Moral Relativism

A columnist at the BBC News Magazine online has addressed moral relativism. Much of the article is filler and anecdotes. The meat, such as it is, is here:

I'd begin with some token reassurance and then go on to discuss some of the parameters of moral relativism, the ways in which such a position derived at least in part from the anthropological insistence upon the uniqueness of separate cultures, from the alleged impossibility of being able to declare one way of living and believing as superior to any other.

I'd also suggest that a thoroughgoing subscription to moral relativism meant that it was no longer valid or appropriate to pass judgement on such practises as wife beating or euthanasia.

But in order not to be too downbeat I'd also point out to my earnest enquirer that there was small consolation to be found in their children's readiness to construct their own ideas of what was right and wrong.

Children who devised their own moral code were far more likely to adhere to it than to one which had been handed down by authoritarian figures such as popes and priests and headmasters and patriarchal fathers. Then I'd say "that'll be ten pounds please", hop back in the van, drive home and count the day's takings.

But then perhaps even more interesting are the comments in which his readers take him to task:

One of my first-day-of-the semester ploys is to have my students say something about themselves by way of introduction. One semester, during this process one boy said, "My name is Aaron and I don't believe in anything."

"Not in ANYTHING?" I asked.

He said, "I don't believe in religion or morality or anything."

I stared for a second and then asked, "'Thou Shalt Not Kill.' I am sure we all would like to know where you stand on that one."

"Oh. I agree with that one."

I waited a heartbeat, then said, "Well, then I can let you stay. If you had expressed ambiguity, I would have felt morally bound to insist you leave."

And this:

Finally the public seem to be catching up with what philosophers have been saying for years; it isn't possible to know anything. Soon we will discount all morality and decide we can no longer pass judgement on anything. Then the law will go. After that we'll decide we aren't sure about science and technology and then we can scrap that. Then we just need to take apart language and we can all be back in caves in no time, getting some damn peace.

What do the readers of the Ethics in the News Blog think?