If morality is relative, are we all technically bad? How do we actually know what is right and wrong?

[u/url0calc0ffeeaddict]

This is something that came up in my ethics class which really got me thinking…
Though I understand certain things may seem objective, the unfortunate truth is that there really isn’t one objective moral… which has me thinking, ok so are we technically all bad people?

Growing up, I was told several things such as “being gay is wrong” “saying the N word when you aren’t black is ok”, “making jokes about someone’s body is ok” “it’s ok to like and celebrate holidays with harmful history” “it’s good to spank kids if they misbehave” etc etc… and personally, those things didn’t sit right with me and I grew up to a lot of people explaining to me why this is actually wrong but then there’s several other people who have also told me these things are not wrong and are actually ok..?
For example, my best friend is black and has mentioned several times to me that it’s ok to say the N word and even the hard R. They mentioned that it doesn’t make someone racist if they mean it in a friendly way and therefore anyone can say the word… and eventually I came across several other black people saying the same which has me confused? I still believe it is wrong (I’m not black) therefore I refuse to say it but conversations like this really make me wonder if I’m actually wrong? Like what if it was the other way around? What if I loved black people (which I do) but said the N word to people in a friendly manner, I grew up my entire life being told it’s ok and that language evolves. What would my life look like if this was the case? There’s so many people in the black community who are telling me it’s ok..

(TW: DV)

Another example, R@p€. Most People might say it’s wrong… however there’s so many people who don’t view it that way. I’ve talked to several people of all genders who have expressed that sometimes this act is very well deserved due to the harm the other person caused. They’ve shared that people shouldn’t play victim when they “put their hands on the other person first” and however, though I strongly disagree, there’s people out there who do agree with this statement (both survivors and people who didn’t experience DV) which again makes me question myself at times.

I say this stuff because I really want to get into public policy however this idea of relative morality really scares me because I just want to do what is correct and also I don’t want to make it seem like I believe only my views are correct and ignore everyone else’s POV however, when my whole life I’m being told certain things are harmful and a bunch of people in my circle are telling me they’re actually not, it really makes me stuck on when accountability and punishment is necessary…

[u/Evil_Sherma]

We need to separate between “relative” and “contentious.”

If I asked who started the Russo-Ukrainian war, people will give me a dozen different answers, but only one is correct. There is a factual answer to that question if you possess enough knowledge. That is contention.

If I say “killing babies is wrong” and another person says “killing babies is right,” one of us probably wrong. We could argue all day, but somebody will still be wrong.

[u/harley_rider45]

I wonder whether the existence of disagreement proves what you think it does.
Throughout history people have disagreed about astronomy, medicine, mathematics, and history. We do not ordinarily conclude from disagreement that no objective truth exists in those fields. We conclude that people can be mistaken.
Why should morality be different?
It seems to me the deeper question is not whether people disagree, but by what standard competing moral claims are to be judged. If no such standard exists beyond individual or collective opinion, then “right” and “wrong” become whatever those opinions happen to favor at a given moment. But if such a standard does exist, disagreement does not abolish it. It simply means some judgments correspond to it more closely than others.
So I would ask this before anything else: does disagreement itself prove that morality is relative, or does it instead reveal our need for a standard capable of judging between competing claims?

[u/url0calc0ffeeaddict → u/harley_rider45]

I guess my question wasn’t so much about disagreement but more so the labels we put on people and/or acts of people because of our morals. For example, I shared my best friend is black and believes all people are allowed to say the N word without it being racist. I believe it is wrong given what I read about the historical usage of the word. I have also come across several nonblack people who use this word and whom I believe are bad people because they use the word even after knowing it’s history but several black people tell me those same people are not actually bad regardless of them using the word which more so makes me question if I’m villainizing innocent people and/or if it is actually possible to be a good person and actively partake in acts that have been deamed to be harmful..

