Dr. Flannagan bases objective morality on what morality "seems" objective to him (!?)

 Update:  Dr. Flannagan ceased his dodging the issue and responded in a more direct way in one of his later replies on June 26, 2018, so I've changed the title of the post.

Dr. Flannagan has posted several articles displaying the fallacies of the moral relativist position.

I replied to each, challenging him to explain why he thinks torturing babies to death solely for entertainment is objectively immoral.

He has made his first response, and it is clear that he is less than forthcoming about those reasons.

I replied with 7 reasons why he need to stop focusing on the alleged errors of the moral relativist position and start providing the positive evidence for his own objectivist position.  My 7 reasons are cross-posted below for convenience, followed by my point by point reply just in case any Christian thought it couldn't be done. 

----------beginquote------------------------

Dr. Flannagan,

There are 7 important reasons why you should get down to brass tacks and provide your first reason for saying torturing babies to death solely for entertainment purposes, is objectively immoral:

First, I’ll do what philosophers routinely do, and concede my alleged errors *solely for the sake of argument*. 

Second, you are the one asserting that baby-torture is objectively immoral.  Suspiciously, you never get around to saying exactly why, you rather prefer to just balk at the fallacies in the moral relativist objections.  But it wouldn't matter if you were correct in your criticisms of me, that doesn't fulfill your own burden to provide positive evidence/argument in favor of what you believe.

Third,  despite your bible telling you that unbelievers are either completely incapable of, or else highly unlikely to, engage in correct thinking with respect to godly truths (1st Corinthians 2:14), you still provide many arguments to non-Christian philosophers and audiences.  I may therefore safely assume that, even if you judge me to be wrong in many of my views, this will no more slow you down in setting forth argument to me, than it slows you down from setting forth argument to other equally spiritually blind atheists. 

Fourth, you and I are not conversing in private, where you might otherwise think it legitimate to say my ignorance renders continued dialogue pointless.  There are obviously many Christians less educated than you, who are reading your posts here, and they would benefit from seeing your reasons for saying baby-torture is objectively immoral.   Even if you believed that your revealing here your first reason to say baby torture is objectively immoral, wouldn't benefit *me*, you could not hold such a negative view of all the other Christians who learn from your posts, and who, like most Christians, cannot imagine how they could demonstrate any act to be ‘objectively’ immoral apart from merely quoting the bible.  You are helping thousands or perhaps millions of Christians when you answer my challenge directly.

Fifth, you actually can't really say for sure whether God would or wouldn't open my understanding if you gave your first reason for saying baby-torture is objectively immoral.  Don't you believe that God somehow works through your online posts, even if He doesn't make them totally inerrant?  And if you believe in Ezra 1:1 and Daniel 4:32-33, you cannot deny the ability of the bible-god to make even his enemies believe  whatever he wants them to (i.e., Cyrus came to believe the Jews should be freed from exile, Nebuchadnezzar came to believe he should eat grass).   Don't underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit as he works through your posts.

Sixth, it doesn't matter how much you try to justify refusal to answer my below-repeated challenge directly, you can hardly "expect" a moral relativist to appreciate your reasons for saying baby torture is objectively immoral, if you constantly refuse to reveal those reasons.  It would be any different than the atheist who “expects” Christians to appreciate why he thinks God doesn’t exist...while never getting down to the business at hand and actually specifying those reasons.

Seventh and finally, your continual refusal to actually deliver the actual goods could be reasonably construed as your refusal to “correct those who are in opposition…” (2^nd Timothy 2:25), or to "provide a reason for the hope that lies within you (1st Peter 3:15), or a refusal to “contend earnestly for the faith” (Jude 3).  At the end of the day, your willingness to do apologetics eventually obligates you to do something more than merely point out inconsistencies in the non-Christian view and start laying the basis for your own positive case, a thing that doesn't require you to mention anybody else's fallacies or misunderstandings.

Now that you've discovered that the benefits of revealing exactly why baby-torture is 'objectively' immoral, outweigh any perceived risks, let's try this again:

You believe that torturing babies to death solely for entertainment purposes, is objectively immoral. Why?

Because the bible tells you so?

Because most humans say it is immoral?

Because you personally find it revolting?

Because all strong feelings about a moral issue necessarily come from God?

Some combination of the above?

Some other reason or reasons?

I cannot fulfill my burden to provide direct evidence of atheism by hiding behind continual attacks on the morality of the bible-god, and YOU cannot fulfill your burden to provide direct evidence that baby torture is objectively immoral, by constantly hiding behind complaints that the moral relativist position is fallacious. 

