Morality

I recently saw another religionist speak negatively about moral relativism.  Most of the people who I've seen harp against moral relativism or proponents of biblical moral absolutism, like that actually exists.  I actually know people who believe that the bible, at least the 10 commandments, should be used as the basis for our laws.  I used to be one of those people.

The bible is more of an example of moral relativism than religionists realize.  The morals and dictates in the bible are those created by people in a more primitive state of being.  Rules against certain foods were based on people only knowing that some people became ill from those foods.  Once people knew more, those rules were modified by most people.  Rules against women were removed by most people as people became more aware of things.  Laws against different people changed or were removed as understanding occurred.  There are many examples.

I think that there is currently and has always been only moral relativism.  History illustrates how morality seems to have always been relative to feelings, perceptions and what seemed to work at that time.  As humanity changes, so do the rules.  Some remain as standards because they work.  Others are dropped as better knowledge or higher ethics prevail.  More are added as new information or other changes occur which may necessitate new rules.

In Steven Pinker's article called "The Moral Instinct", he makes a distinction between moral reasoning and moral rationalization.  Let's say that we have an existing moral which has been passed down over many generations.  A traditional tendency is to rationalize the justification of maintaining the moral regardless of the evidence for updating it.  But moral reasoning is an approach where we look more at the details and update morals accordingly.  With moral reasoning, we remove some morals, update others and add new ones as evidence and reality indicates.