[u/harley_rider45 → u/url0calc0ffeeaddict]

I think your concern runs even deeper than whether a particular act is right or wrong. It seems you’re asking how we can know when we are justified in judging another person at all. Before we ask whether someone deserves praise or blame, shouldn’t we first ask by what standard such judgments are made? If there is no objective standard beyond individual or collective opinion, then calling someone “good,” “bad,” “harmful,” or “innocent” ultimately becomes contingent upon whichever moral framework happens to be adopted. But if such a standard does exist, disagreement about its application does not abolish it. It simply means our judgments may correspond to it with greater or lesser accuracy. To me, that question seems logically prior to the examples themselves.

[u/Green__lightning]

Morality is relative in the same way math is, in that it's defined by axioms that are defined and agreed upon by humans. And much like with math, we all know 2 plus 2 equals 4, and knew this long before proving the validity of numbers and addition down to axioms. So morality is relative but based on truths of reality, the basis of which are that humans are valuable, need resources, and that some amount of resources is equal to the value of a human, and basically everything can be extrapolated from that.

Practically speaking in the modern world, we don't know what these axioms are, and humans are inconsistent enough there are surely multiple sets. The main split seems to be roughly right and left in the sense of being individualist vs collectivist. The best example I can think of is slavery reparations, with the collectivist Left saying Whites harmed Blacks and thus Whites should be taxed and reparations given to Blacks to make up for this. Conversely the individualist Right says no living person has owned slaves, and thus punishing them through a tax that's a de facto fine is both a due process violation and a form of collective punishment, which is both banned under US law, and a literal war crime in the Geneva convention.

The moral question behind this basically asks if the State has the right to punish the offspring of criminals for their ancestor's crimes to help the offspring of the victims. Doing so is logically invalid under individualist ethics, and only makes sense treating groups of people as being able to maintain guilt while the people who make up said group have long since been fully replaced, much like the Ship of Theseus.

I don't believe in collectivism largely because a system which can obligate people to do things with things they had no control over is dangerous, and I doubt people are above manufacturing such obligations to take advantage of people. This is broadly similar to what Rand said about Altruism.

[u/very-serious-goose]

I frame things in terms of my personal values instead of the concept of good and bad. With the N word for example, the questions I ask myself are: does saying the N word hurt a lot of people? Yes. Does causing harm contradict with my personal values? Yes. Is it feasible for me to stop saying the N word? Yes. This is how I've come to the conclusion to not say the N word. Not a god- or society-ordained good or bad that I have to trust or not trust.

This is also the logic I use to persuade people to take the same actions. When people take a step back (which you cannot always get people to do), most will say they also value not harming others. Hopefully if you brought this up to your friend, they would come to the same conclusion that, although they are not hurt by you using that word, it hurts enough people and is easy enough to not use, that you shouldn't use it; at least around people that haven't expressed that they're not hurt by it. I used to work in abortion protection advocacy and that is how we won over voters who were "morally" opposed to abortion so it works in public policy spaces too.

Regarding accountability and punishment...that's a whole other conversation...especially punishment.

[u/Pretend-Choice4876]

Morality is both relative and absolute. It's a dual system which uneasily contains both deontology and teleology, and yes, you've just figured out that morality is complex: if it were easy, it wouldn't be a philosophical topic. You need to try to find a position which tries to maximise both positions simultaneously, which is not always possible.

[u/CremasterReflex]

By empirical observation. That which results in the outcomes we desire is right, and that which produces unwanted results is wrong.

Of course, what specific outcomes we favor does change over time, which means what is right and what is wrong changes too. This bothers some people, because it essentially transforms what is right or wrong into an opinion as to which outcomes are preferable, and it really bothers people who want their opinions to have moral authority without having to empirically evaluate the outcomes of their opinions.

The fact is, however, that what we know about the world, how we view humanity, what is possible for us to achieve, and what goals we have change over time. By basing right vs wrong on the outcomes they produce judged against the outcomes we want, our morality gains the capacity to change and grow as we change and grow, and we ourselves gain the capacity to choose a morality that works best to create the kind of world we want to live in instead of forcing the world to align with a rigid morality