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Articles

Moral Relativism Is Unintelligible

Julien Beillard argues that it makes no sense to say that morality is relatively true.

The diversity of beliefs and ways of life is a striking fact about our species. What Mormons find right and reasonable may be abhorrent to Marxists or Maoris. The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice for reasons we find totally unconvincing, and no doubt future people may be similarly perplexed or repulsed by some of our practices. For such reasons, some conclude that there is no objective truth about morality. They say moral disagreement is best explained by the idea that there are many different and incompatible relative moral truths, which are in some way determined by the beliefs of a given society; and that this is the only kind of moral truth there is.

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