account if you want but that is part of your own subjective decision. If you choose not to take them into account it is also part of your subjective decision. You can not be required to take them into account. When you say "no person if ever of one mind when making decisions" I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that. I would say from a relativist standpoint that even though someone takes into their decision the influence of others they don't have to do that.

I am saying that every man is a collection of competing values, his own values according to his nature and what he has adopted. All of our actions are attempts to satisfy these values, and at no time in anyone's life can he or she act in any way as to satisfy all of these at once. Most often, from my experience, I have found that certain values will suffer in order to satisfy others.

To say that we act always with our conception of the good in mind denies this apparent truth.

So behold!

Susie bombs an abortion clinic! Killing abortion "doctors" is good, and abortion is wrong.

The next day, Susie procures an abortion. Abortion is ok!

Abortion is both wrong and not wrong with respect to the same person.

Simply put, "subjectivist morality" is not only self nihilating...but rather it's an incoherent term...not to mention that it leads to contradictions.

Bonaventurian, what you have just described is essentially the same as my reductio ad absurdum of Objectivism: if what is right is what you do and you do something that contra-acts what you did before, then either both are right, or none are: either bombing the clinic is OK or getting an abortion is, but the same cannot hold true for both at the same time.

In much the same vein, testifying against someone who killed your best friend and then going out and killing a rival of yours cannot both be OK, because the two acts contra-act--or what you would call nihilate--themselves, in regards to the subjectivist Objectivist standpoint.

This is not to say that a subjectivist morality must therefore in all cases be a false morality, but rather that the subjectivist system the laity implicitly follow must be wrong. There are subjectivist or relativist standpoints that may not necessarily be inherently immoral--Nietzshe-ism, Taoism, for instance.

I think maybe it would help if you gave an example as to what you are referring to. So would you be saying that someone could view something as wrong but because they really want to do it they bypass their moral opinions this one time and do it anyway? So they think it is wrong in their opinion but they do it anyway because they are maybe angry, have a strong desire, etc... If that is what you are saying I can agree with that.

In response to the OP: "Simply put, if one is a subjectivist moral theorist one is ultimately forced to admit that every decision made by a moral agent is morally good. "

I would change that to: "Simply put, if one is a subjectivist moral theorist one is ultimately forced to admit that every decision made by a moral agent that he/she views as good is morally good."

I would say that after you reword it like that then you don't really get anywhere since we already knew that. That's pretty much what moral relativism is right? Your opinions on morals are right and wrong in your own eye's and no one has the right to say that what you do is inherently wrong (except in their own eyes)

What irritates me is when people call themselves moral relativists and then say that what someone else did is wrong and expect others to agree with them.

To put it bluntly: If your gonna be a moral relativist then keep your mouth shut because no body cares what you have to say. (in respect to your opinions on whether or not something is wrong or right)
:brickwall:

It is important that even though we have subjective moral feelings and intuitions, morality only manifests itself and makes itself meaningful in the realm of actions.

It is important to realize that no action can be taken without a rational process. If debate breaks down to the basic sympathies which one holds by his or her nature argument argument is meaningless. If, however, the argument concerns the rationality behind the decision making, argumentation is perfectly valid from certain relativists.

It is also perfectly reasonable to try and convince someone that he is wrong, rather it is placing blame that the relativist should avoid.

Well surely for her to have had an abortion after such a short space of time, her morals must have changed, or she knowingly did evil from her own perspective. Taking into account the former, your dichotomy isn't necessarily true. It isn't so much two opposing rights, but what seemed right yesterday, and what seems right today. With the passage of time morals, as do most if not all things, change. As such a person can look back at a situation and see that they have done wrong. Miss Susie Hypothetical would at the the time of the abortion consider herself wrong for having destroyed the abortion clinic in the name of stopping abortions, which she would now support. That's the beauty of pure relativism, until the moment of death not a thing is infinitely true for the person as time is always passing.