Does relativism provide excuse for any and every action?

[McCulloch]

[...] relativism provides excuse for any and every action.

Does it really? Or is this just the strawman version of moral relativism often put forward by absolutists?

No, it really does. By definition, it has to.

Definitions:
rel·a·tiv·ism (rěl'ə-tĭ-vĭz'əm)
n. Philosophy
A theory, especially in ethics or aesthetics, that conceptions of truth and moral values are not absolute but are relative to the persons or groups holding them.

See: Moral Relativism at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Moral relativism has the unusual distinction — both within philosophy and outside it — of being attributed to others, almost always as a criticism, far more often than it is explicitly professed by anyone.

Thus it seems that many criticisms of moral relativism are in essence strawman arguments.

[Fisherking]

Why should you live by any societies moral values? You are a person, they are people, you have your opinion of what is acceptable, they have theirs.

In case you have not noticed, humans, like many other species, are a social animal. To survive, we must be part of a group of other humans. To ignore the moral values of the society that I live in, is to reduce significantly my chances of survival.

-- assuming the moral values of the society you live in are there to promote your survival. You may live in a society that thinks it is morally acceptable to castrate every male that is not royal blood. Nazi Germany thought it was morally acceptable to exterminate perceived weak race of humans. One society says it ok, another says it is not -- neither would be right or wrong -- it would just be a matter of preference or taste.

If the society you live in says something you are doing is not acceptable, so what? There is no right way or wrong way because your morals are relative to theirs, and theirs to yours.

There are a few who hold to this strawman version of moral relativity. They have either died or changed.

I'm kindof slow, you will have to explain how this is a strawman version

[QED]

"Everything goes" may work at the level of an individual, but not at the level of a society.

A society is composed of individuals.

[QED]

"Everything goes" may work at the level of an individual, but not at the level of a society.

A society is composed of individuals.

So presumably you think that if "anything goes" for the individual, then "anything goes" for the society. Here's a simple reason why that naive concept wouldn't work: Society may well remain ordered while an individual (who owes his existence to that society) causes disruption. But this will cease to be true when sufficient numbers of individuals cause disruption.

Society and individual here actually refer to Hierarchies. The "individual" could be an entire society for example. Your favourite Nazis can be analysed as an "individual" living in a wider "society" -- the allied world against Nazism for example.

[Confused]

Sam Harris hits on this topic often. He essentially says than most forms of relativism are nonsensical. He uses moral relativists as examples:
The End of Faith: pg 179:
Moral relativists generally believe that all cultural practices should be respected on the basis of their own terms, that the practitioners of the various barbarisms that persist around the globe cannot be judged by the standards of the west, nor can the people of the past be judged by the standards of the present. And yet, implicit in this approach to morality lurks a claim that is not relative, but absolute. Most moral relativists believe that tolerance of cultural diversity is better, in some sense, than outright bigotry. This may be perfectly reasonable, of course, but it amounts to an overarching claim about how all human beings should life. Moral relativism, when used as a rationale for tolerance of diversity, is self-contradictory.


I interpret this to simply say that by saying we must view actions relative to the situation, we make relativism absolute. Nonsensical.

[McCulloch]

I'm kindof slow, you will have to explain how this is a strawman version

I can be slow too. The kind of relativism that you describe has not been identified in the wild (that is outside of academia), so arguing against it is like fighting a strawman. You will win, but so what?

[Young McGrath]

I'm glad I found this thread. Now I know how to answer absolutists adequately.

[Fisherking]

I'm glad I found this thread. Now I know how to answer absolutists adequately.

Good, maybe you can help the others because I have yet to recieve an adequate answer