Let everything be done decently and in order.

I look forward to further dialogue with you,

Barry

---------endquote---------I now reply to him in point by point fashion

If that is true, then you should be able to establish the correctness of the proposition “torturing babies to death solely for entertainment purposes is objectively immoral” WITHOUT relying on what anybody else “believes or accepts” about that subject.

Ok two things here. First, that inference doesn’t follow: Even if a proposition is objectively true, it doesn’t follow that a person can demonstrate or establish its truth.

  That's irrelevant.  You've already committed yourself to the premise that child-torture and rape are objectively immoral.  If you are being serious, then you should have reasons for thinking such acts are objectively immoral.  Please reveal those reasons.

Second, no proposition can be established “without relying on what someone else believes or accepts”.

So under your logic, I cannot establish "trees exist" is objectively true without relying on what someone else believes or accepts.  Nice going. 

This because proof and argument always involves inferring a conclusion from prior premises, that one’s interlocutor believes.

 On the contrary, I see no reason to think I'd have to get a second opinion if I draw the conclusion that 2+2=4.

If you can’t appeal to what a person believes you can’t prove anything at all.

Ahhh...now we are starting to discover that whatever your proof for the objective immorality of baby-torture is, you are going to have to depend on at least something I currently believe in order to prove the proposition.  That's fine, but you talk all cocky about objective morals, as if they would be true even if no humans believed in them.  Well pardon me, but if you need to appeal to something the interlocutor believes, and yet none of them believes something you need to make your case, you are shit out of luck.

For example, you can’t establish that the physical world exists independently of anyone perceiving it without appealing to what someone else accepts or believes. Nor can you establish that events existed in the past independently of whether on remembered them or not without appealing to something some else believes or accepts.

Fine:  do whatever you think must properly be done to establish that fatal baby-torture is objectively immoral.

Indeed, the dictionaries tell us that “objective” means
“not dependent on the mind for existence”
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/objective

Unfortunately, you don’t define technical terms in a discipline like meta ethics by looking at dictionaries. Dictionaries only tell one common usage, they don’t necessarily convey the way terms are used or the precision they are used with within a discipline.

But you constantly use the word "objective" in connection with "morals" in the articles you expect the average person to read.  Yet you never carefully define "objective" in any way that might suggest you mean anything more narrow than what the dictionary means.  Indeed, your constantly analogies to the objective existence of physical things like the world make perfect sense upon the dictionary definition.

But it also seems to me this definition is mistaken as its too broad. Take the judgement: “John was in pain when Billy smashed him in the head with a brick” that judgement is either objectively true or false, by believing or willing John wasnt in pain doesnt make it so. However, seeing pain is a mental state its truth also depends on the existence of minds. So mind independence isnt a good definition of objectivity. What objectivity requires is that a judgement is incorrect independently of what philosophers call our evaluative attitudes towards it.

Ok, so go ahead and demonstrate that the judgment of the sociopath who says "torturing babies to death solely for entertainment is morally good" is incorrect independently of what philosophers call our evaluative attitudes towards it.

Our evaluation that the proposition is true or false or our evaluation that the action is good or bad. Evaluative judgements are obviously mental judgements, they are a specific type of mental act and not the same thing as mind generically. Consquently, doesn’t require complete mind independence.

Then perhaps my rebuttals to you did some good, and maybe now you'll update your attacks on moral relativity by reminding the reader that you were using "objective" in a philosophically narrow sense not as broad as the dictionary definition.  You can hardly blame a reader for assuming your unqualified words take their normative dictionary definitions.

    So go ahead…demonstrate that that the proposition...

Sure when you demonstrate physical objects exist without appealing to something someone believes or accepts.

That is a willful failure on your part to fulfill your own burden of proof.  You talk all day every day about the fallacies of moral relativism, sort of like the atheist who talks all day about the evils of the bible-god.  

But you never get around to stating your reasons for saying baby-torture is objectively immoral, sort of like the atheist who never gets around to stating the reasons for saying god doesn't exist.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that you are correct about this need to appeal to what somebody else believes in order to "demonstrate" something:  If you need to appeal to things you think are in my mind, feel free to do so.  Do whatever you need to do to prove the proposition that fatal baby-torture solely for the sake of entertainment is objectively immoral.

Does your inability to do so show that mean the physical universe depends on my mind for existence? Was I around at the big bang, if I died tomorrow would that mean you cease to exist and the whole universe is annihilated?

Sorry, hard to figure out what you are saying.

