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"So you can't answer my questions either?"
You haven't posed a question I haven't answered. Just because you don't like my response or disagree with it does not mean the question wasn't answered.
Are you high? I asked explicit questions and you talked around them. You said "you know what murder and rape are" when I asked
you to define them. A three year old knows that's not an answer. It's simply avoiding answering explicitly for fear of being pinned down.
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"There is no intuition of the human race because we're not a bunch of clones. There is no intuition of the human race because we're not a bunch of clones. Morals do not come baked into our DNA in quite such a literal fashion."
Again, another judgment. Who are you to say that any of this is true?
What is there to even say to this? Who am I? I'm a human being who has experienced purest civilization
and purest barbarism, and in both environments the situations were considered normal and right. If morality is
baked in, why is there so much disagreement?
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Now I'm going to focus on a key problem you just made for yourself:
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"It's not moral relativism to say that context matters..."
This is the very definition of relativism.
You're right. That is the literal definition. I admit I was wrong in my assertion.
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You claiming I'm making a straw man but I did not misrepresent your position. No one is disputing that you shouldn't make judgments without the full facts of the situation.
You claimed in the previous quote that saying "context matters" is moral relativism. You were right. Then you claimed that context matters within your framework of (undefined) absolute morality. Which is it?
You don't even understand your own arguments well enough to stay consistent.
You quoted a law as an answer to an ethical question involving absolute morality. Yet, what's murder in one state is manslaughter in another, and is self defense in another. Which is right? There
must be an answer if there is some true absolute morality.
Hell, you can't even explicitly define premeditation with any precision if you're relying on the law. To one DA, premeditation means walking up to someone and shooting them in cold blood. To another, it means carrying a gun and using it in self defense, because
deciding to carry a gun points to premeditation. Which is right? There
must be an answer if there is some true absolute morality.
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"Here's a really specific question: I've killed people. Is that wrong?"
Killing is an act. Murder describes an unjustified killing. It's impossible to determine whether killing is unjustified and therefore murder and justified such as in defensive war without knowing more information. Also, what counts as justified differs as well. Again, it's not clear how this is relevant.
Huh. You sound a lot like a moral relativist.
Maybe I'm arguing at too low a level here. Do you understand what the word
absolute means? Because it seems like you don't, the way you're waffling all over the place when I ask you for concrete definitions of this absolute morality you speak of.
How does the internet define absolute morality?
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Moral Absolutism is the ethical belief that there are absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged, and that certain actions are right or wrong, regardless of the context of the act. Thus, actions are inherently moral or immoral, regardless of the beliefs and goals of the individual, society or culture that engages in the actions. It holds that morals are inherent in the laws of the universe, the nature of humanity, the will of God or some other fundamental source.
Do you have some other definition?
Now for your questions:
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1. How does moral relativism differ from not having morals at all?
2. How does disagreeing on what moral principles are mean that absolute morals don't exist?
3. Is morality is relative, how can one state that the current day United States is morally superior or inferior to Nazi Germany?
4. If moral relativism is true, how can there be any moral progress at all as opposed to societies merely having different morals?
5. If relativism true, explain why trying to achieve justice and fairness aren't pointless activities? In fact, what would be "justice" and "fairness"?
1. A moral relativist has morals by definition. Moral relativism is not amoralism.
2. It doesn't. However, saying "you can't prove this thing does not exist" is not evidence that the thing
does exist. I can't prove that a dragon and a coterie of big-haired trolls don't live in a cave on Pluto. So?
3. You're trying to frame everything in absolute terms. I don't
care about the
absolute argument in comparing my society to another. If another society goes against what I believe are correct morals, I'm going to consider them less moral...
by my standards. They no doubt feel the same about me. And I can live with that.
4. You're assuming a false premise.
5. Fairness and justice exist within a social framework, not the greater universe. Even the Bible does not posit absolute morality. Are you saying if there's no absolute moral standard, we might as well devolve into anarchy?
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Clearly, by the strict definition I am a moral relativist. I'll add it to my CV with all the rest of my collected labels.
However, after reading what you've written so far, I can only conclude that
you don't actually know what moral relativism and absolutism are. You seem to think moral relativists--realists, in other words--are amoral. That's a bunch of bunk.