You cannot be a progressive and moral relativist

If you believe that every culture is equal and that you can't say one is more morally correct than the other, then there is no reason to progress our own society, as the culture of the status quo can be said to be neither better nor worse than the culture you foresee which you want to progress towards.

I think that you misinterpret what moral relativism is.

Ok, cultural relativism then. People who say that all cultures are equal.

That isn't what cultural relativism is, either.

Yeh, it pretty much is. Stop weaselling out of the argument.

If you believe that every culture is equal and that you can't say one is more morally correct than the other, then there is no reason to progress our own society, as the culture of the status quo can be said to be neither better nor worse than the culture you foresee which you want to progress towards.

Yes, you've misinterpreted what it means to be a moral relativist.

Moral relativism would say yes, it's not morally right or wrong to progress one culture over another, but that doesnt mean you cant or shouldnt progress any cultures.

Basically, moral relativism says nothing is right or wrong, so you're free to do what you want.

Cultural relativism is the idea that the beliefs and actions of individuals should be judged relative to their cultural environment.

It does not say that all cultures are equal.

Yeh free, but there's no moral reason to progress the culture. While a lot of progressive would argue their is.

You're just beating round the bush. You can see the point I'm making.

Your point was that one "cannot" be both a moral relativist and progressive. Ignoring all the gaps in your understanding of the vocabulary you are using it still doesn't really follow.

Believing that there is universal truth of what is "good" and "bad" is not the same as not wanting civilisation to progress.

Yeh, I know. What are you arguing against? Most utilitarians wanted civilisation to progress. The point I'm making is that you can't be a cultural relativist and argue that there are "correct" moral reasons for the culture to progress.

Ignoring your continued misunderstanding of what cultural relativism is, trying to interpret what you are actually trying to say, then broadly speaking such a person wouldn't aruge that there are "correct" moral reasons for a culture to progress.

But that is not actually what it means to be progressive....

I don't think you're anywhere near as intelligent as you think you are. You keep falsely alluding to knowledge you clearly don't have. I'm using "cultural relativist" completely correctly here; it's you who doesn't seem to have either a grasp of the concept or a grasp of my argument.

Any kind of progression in culture surely must come from a moral basis unless it is entirely and overtly selfish.

There can be no moral basis to being a progressive if one also believes that "right" and "wrong" only exist within the context of the dominant culture a person is brought up in

(which is what cultural relativism means)

because the values of the status quo culture can be said to be no more "right" or "wrong" than the culture you want to progress it into because their are no universal values to judge them by. End of discussion.

The last time I checked, and believe me I did need to check given your fluid definitions, you implied cultural relativism means the believe that there is not such thing as "good" and "bad" in terms of morality. Indeed this would need to be your definition of it for it to then follow that such a person could not subsequently believe that there is a moral incentive for cultures to progress.

However, that isn't what cultural relativism is. Google it. Check wikipedia. If you still think you're in the right then show me the source that demonstrates it. I'm not the only person in this thread to tell you that you are using vocabulary you don't fully understand.



Not at all.



Such a person clearly has a moral
framework, so why can they not apply that moral framework to cultural progress?



That's one quite simple interpretation of it.



Perhaps I'll leave and if you keep moving the goalposts of your original argument for long enough you'll score some points?

You're a leftist trying to dodge the fairly obvious point I'm making, as leftists always do. Stop weaselling out of the argument.

You're a leftist trying to dodge the fairly obvious point I'm making, as leftists always do. Stop weaselling out of the argument.