Nice response.
I planned to be concise, but it seems I disagree with you on almost every point. I will try to be as brief as I can while getting at the main points.
“Morality is relative. If morality were objective and unchanging, we wouldn’t be able to observe such significant shifts in collective moral thought throughout human history “
I don’t believe that humanity’s ability to think and to rationalize (good or bad) is proof of morality being relative.
“However, society’s collective agreement on this changes and evolves over time as humanity changes. Sometimes, these changes are good. Sometimes, they are not good.”
Can you truly have a basis for whether these changes were good or bad without waging your judgments against something firm (absolute) or is this clam also subjective opinion?
“…the relative nature of morality is exactly why we have different laws for capital first degree murder, negligent homicide, manslaughter, etc. If we simply assume that one man killing another is wrong, and this is an absolute moral truth, the nuance behind the taking of a life is lost, and there is no differentiation between manslaughter and murder. “
It is not because morality itself is relative, that these different laws exist, and to say that believing in right or wrong will strip nuance away from these ‘grey areas’ is simply not true. The belief in absolute moral truth does not erase the concept of the gravity of an offense. Absolute moral truth here quite simply is what brings the person before the judge in the first place, namely that they took a life. Objective morality does not equate to a lack of nuance or sentencing someone to life for punching a person.
“…Morality is based on society’s collective opinions on all aspects of life, and is therefore subjective.”
Here as in every other place where you try to prove it is subjective, you only end up defining subjective morality specifically, not proving that morality is always subjective.
“What liberty means is that you are entitled to live your life as you please, provided your life does not impose upon others, thereby infringing upon others’ equal entitlement to live life as they please.
To understand the true meaning of relative morality, however, is to understand the necessity of personal responsibility and self-discipline.”
It is not possible to be moral towards others without being moral within one’s self first. I can set out to be selfish and look out only for my self interest as far as I do not hurt anyone, but somewhere along the line, inevitably I will hurt someone. That is how morality works. How is one supposed to ground their self-discipline? Discipline from what in a relativistic worldview? I think that you borrow from the concept of absolute truth in bits and pieces.
Anything that is good can be abused and used for bad. Yes if you abuse the concept of an absolute moral truth, you can get disaster, and same goes for moral relativism.
When society decides it is ok to enslave and exploit a people, it does not make it morally right because of social contract. It is objectively wrong. Social contract is what it is and so is morality, they are not the same.
I don’t advocate for a Theonomous culture to be legislated to the people, I do not even know if that is possible. I deeply respect the American Experiment and albeit it may be working better than most, we can see it’s shortcomings.
If you want to follow up, I’d suggest a google hangout for free discussion of ideas if you’re interested.
