Relative morality and absolute morality by consensus?

Question

I have often heard it said, and my observations agree, that morality is personal, subjective, and relative. That for any system of judgements regarding what is good and what is evil, there is an equally valid system with the opposite standards.

But, it seems apparent to me that each person has some system of good/evil values that is absolute -for them-. It may vary from person to person, and may even change over time for the individual, but it is absolute for them, at this moment.

Now, it seems to me that it should be possible, maybe not humanly possible but not utterly impossible, to "average" these personal absolute systems. In greatly oversimplified terms, if ten people think an act is "evil" that act is rated as -10, if eight people are then counted who think the exact same act is "good", the act gets a +8, for a final rank of -2, just a little evil.

The end result of this herculean calculation would be a scale of good and evil that could be used as if it was absolute.

It would almost certainly not match any existing morality that claims to be absolute, and it would probably have no internally consistent logic. Acts which seem very similar could have vastly different "evil points". But, it would still be, for all intents and purposes, an absolute measure of good and evil. Which could go a long way towards standardizing interpersonal relations, especially across different cultures.

Plus, I just think it would be fascinating.

Does that make any sense at all? Or does this go in the very large pile labeled "random ideas that sounded clever but really sucked"

Answer 1

Because morality is personal, subjective, and relative to the individual person or based on the context of the situation, I don't believe there is a way to make some kind of absolute moral scale no matter how many people you survey. The statement you made is a huge oversimplification of morality that no true philosopher would even try to prove. As you said, the rating may change over time and vary from person to person. So at one moment, he may say yes it's evil, but ask the same person the same question on a different day in the week, his answer may change based on his mood, or what he has experienced in that week. It would be extremely difficult, but not utterly impossible I guess.
I don't like making claims at one end of the extreme. I don't believe in absolutes as a general rule because it limits you and places you at one end of the spectrum, as opposed to seeing other sides to the issue, and coming to a decision somehwere between the two ends.

Answer 2

i believe in absolute morality, for the reasons you cited. it does place limits. looks at our world now, with it morally relative attitude. some countries say it ok for adult to have sex with children, infanticide is permitted as well as domestic violence. these are the reasons why these "limits" as you are needed. people do not have the strength of character to put limits on themselves. this is why moral relativism is dangerous. because it allows you to justify any action by asseting your standard isn't right. finally, look at our country. we have giant corporation that fleece the poor to make themselves richer by hiding certain things in contracts so you won't see it. another example is the sub prime mortgage crisis. many of the elderly were tricked into buying something they couldn't afford. I could easliy justify it by saying it's their fault for not reading; however, that does not excuse me for selling you something that will cause you harm. this is the problem of moral relativism. people cannot control themselves. you need an absolute standard. i know many will disagree and probably give me a thumbs down, but it's the truth.

Answer 3

the scale seems unwieldy and impossible.

I think the way to go would be on a culture-by-culture basis, prioritizing items all or almost all agree on (murder, theft, etc) and drawing correlations there. All cultures may agree on murder (or at least on "unauthorized" killing), while materialistic, urban or resource-oriented cultures may hold theft in more disdain than a hunter/gatherer culture.