I was in Oooklahoma with a true moral relativist. It's weird to meet one. This gal was an atheist who thought religion was an inherent unknowable and faith mean blind faith, etc. She based her morality primarily on what was best for sociey from the outcomes of moral choices, so morality for her meant what was best for society. She thinks this is how morality developed (through evolution) and so our morality changes based on society's good. This means that murder is wrong in the same sense that having a bad immigration policy or electing the wrong politician is wrong.
I don't really find anything wrong with this idea. If one is an atheist it seems the required position. Of course, morality doesn't mean much since people can differ on what "society's good" means and how to achieve it. And people don't use the term morality as such but actually refer to something as wrong, not bad for society, but other than semantics it seems ok.
If I was an atheist I would forget society's good and care only about my own. I would care about society's good only insofar as it served me. The idea that unselfishness drives my morality wouldn't make sense to me - why would I care about another's good above my own?
I had a hard time finding what was wrong with her morality. The only thing I could think of was coming up with inconsistencies, as in killing babies/old people could be morally right for population control or assassinating a politician could be right to get the right person in charge. However, these outlandish examples didn't convince her as they aren't practical.
Also, homosexuality came up and I can't think of an atheistic argument against it. More disease, promiscuity, broken homes/relationships with homosexual unions? But it's hard to differentiate these from heterosexual ones. And pointing to how good heterosexual unions are compared to homos doesn't work either. Anyone know any atheistic arguments against homos?
Lastly, since she thinks that morality developed through evolution and is learned and not innate, the idea that a common morality points to a God doesn't work. The only other arguments for God that I can think of are the Uncaused Cause and the fine tuning of the universe. Anyone know of any other arguments? Seems like I should know these since I'm surrounded by liberal heathens...
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So, from listening to Moreland on 11/15/08, he would say the response is to find something she is insanely passionate about and test whether she really believes that's not absolutely wrong. As in, torturing babies for fun or polluting a lake and killing all lake life on a bet is ok. He said you would find that she doesn't really believe those things are right. When I mentioned that her position seems consistent and she consciously denies that gut reaction in favor of her intellectual position, he said yes but there's actually something wrong with not believing in absolute morality. As in, she's denying the innate truth that wrong exists. It's innately wrong to deny that torturing babies for fun is ok - we know that to be wrong through our intuition. I agree but that won't convince anyone. Only with time will that work - as in a person may think about wether that is actually wrong and eventually come to the conclusion that it is wrong. However, that will not happen immediately following your response - it takes time to ponder and realize.
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