Greyfan wrote:.......No one is raised in a vacuum (or perhaps almost no one); we have moral codes ingrained. All moral relativists are saying is that these codes are culturally based, rather than derived logically or handed down by deities. It seems to me it is at least as plausible to say everything must stay.
one, i think obvious, thing missing here is the willingness of an adult human being to admit that at that point where s/he becomes an adult member of society, s/he has had a chance to examine both the codified, and default moral beliefs of this society, and, more important, through a long educational process, both institionalized and personal, s/he has been able to arrive at a personal moral code, culled from general, exotic, and experiential sources.
At this point we all become 'responsible' for the moral code by which we decide to live, and can no longer 'shrug' it off as the 'norm.'
It becomes his/her 'responsibility' to offer this 'wisdom' for consideration, whenever s/he feels that the accepted code of society differs in such a manner as to do harm to any or all the members of that society.
This is not moral relativism, but 'directed idealism'; the individual desire for 'better' for one's fellow passengers on this planet.
Admittedly this 'fervour' is sometimes misdirected, but i would rather be annoyed by the misguided concepts of a well meaning zealot, than impeded by the plottings of a greedy self interested 'capitalist'.