You made an 'if-then' statement which is false. I did not write that for you.

"that there are no moral absolutes" and "there may be what's best for a given system of people espousing given local moral views in a given situation or "simply what's best for me" is not moral relativism.

Moral relativism is the belief that X is morally right/wrong if and only if S/P believes so. S being a society P being a person, to account for the varieties of moral relativism.

Moral relativism is not simply the rejection of universal moral claims. Moral relativism contains a proposition for the evaluation of the rightness/wrongness of moral propositions.

And where in this do you address the issue at hand? Where in this do you show moral relativism to be coherent?

A moral relativist cannot argue that any given situation is any worse than another situation, morally speaking, because moral right/wrong is dependent on belief alone.

If the woman in your situation says that her condition is "simply bad" in some moral way, then the woman cannot be a moral relativist by definition, even if the person claims to be a moral relativist.

Yeah, I never said that a moral relativist should abide by what others think are moral absolutes - only that a moral relativist coherently cannot contest those beliefs.

And such a method would fail in my eyes as well. However, you have misrepresented the argument. You have built a straw man. Straw men are not rigorous enough for me, I'm afraid.

Actually, it is incoherent. According to moral relativism, moral improvement is impossible.

To avoid nihilism is the goal of all people trying to refute moral relativism, they want a firm ground to stand on, and so they start with the end in mind and they try to simply justify it, which is a sick appraoch to philosophy...

Bones, if you want to redefine moral relativism, what is the point in our having the conversation?

If this is in response to my original point, like I said I wasn't trying to define it, let alone redefine it.

Moral relativism is the view that moral propositions are true with respect to a particular system rather than true absolutely and universally. A moral relativist is somebody who espouses that view.

You seemed to start upset and got worse from there, which is a shame. I found the discussion fruitful - giving it further consideration the author is much more wrong than I initially suspected.

In summary, my position is that the author has not shown that moral relativism is incoherent. Citing examples of non-relativism does not justify his argument.

I just checked Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: it appears moral relativism is a broad term, and there are different kinds of it. It is probably useful, given that its definition seems to be an area for upset, that I or someone lay them down here for perusal.

If you think you are a moral relativist, ask yourself: do you condone the Holocaust? If you do not condone the Holocaust, you are not, in practice, a moral relativist even if you claim to be one.

Clearly some did condone the Holocaust, otherwise the Holocaust would have never occurred. And since the Holocaust did occur, we can deduce there are some individuals who do have some morals which defy the "universal".

We can find countless examples of people making choices which defy a "universal" ethical view, and do we then say Moral Absolutism is incoherent? Surely there are those who call themselves Moral Absolutists who have made choices they felt were right, despite their universal view regarding an issue. If we are to call one incoherent in practice, we must logically call both incoherent in practice.

I find most of these opposing viewpoints only come about in order to "balance" the initial extreme view. Quite honestly, I don't believe Moral Reletivists are trying to make any kind of stand, except to say: it does depend sometimes and different people come to different conclusions.

Just because a moral absolutist defies some universal it does not follow that the absolutist does not act from some universal. They might act on some other universal.

Good point, absolutely. But I also don't think it follows that just because a moral relativist states there is no universal law, that they are applying a nihilist view, that they don't agree there is intersubjectivity on ethical issues, or that they dismiss all universal views of ethics. One can consider that "X is morally right/wrong if and only if S/P believes so." and still acknowledge there are universal viewpoints with which they and others abide.

According to the definition I'm using, moral relativists "hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition's truth". This does not imply there is no intersubjectivity regarding issues; that is, this does not imply moral relativists wouldn't agree most people think the Holocaust to be "bad" or "evil". Not all moral relativists are this extreme, just as not all moral absolutists are extreme enough to say, "There is no other way!"

I'm not quite sure what other gripes you're referring to when speaking of moral relativists. I fear you are using quite a different definition than the one I'm used to using, or for some reason are assuming all moral relativists are extreme.

If moral relativists were really sincere in their beliefs, they could not condemn the following practices...

A moral relativist can acknowledge that others abide by universal views, but if a moral relativist adopts a universal view then they have adopted a view that runs contrary to moral relativism.

But a moral relativist cannot say that the Holocaust was bad - this is because someone believed that the Holocaust was good which, according to moral relativism, is the only thing required in order to justify the act.

A moral relativist cannot, by definition, have a moral view and simultaneously demand that their view is right because, according to moral relativism, moral beliefs are only right in that someone believes them

Moral relativism is incoherent because it cannot account for moral progress. A moral relativist cannot say that any moral laws are any more correct than any other moral laws because moral laws are only right/wrong as they are believed.

You don't get it. They have no conception of what anything is other than what pleases self. They could care less about what hell is. When they are dead, they are dead. It's worm city. Oh, and by the way, o'horned one. Wouldn't it be better grammar to use "should" instead of "ought".

Your arch enemy,
William

Now I guess that makes me a religious fanatic, huh? Strictly from a moral relativist point of view, of course.

Oh, and by the way, o'horned one. Wouldn't it be better grammar to use "should" instead of "ought".

Better? No. More popular? Perhaps.

Uh oh, we have a grammar relativist on our hands!

Strike him down!

Why could I not have a moral view and call it "right" (to myself) while simultaneously acknowledging others have moral views which are "right" (to themselves)?
What would you call one who does not believe in any universal law which dictates absolute "right" or "wrong" while at the same time acknowledging morality's importance, and yet still even has passionate moral beliefs regarding certain issues (this doesn't imply he believes he's absolutely "right", but the feelings persuade the person in this manner)?

I was calling this a moral relativist before this discussion.

Maybe I should just call it confused.

Or maybe I should just stop all the damn labeling, because it really means nothing. To try to lump people in categories is just silly, in my opinion. What new knowledge do we gain? Probably nothing, because people are still contemplating! Someone could be contemplating a vast number of issues and may not fit into any mold. I may even argue no thinking human ever does - we just have this idea they do.

i also despise labels, and i am in fact still contemplating morals. mine change as i gain more experience and knowledge. maybe a year ago i fit a different label better and next year it will be something else. but labels are only names we use to try and identify people. it is only a start and if we never go beyond that, which is what we are doing here i think, we will never understand each other.

i allow only one label put on me, and that is 'mother' (i know, make jokes...hahaha) i wont even accept 'woman' or 'white' or 'old' or anything else whether it is a compliment or an insult because even the most simple terms like these dont mean the same thing to any two people. but i have found in all the world, motherhood has a sort of common denominator. at least to another mother...

have to make up a new philosophy and give it a name i guess...