Another dictionary defines ‘objective’ as:
“having reality independent of the mind” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/objective
So go ahead…demonstrate that that the above-cited moral proposition has “reality independent of the mind”.

See above about relying on dictionaries to settle the meaning of technical terms and the mistaken definition your relying on

 You know…just like you also don’t need any human input whatsoever to demonstrate anything else that you would characterize as having “objective” existence, such as trees.

 That again doesn’t follow, obviously trees exist independently of minds, if every human being in the world committed suicide tomorrow the olive tree in my garden wouldn’t pop out of existence. However, it’s not true that you can demonstrate the existence of trees without appealing to something humans know or accept.

I disagree, but in the interest of furthering the argument, fine, then appeal to something I know or accept, to help you demonstrate the objective immorality of torturing babies to death solely for entertainment.

Your confusing the conditions necessary for something to exist with the conditions necessary to know something exists. Not the same thing.

On the contrary, you mislead the reader with your many uses of "objective" which you apply not only to morals but to physical realities that people commonly refer to as existing "objectively", such as when you appeal to the reality of the physical world.  Will you admit you could have made clearer your narrowly nuanced use of "objective", or will you insist that the average reader obtain their Ph.d in philosophy before they dare presume anything whatsoever about your use of language? 

 If you start asking me questions, you’ll be violating the definition of objectivity. You don’t need my input on anything, nor do you need to know whether I accept or believe any certain way about it, to achieve your own stated goal of demonstrating the above-cited moral proposition to be objectively true.

 That again doesn’t follow for the reasons I cited above, pointing out judgements are true or false independently of whether we think they are, doesn’t entail one can demonstrate or know they are without human input.
You’ll need to fix up that fallacious inference before your objection has any soundness.

 And you'll need to update your attacks on moral relativity so that the readers, most whom presumably don't have a Ph.d in philosophy, will recognize that when you say "objective", you don't mean the sense that the dictionary provides.

    You could also clear things up by directly answering the question of why you think said baby-torture is objectively immoral in the first place.

    Is it immoral because the bible tells you so?

    Is it immoral because most humans say it is immoral?

    is it immoral because you personally find it revolting?

    Is it immoral because all strong feelings about a moral issue necessarily come from God?

    Some other reason or reasons?

Unfortunately those questions assume the same mistake I mentioned above, your first question is about why I think a certain action is wrong it asks what my grounds or reasons for believing something is.

 Um.. Sir...asking you what grounds or reasons you have for believing something, cannot possibly constitute a "mistake", unless you think it is a 'mistake' for people ask you why you believe what you believe?  Is there some different Dr. Matthew Flannagan who engages in apologetics, who is different than you?  You are  C  L  E  A  R  L  Y   being evasive.  Those questions were legitimate even assuming I misunderstood you to a shocking degree.   

The problem is you then in the next few sentences take that to be the same as asking the question of why an action is immoral.

Ok, then forget my allegedly  fallacious understandings and give your reasons for saying baby-torture is objectively immoral.  We can worry about my ignorance and misunderstanding of your stated reasons after you state them and then after  I reply to your stated reasons.  You never know, I might address your reasons in ways that aren't fallacious.

That’s just a bad inference, I can ask a person why they believe sub atomic particles exist, and they might reply they believe it because they were taught it in a physics class.

 So apparently answering the question directly is actually possible, and in our case,  you just don't wanna.

That doesn’t mean that sub atomic particles exist because science teachers say so.

Agreed, but the direct answer clears the way to begin a more penetrating analysis.  While conversely, simply refusing to get in the ring and contenting yourself to shout from the sidelines has the clear benefit of preventing you from getting steamrolled.

If they exist, they existed a long time before science teachers or even humans came on the scene.

Ok...then if there are reasons to say baby-torture is objectively immoral, those reasons existed long before humans existed.  You are forced to agree to that by reason of your presupposition that God's morals have been the same from all eternity and were no different back before he created anything.

So, sorry, but your objections here seem to be just based on a series of non sequiturs.

 And I'm equally sorry that you did a rather unconvincing job of evading a direct challenge. It doesn't matter if I have a worse understanding of your position than a two year old would:  That would not intellectually or morally compel you to stay quiet about the reasons you think baby-torture is objectively immoral.

Dr. Flannagan, why can't you just forthrightly acknowledge that you think torturing babies to death is objectively immoral because the bible tells you so?

It doesn't matter if that simplistic basis could be shot out of the sky...it would still correctly reflect what you believe, wouldn't it?  It is dishonest to keep your true reasons hidden because you are afraid they can be refuted.

