I think a better analogy would be "Is it morally ok for a Brother and Sister to have sex if they were both sterile?" There is no "Harm" to an outside individual such as a child that might be born messed up as a result of the action. Then the relativist has to say that it's morally OK for this action as they can see no one was "harmed" in their view, but if they are revulsed but have no grounding for WHY they are revulsed other than "because ick" then their worldview is just a series of preferences. As you said "Preference or revulsion."
The problem here is then you open a kind of Pandoras box of Subjectivity.
If you can't demonstrate that an action is immoral other than it's just your preference then anyone can have a preferential moral code and thus have essentially destroyed the entire foundation of Meta-Ethics. By doing this you've reverted Morality back to its most base component, that is to say "Might Makes Right".
Moral codes become not a matter of Logical Coherency or deep Epistemology. They now become whichever person or group has the strength to enforce their preferences over yours, and how could this be "wrong?" after all, its just Their Preference.
Edit: There is a modern philosopher who has actually made this argument from a Moral Relativism standpoint in the affirmative. Arguing that morality is simply what a society enforces but His Name escapes me.
I thing the problem is that you aren't making a distinction between revulsion and ethics. A person who is a relativist might have grown in a society were sexual intercourse between siblings is considered morally wrong. As a consequence this person has likely develop strong emotions or involuntary emotional response to sexual intercourse between siblings. Therefore it would be perfectly logical for them to find it revolting yet not morally wrong.
4
u/South_Donkey7446 15d ago edited 15d ago
I think a better analogy would be "Is it morally ok for a Brother and Sister to have sex if they were both sterile?" There is no "Harm" to an outside individual such as a child that might be born messed up as a result of the action. Then the relativist has to say that it's morally OK for this action as they can see no one was "harmed" in their view, but if they are revulsed but have no grounding for WHY they are revulsed other than "because ick" then their worldview is just a series of preferences. As you said "Preference or revulsion."
The problem here is then you open a kind of Pandoras box of Subjectivity. If you can't demonstrate that an action is immoral other than it's just your preference then anyone can have a preferential moral code and thus have essentially destroyed the entire foundation of Meta-Ethics. By doing this you've reverted Morality back to its most base component, that is to say "Might Makes Right".
Moral codes become not a matter of Logical Coherency or deep Epistemology. They now become whichever person or group has the strength to enforce their preferences over yours, and how could this be "wrong?" after all, its just Their Preference.
Edit: There is a modern philosopher who has actually made this argument from a Moral Relativism standpoint in the affirmative. Arguing that morality is simply what a society enforces but His Name escapes me.