There are many versions of moral relativism with varying sophistication. The one I outlined above is one example.

which happens not to fare well under the most rudimentary criticism.

Now you’re changing the goal-posts – you’re talking of individuals (a person who was conditioned to follow the law, versus a person who was not conditioned to follow the law.)

No change of goal posts. Behaviors are induced in mass populations by conditioning of its individual members.

Anyway, by your own definitions and that of the National Anti-Shoplifting Foundation, one in eleven Americans has had insufficient conditioning.

Yes.

Does that make one in eleven Americans a barbarian

Not quite. The barbarians I had in mind were people who were never condition to obey laws, as opposed to the case you’re describing — people on whom the conditioning failed.

or (per your earlier posts) does that make America a barbarian society?

No. Median criminality in America, as in most stable socities, is quite low. The criminality that exists results from two simple facts. 1)Conditioning is not uniformly applied to all indivduals. 2) Even if it were uniformly applied, it would not be uniformly effective because individuals are not identical, nor are their circumstances.

First you were talking of societies, inducing behaviors in mass populations. and so on. Now you’re changing the goal-posts – you’re talking of individuals (a person who was conditioned to follow the law, versus a person who was not conditioned to follow the law.)

Anyway, by your own definitions and that of the National Anti-Shoplifting Foundation, one in eleven Americans has had insufficient conditioning. Does that make one in eleven Americans a barbarian or (per your earlier posts) does that make America a barbarian society?

Regarding sending you a $10,000 check, do you have any study that proves it makes such contributors feel a lot better?

Since PZ has just had this discussion on Pharyngula ( http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/05/rabbi_avi_shafran.php ) and says it so much better, I will quote him.

“At a guess, it’s that good parenting brought me up to value the stability and prosperity of a civil society, and to appreciate the rewards of good behavior. It’s also the possession of empathy, and a recognition that other human beings value their lives and well-being as much as I do mine, so that harming my neighbor or seeing him in distress pains me. None of these genuine motivations for moral behavior require the imposition of a higher authority. In fact, we tend to think that people who would harm others were it not for an artificial restriction by a watchful authority to have a lesser sense of morality.”

“Not going on murderous rampages seems to enhance one’s chances at reproducing and surviving, so sure, utilitarianism seems to be promoting some things that are good. But he’s right in one thing: biology is not a moral imperative. Morality is more of an emergent property of social systems. The fact that we evolved doesn’t dictate our social behavior, nor does it assign a ranking value on certain classes of behavior. We do that.”

Do you see the difference? There is no absolute true dictate. Yet not all morals are ranked the same.

As an aside, perhaps you can insist on a new sort of society, that suddenly starts to let people murder, torture, steal and have slaves.

Yet no such society exists, though some are secular. What differ is severity of punishment et cetera. I have a hard time understand how you envision this society not getting problems with the rest of the world, having people flee en masse, or not being subjected to civil unrest or revolutions.

Let me rephrase my statement in a manner that might clarify it for you (and others who might be literal minded).

A person who has been conditioned from birth to obey the law (i.e. a civilized person), feels less temptation to violate it than one who has not been so conditioned (i.e. a barbarian).

You may
A. Tentatively judge this to be true.
B. Tentatively judge this to be false.
C. Make no judgment until a relevant study has been performed.

If you tend to opt for “C”, when presented with such statements, I have another statement for you: “You will feel much better sending me a check for $10,000, than you would keeping the money for yourself.”

Are you making up things out of thin cloth? Which study of Barbarians establishes your proposition? In any case, the web (unreliable of course) says that “Shoplifting is America’s #1 property crime, 1 in 11 people shoplift.”
(e.g., http://www.shopliftingprevention.org/TheIssue.htm and
http://www.shopliftingprevention.org/WhatNASPOffers/NRC.htm )

Show me “barbarians”, who have a shoplifting rate of more than 1 in 11.

I would just like to announce to everyone, that if I hear someone say the “f” word, I, a moral relativist, believe that in that case, it is okay to kill him or her in order to prevent other people from saying this horrific word. That person has absolutely no right to think ill of me or think I am wrong, or feel upset as I attempt to attack him or her, for all systems of morals are equally valid, according to moral relativism.

Andrew:
Your second sentence contradicts your first, as follows:

As you are a moral relativist, you can have no moral objection to my shooting you like a mad dog, on moral grounds.

-Arun

The natural side to morality deals with the pragmatics of having a (large) social group functioning well….Killing (or aborting) all, most, or many female babies cannot be a good rule this context for the simple reason that it disrupts the social fabric in the long run. You cannot really apply moral relativism to this.

PK,

Nice try. But a moral relativist would merely say that “having a (large) social group functioning well” (however you define “well”) is just another moral choice, one no better or worse that any other. So moral relativism can be, and in fact has been, applied to your “natural” morality.

You are on the right track, though. The way you circumvent a moral relativist’s position is exactly how you deal with a medical relativist, who holds that all treatments are equally valid. In evaluating the merits of medical treatments we exclude from the discussion, those who have not accepted the proposition that the purpose of treatment is to maximally increase the patient’s health.

Similarly, in evaluating the merits of moral rules we exclude from the discussion, those who have not accepted the proposition that the purpose of morality is to maximally increase a society’s capacity for long term survival.

Thus limiting the circle of discourse — a step necessary in virtually all human endeavors, especially physics — eliminates relativism. Within this circle one can, then, without equivocation state that Western medical treatments are superior to those of African tribalists. And, similarly, Western morality is superior to that, say, of Palestinian society.