“Moral Relativism Is Unintelligible”
Julien Beillard argues that it makes no sense to say that morality is relatively true.
From Philosophy Now magazine.
Of course it is not my own intention “here and now” to argue that moral statements are “sometimes true”. Only that within the arguments themselves there are facts that can be established as true for all of us and reactions to those facts that precipitate value judgments that are rooted more subjectively in dasein than in any deontological assessments that philosophers and scientists can themselves demonstrate to be true for all of us.
And I agree that to the extent that moral relativists portray their own arguments as true objectively, they are certainly far removed from my own conclusions.
Or, again, rather, no assessments that I have come upon.
Also, there are the factors pertaining to the “subconscious” and the “unconscious” mind. And the manner in which all of this is related to more “primitive” components of the human brain: instinct, biological drives, libido, psychological defense mechanisms, etc.
Sure, “for the sake of argument” any number of assumptions might be made here. But how to bring those assumption into sync with arguments into sync with what can in fact be demonstrated to be wholly true regarding all of these relationships given a particular context.
Let’s face it, out in the real world it’s not whether moral codes are true or false, but how “for all practical purposes” they actually work to provide different people with different levels of acceptance and satisfaction.
That’s how it works alright. If moral nihilism precipitates reactions that appall particular people then it is not likely that anything I might argue here is going to change their mind. They just know that certain behaviors are right or wrong.
But, really, beyond this what behaviors can they in fact demonstrate [philosophically or otherwise] that all rational and virtuous people are obligated to embrace and defend?
My only assumptions here is that 1] we live in a No God world and 2] that some measure of free will does in fact exist.