Asinine Responses To Moral Relativism

If one peruses superficial, generic Christian apologetics websites, one might find the argument that moral relativism is false because it would mean that moral progress has not been made across history, as there can be no moral progress without an objective moral standard to move towards.  This objection is childish because those using it merely assume that morality exists, disqualifying the claim from any vestiges of legitimacy: the claim is the equivalent of just saying X is false because the opposite of X is true!  But to falsify relativism, one would either have to prove that moral relativism contradicts itself (the only legitimate total refutation of moral relativism) or that objective moral obligations exist.  The existence of morality, unlike the laws of logic, is neither necessary nor self-evident, so it is impossible for the latter to be some obvious thing that must be true.

Asking questions exposes the folly of the argument in question.  How does one know that moral relativism is false?  "Because then there would be no moral progress."  But how does one know that moral progress has been made?  "Because morality exists."  How does one know that a certain arbitrary set of moral ideas from one culture or another is correct?  "Because some things are just wrong."  And how does one know this, from the fallacious foundation of conscience?  "Because moral relativism is false."  This is what conscience-based arguments against moral relativism always amount to at their cores.

An activity is morally evil or it is not--either because there is no standard of morality, and thus no obligations for the action to violate, or because the activity is either morally good or permissible/amoral.  People cannot invent their own conflicting values, as if contradictory moral ideas can be separately true in the lives of various individuals.  Therefore, moral relativism is refuted in full by the necessary existence and nature of the laws of logic, not by the existence of morality.  Moral relativism's falsity is ultimately due to strictly logical facts and not moral ones.  This should not be a difficult thing for professional Christian apologists to grasp and articulate, but they consistently refuse to do so out of either ignorance or stubbornness.

Moral relativism is impossible, yes.  It cannot be true; either no morality exists or morality exists and has nothing to do with human perceptions, feelings, mores, and consensuses.  There are no other legitimate alternatives.  This leaves no room for moral relativism to even be within the realm of possibility, since it contradicts logic, which cannot be false.  However, many moral realists are just as imbecilic as the relativists that they berate.  Those who argue against moral relativism on grounds of conscience contradict themselves, saying that ethical disputes and the subjectivity of moral feelings do not disprove the notion of objective moral obligations as they appeal to those very things, in all of their uselessness, to argue that morality exists!

What many do not realize is that it does not follow from the impossibility of moral relativism (because relativism involves metaphysical contradictions, which are impossible due to the necessary laws of logic) that moral realism/objectivism is true or that moral truths can be known.  It is fairly common to find people argue against moral relativism only to ascribe some nonexistent epistemological status to conscience.  It is as if they are saying, "Moral relativism must be false because I have intense moral feelings!"  This is what the arguments of apologists like William Lane Craig reduce down to.  Until they stop using these asinine, fallacy-riddled arguments, they will continue to poison the minds of those who look up to them.