AEON said:
Melon still hasn't answered these questions. Anybody else think that the evil in chopping up babies or castrating young boys is only a matter of personal, subjective preference?
*sigh*
It is obvious that you have not bothered to comprehend ANYTHING that I have written. Of course, I imagine that this is like trying to convince Hamas that Jews don't chop up babies and castrate Arab boys.
You are nitpicking on a word that essentially has the same exact meaning. But because it's not the result you want to hear, you're not going to give up.
The concept of "objectivity," how we define it, is a matter of subjective consensus. You think that chopping up babies is wrong, because that is the consensus of your culture. If you were an Inuit from the early 20th century, you would have had no qualms that, when the food dried up, the first people to be left to die would be the babies. If the adults don't survive, then it was their reasoning that the tribe would not survive. They could just have more babies. Likewise, this is also apparent during famine years in Africa, which is why we have all these "save the children" campaigns.
What you seem to blatantly forget is that if you had been randomly selected to be an Inuit or an African, instead of an American, at birth, you would likely believe that infanticide is alright. Because you are an American, you believe that, when put in a position of life and death, the adult should die instead of the child. That supposed "Objective Moral Law" is a cultural consensus, and it is arrogant, at best, to state that what you believe, by default, is the "Objective Moral Law."
Cultural relativism has been argued and defeated. It is quite simply “unlivable.”
What does this even mean? Nothing.
I know why you cannot grasp what I say. It would acknowledge that other people besides yourself exist in this world. Secondly, to reduce your beliefs to a cultural construct--which is precisely what it is--would be to start questioning your absolutist religious beliefs. But no matter how absurd your examples are, it still doesn't change the fact that everything you believe is a product of your culture. Everything. Your very definition of "objectivity" has been molded by your culture, and that makes it a subjective consensus.
In practice, the difference between "objectivity" and "subjective consensus" is very minimal. However, the latter requires accepting the possibility that you might be wrong, when presented with outside facts and evidence. It is not an excuse for inactivity. But, you see, that is what you cannot accept. When presented with facts and evidence that homosexuality might not be pathological, for instance, you refuse to admit that your "absolutist" beliefs might have been wrong. But, of course, you're going to demand that Africans stop FGM/breast ironing when we tell them to, despite the fact that they would probably believe that both practices are correct in "Objective Moral Law."
Melon