How valid is this subjective moralty statement?

Question

I have been trying to find any argument against this statement:

As good and bad can't be objectively defined because everyone has a different vision about what's good and what's bad, it becomes that good and bad things for person A could be bad and good things for person B (good for A is bad for B and vice versa). So good and bad number of definitions are as extensive as population itself.

This implies that what's bad for most of the people (raping, homicide...) could be seen as good in certain circumstances for somebody and think they are doing the correct thing. Then, you can not say that person is "bad" if you could certainly know he considers his acts purely good. All you could say is that he is "bad" the way you consider good and bad things.

For example, imagine that in the year 1944, there is a nazi soldier who really thinks killing Jews is the right thing. Imagine he feels like he's doing the right thing (much as you would if you gave a sandwich to a homeless person). Then that nazi soldier could be a bad person for you, but you couldn't state he is actually bad because he's not conscious about doing anything wrong. Only by changing his vision of morality he could think he had acted bad.

Answer 1

This view relies on an assumption that morality assements are only a function of the moral sentiments of each of the "actors" individually -- in any sensible moral system the sentiments of all sides of the interactions need to be considered. If I give a sandwich to a homeless person he/she (presumably) wants it, and will benefit in physical terms (have better nutrition). If I kill someone because of their religion or ethinicity, they do not want that, and suffer in physical terms. The morality of an individual's actions aren't judged in a vacuum, they need to be judged in relation the other people that are affected.

Answer 2

As other have suggested, your question about moral relativism has a long history in philosophy engaging many of humanity's best minds and "souls."

The most famous, and still compelling, response is Kant's "categorical imperative." This is basically a reasoned, logical formalization of the golden rule. When you don't know "why" it's wrong, your parents say: "What if everyone did that?" That is the essence of Kant's moral arguments. Today, we also have more empirical "genetic" explanations of why a moral consensus works "for the species."

None of this is proof against extreme skepticism. But extreme skepticism carried out logically regresses into solipsism. And we can argue from instinct or intuition that we simply "know" we are born among "others" and never pure isolate "individuals."

Because one cannot "prove" a positive case against moral relativism, I like the "via negativa"offered by such disparate logics as Buddhism and Hobbes. You can only assess the "good" by the negative of obvious "suffering." We can agree it is, say, "not good" to be burned alive, etc.

Having said that, the flaw in the argument you cite is related to "objective" and "individual opinions" being somehow mutually exclusive. Without recourse to some external arbitrator or "god," the average of "opinions" is our best definition of "objective." The more "opinions"the more "objective" we can get.

Answer 3

It is somewhat valid because we see differences in moral beliefs and cultures, which we see in real life. This is, by definition, what moral relativism is:

Most often it [moral relativism] is associated with an empirical thesis that there are deep and widespread moral disagreements and a metaethical thesis that the truth or justification of moral judgments is not absolute, but relative to the moral standard of some person or group of persons. -Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Science has somewhat proven moral relativism. A study shows that we are predisposed to certain moral beliefs thanks to our genes the moment we are born, so our own genes play a part in people having different senses of right and wrong. That being said, there is an issue with this statement - just because your morality is subjective, what evidence you use to back it up isn't.

For example, imagine that in the year 1944, there is a nazi soldier who really thinks killing Jews is the right thing. Imagine he feels like he's doing the right thing (much as you would if you gave a sandwich to a homeless person). Then that nazi soldier could be a bad person for you, but you couldn't state he is actually bad because he's not conscious about doing anything wrong. Only by changing his vision of morality he could think he had acted bad.

Technically you could say that, but you have to look at why he thought he was morally justified to do that and whether his justifications disagree with empirical evidence or are contradictory. Many Nazis tried to use claims that Jews were controlling the media through secret Zionist groups. This moral argument goes against what we know about reality, especially during World War II Germany. Same thing with pseudoscientific 'scientific racism' that Hitler tried to use as evidence. So you can still, as a culture, view a person a wrong or incorrect because while the Nazis are free to have their own moral beliefs, the logic utilized to back up these beliefs don't hold up to inquiry.

Allegation: Relativism entails that we have no way to criticize Hitler.

Response: First of all, Hitler’s actions were partially based on false beliefs, rather than values (‘scientific’ racism, moral absolutism, the likelihood of world domination). Second, the problem with Hitler was not that his values were false, but that they were pernicious. Relativism does not entail that we should tolerate murderous tyranny. When someone threatens us or our way of life, we are strongly motivated to protect ourselves. -Philosopher Jesse Prinz in Morality: Nature or Culture?

Also, as some have mentioned, moral relativism is used by many philosophers to talk about entire cultural groups, not individuals. This is called descriptive moral relativism:

Descriptive Moral Relativism (DMR). As a matter of empirical fact, there are deep and widespread moral disagreements across different societies, and these disagreements are much more significant than whatever agreements there may be.

With this, you can argue that we, as a culture, can judge the Nazis, especially individual Nazis in our culture breaking our collective sense of right and wrong. Finally, a moral relativist can still disagree with amorality, moral hypocrisy (their actions or methods in harming a Jewish person in someway contradicts some part of their moral code they claim to follow) and moral absolutism (the belief that your culture's sense of morality should be the right morality for all of humanity and any deviations should be removed), so a Nazi doing these actions because they reject morality as a whole or believe everyone in the world should fully conform to their sense of right & wrong, then even a moral relativist can argue that the Nazi is a 'bad' guy and/or objectively wrong with how they defend their moral code.

Answer 4

It's valid. Morality is subjective. But this isn't compelling--there is no need to argue the point. Instead, consider that reasonable expectations for what consequences presumed bad behavior will bring are objective. Regardless of whether two people agree on the morality of a particular act, likely consequences can be leveraged to compel behavior in one way or the other. The fact that objective and subjective moral positions are indistinguishable is really of no consequence.