 Update: June 26, 2018:  Flannagan made another reply.  I responded briefly at his website and include that below, followed by more more lengthy point by point response:
------quote-----

Dr. Flannagan,
I provide a point by point response to you at my blog, but for now, it’s probably better to limit my posting here to resolving one of our important disagreements necessarily involved in the objective morality debate.
You have stated repeatedly in prior posts that when the moral relativist characterizes somebody else’s moral viewpoint as “wrong”, the relativist is necessarily implying an objective standard of moral right and wrong.
For example, you said that objectivity is presupposed when somebody admits any certain moral view was “mistaken”. 

“Stephen Evan’s similarly stresses that we assume or presuppose that moral judgments are the “kind of thing we can be mistaken about” and we criticise societies and other people for making mistaken moral judgments, all of which presupposes objectivity.”

“…or the fact we think some cultural mores or moral systems are worse than others and so on, all of which presuppose objectivity. Or the fact we engage in debate with other people over what is the right thing to do.”

 Your most direct statement on the subject was:

“…I put forward a hypothetical situation where a community endorsed the torture of children and asked whether you think a society which judged it was ok to do this was mistaken in doing so, or whether you thought there judgment it was permissible to torture children was correct. In fact, I put the challenge to you in the post? Most people judge that such a society does make a mistake, which shows that they presuppose that moral judgements are objective.”

I believe you were wrong to assume an objective standard of moral right and wrong is being presupposed when the moral relativist declares that somebody else’s viewpoint is “wrong”.

That is because there are numerous examples from real life in which we find it totally legitimate and justified to declare a person “wrong” on the basis of an admittedly non-objective, subjective or entirely relative standard.

Suppose I impose a 9 p.m. bedtime on my 7-year old daughter on a school night. When she says “I don’t have to do what you say”, I reply “you are wrong”. Is my assessment legitimate? After all, there is nothing in nature, any religious text, our deepest moral intuitions, or any viewpoint that most human beings agree on, which specifies what precise bedtime a child must obey on a school night, or specifies that a child must obey just anything the parent says at any time.

That situation is 100% subjective, yet it is legitimate for the dad to characterize his daughter’s rebellious attitude in that context as “wrong”.  Can you agree with me that “you are wrong” can be a legitimate moral criticism even in the absence of any objective moral standard?

I honestly cannot imagine how you could possibly infuse my chosen bedtime of 9 p.m. in this context with any objectivity, given that bedtime for kids is something parents wildly disagree about, precisely because there is no objective standard to apply in the first place.

---------endquote-----

here is my more detailed point by point reply:

Barry, you seem to have missed the key point of my last post. Which is your suggestion I am under some kind of burden to prove this is simply false.

But you'll have to agree the reader would be a bit curious that while you denying having a burden here, you still chose to proceed as if you believed you did.  Apparently, I struck a chord.

To demonstrate why I think its objectively wrong to torture babies for fun let me ask you some questions. These are to elucidate some premises which hopefully you and many of my readers will agree upon
1. If someone tortured a baby for fun, they grabbed a two year old and beat it repeatedly with a belt in front of you so it was bleeding and screaming in agony, and laughed as they did it repeatedly saying “I am doing this purely for fun, I have no other reason” would you d you honestly say that a person who did this did no wrong?

In my opinion, that child-abusing man would be morally 'wrong'. 

2. If as I suspect the answer to the above question is no, suppose the person who was whipping the flesh of the child in front of you told you he thought his action was perfectly ok, and there was nothing wrong with it, and that he was part of a community whose mores endorsed this sort of behaviour, would you change your opinion and claim that what he did wasn’t wrong, but was morally perfectly acceptable?

Inapplicable, see above.

Now I suspect, unless you’re a total Psychopath, that your answer to both these questions is “No”.

 It wouldn't matter if I was a total Psychopath...your duty is to "demonstrate".  You aren't "demonstrating" but only "assuming" if you simply assume total Psychopaths hold only those morals that are objectively wrong.

If it is however then, you have claimed both that (a) the action is wrong and (b) individuals and communities who judge it isn’t wrong are mistaken. If (a) and (b) are correct then morality is objective.

Incorrect.  I often tell my school-age daughter she is "wrong" to disobey my imposed bedtime of 9 p.m. on a school night.  But this does not imply she is objectively wrong, and my calling her "wrong" doesn't imply that I think she is violating some objective standard of morality.  My choice of what time she should go to bed is utterly relative, and differs wildly from parent to parent.  There is no natural law that says 9 p.m. is the proper bedtime for kids on a school night.  There is nothing in the bible that says 9 p.m. is the proper bedtime for kids on a school night.  And there is nothing in our deepest human intuitions that says 9 p.m. is the proper bedtime for kids on a school night.

