> Fortunately, there is no truth of the matter, so anything goes as long as we're internally consistent.
I don't think that what you said is internally consistent. Now, we may disagree about exactly what you mean, but it sounds like you are putting forth some form of moral relativism, which has appeared in various forms over the millennia. Many ways of phrasing moral relativism have logical inconsistencies in them.
I think the "anything goes as long as we're internally consistent" is a statement that any ethical system, E, is correct if and only if E is internally consistent.
And "there is no truth of the matter" is saying that "no ethical statement is true in all systems of ethics".
Now, is the "anything goes" statement an ethical statement? Is it true in all systems of ethics? If both, then this is a contradiction. If it is not an ethical statement, then what does "anything goes" even mean? If it is not true in all systems of ethics, then how can you defend it without begging the question? I'm not trying to enumerate all the possibilities, but just illustrate my skepticism... I don't see an easy way out here. It's not impossible, just really quite tricky, and if you value being internally consistent, maybe you should dig deeper.
To quote Stephen Fry, moral relativism is just another way of saying "thinking".
Morals can come from culture, they can come from religion, or they can come from individual contemplation. Morals are axioms.
The one thing we can say for sure about them is that nobody agrees on what they should be.
Saying that advertising is a pest that should be actively removed is not even an uncommon viewpoint. The city of Sao Paolo famously banned all advertising.
Please provide clarification: is something "relative" if people disagree on it? If there are two different interpretations of a single data set, for example, does it mean that the reality of what that data means is "relative" or just that one or both interpretation don't have enough information (or appropriate understanding of it)?
Basically, I want to know what "relativism" actually means to you since your quote seems to imply that anything you think about is "relative". Thank you, I'm excited to hear your response.
Moral relativism is the opposite of moral absolutism.
Moral absolutism is the belief that certain actions are intrinsically moral
or immoral.
For example, cannibalism. Say there is some tribe that eats their dead.
A moral absolutist would say that "cannibalism is immoral", and therefore
conclude that the tribe is immoral[1].
Whereas a moral relativist would say that, if you had grown up in a tribe
of cannibals, then eating people would be a perfectly normal thing to do,
it would be moral from the tribe's reference frame, and immoral from our
reference frame.
Yes, different moral systems can be compared along certain objective
dimensions. Objectively, cannibalism causes certain diseases such as kuru.
However, choosing which dimensions to optimise for is itself a
subjective process. Objectively, cannibalism prevents food waste :)
Relativism is precisely what allows for meaningful disagreements to occur.
Otherwise a disagreement would simply degenerate into a loud exchange of
axioms (this often happens).
My problem with moral absolutism is that it requires a healthy dose of
chronocentrism to buy into it without reference to some codified set of
morals such as a religion. What is considered moral or immoral has changed
dramatically in the last century alone. At some point in the future, our
morality will be as unrecognisable to future generations as Ancient Greek
morality is to us.
[1] Historically, this sort of moral absolutism was the impetus for certain
missionary activity. No not that kind.
Moral relativism is a form of realism, so there would be a truth of the matter.
What I mean by "anything goes" is that ethical discourse is not concerned with truth per se, since its "propositions" do not map to the world. But if we want to talk about ethics sensibly, we could hold any ethical views really, so long as they are internally consistent.
I don't think that what you said is internally consistent. Now, we may disagree about exactly what you mean, but it sounds like you are putting forth some form of moral relativism, which has appeared in various forms over the millennia. Many ways of phrasing moral relativism have logical inconsistencies in them.
I think the "anything goes as long as we're internally consistent" is a statement that any ethical system, E, is correct if and only if E is internally consistent.
And "there is no truth of the matter" is saying that "no ethical statement is true in all systems of ethics".
Now, is the "anything goes" statement an ethical statement? Is it true in all systems of ethics? If both, then this is a contradiction. If it is not an ethical statement, then what does "anything goes" even mean? If it is not true in all systems of ethics, then how can you defend it without begging the question? I'm not trying to enumerate all the possibilities, but just illustrate my skepticism... I don't see an easy way out here. It's not impossible, just really quite tricky, and if you value being internally consistent, maybe you should dig deeper.