What exactly is relatvism and could you give me a more elementary definition of it? I have a hard time understanding it. Here's the thing, I was having an argument on a religious forum and I said that I personally believe there is nothing wrong, immoral, or sinful with homosexuality, however if you believe that it is immoral, I'll respect that. I was called a moral relatvist and I looked that up online, and I hard a hard time understanding how that applies to me. I may not agree with your opinion, but I still respect that. Is that what (moral) relatvism is?
The notion of moral relativism is problematic. Here's a simple version: a moral relativist is someone who believes that what's right and wrong depends on the group/society in which the question arises. On this view, slavery, for example, could be right in one society and wrong in another. The idea is that just as it makes no sense to ask if something is tall absolutely, so it makes no sense to ask if something is right or wrong absolutely. The moral relativist says that the standard is the moral views of the relevant social group. This raises a good many questions. What social facts determine what's right or wrong in a group? Are we confusing " believes to be right/wrong" with " is right/wrong?" It also has problems with the fact that moral critiques often come from within the societies in which the practices in question go on. There are various ways of formulating more sophisticated versions of relativism, and perhaps one of them avoids such difficulties. But your question is whether...
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