Likewise, there is nothing in natural law, the bible, or our deepest human intuitions, that says a child should obey just anything at all which their parent might command at any time.   So my choice of bedtime for her is completely subjective.  Yet it is also legitimate and reasonable to characterize her rebellion toward this bedtime as "wrong".

Other examples, for the limited purpose of justifying wrongness on the basis of a completely subjective standard could be adduced:  We today spell it "connection", but back in the 17th century, the "correct" English spelling was "connexion".  But if any child in America today wrote it that way on a spelling test, the teacher would declare it "wrong".  It would be legitimate to declare such test answer  "wrong", meaning "wrong for reasons limited solely to the culture we currently live in".  Nobody would argue that by saying "wrong", the teacher is logically implying that there is an objectively correct way to spell that word. So you are incorrect to automatically accuse the moral relativist of necessarily implying an objective standard of moral right and wrong when they classify disobedience to some moral as "wrong".

Of course you could respond by biting the bullet and saying that in your opinon a person who beats a child in that way for fun does nothing wrong at all. But I would take that as a reduction ad absurdium of your position.

 Why?  It IS my opinion that this form of child abuse is morally wrong.  And in light of your other presuppositions, such as that I'm not god, and therefore cannot know everything there is to know about morality, casting my view as "opinion" constitutes justified reserve.

I suspect that many of my readers who you are so concerned about would have a similar response.

I don't see the relevance.  Unless you concede that an objective moral can be established by something which "many" people have to say, then what "many" of your readers would conclude about my viewpoint, has no relevance here.

If you have to say that there is nothing wrong with actions I spelt out in 1 and 2 to justify the kind of religious scepticism you want to justify then your position is implausible and to put it mildly close to sociopathic.

I'll play devils advocate here:  I detect an assumption in your argument that you haven't justified just yet: On what basis would you judge "implausible" the moral viewpoint that says it is good to torture children solely for entertainment purposes?  Your reference to "sociopathic" seems to indicate that your basis for implausibility here is what the majority of humans would have to say, since of course "socipath" refers to a person whose morals contravene those held by the majority of human beings.

Either admit your case for objective morals depends to some extent on what the majority of human beings feel is morally good/bad, or justify your intuitive disagreement with the sociopath without appealing to what the majority of human beings feel is morally good/bad.

Indeed, it is only a sociopath who seriously thinks it good to torture babies to death solely for entertainment, unfortunately, you are going to need something more than "most people would disagree with you!" before you can show the sociopathic position to be objectively immoral.

Perhaps you think I am under some kind of burden to prove 1 and 2.

You are.  He who asserts, must prove.  If you assert fairies exist, I'm under no obligation to believe they do until after you have provided some evidence in support.  That principle applies across the board, including applying to atheists who assert god's non-existence.

You think that when we see a child beating flayed with such intensity that its skin is bleeding and its screaming in agony we can’t claim that’s wrong until we have provided some kind of scientific empirical justification, cooly examining all the data, solving the is ought problem, and so forth. And that until someone does this the rational stance is to say that the person does nothing wrong at all.

First, "cooly" implies impartial unbiased research. So by saying we need not 'cooly' examine all the data, you are saying we need not conduct partial and unbiased research on the matter of whether torturing children to death solely for the sake of entertainment, is objectively moral or immoral.  But that implies justified reliance on your own existing moral prejudices/biases.  And whatever you conclude you arrive at by relying on your own existing moral prejudices/biases, that conclusion is hardly "objective".

You might think this, but I would just dispute that it seems pretty evident to me that’s simply an absurd and ridiculous stance to take.

So your case for 'objective' morals is necessarily premised, to some extent, on what "seems" to be absurd.  That's rather subjective of you.

I have already explained why I contend that your suggestion that anyone who asserts something carries some kind of burden of proof in my first post.

Yes indeed.  That's why you have a burden to demonstrate whatever you assert to be true, as would be the case with anybody else.

So until you actually respond to these criticisms you cant just assert that the burden of proof is on the person who opposes child flaying and the sadist’s position is the default one

Strawman fallacy, I never said the child flaying or sadist's position was the default.  I've made clear in this reply that a) I agree with you that such child abuse is morally wrong, but b) I am not necessarily implying the existence of an objective standard for morals in saying that, anymore than the teacher implies an objective standard for how to spell "connection"

seems to me to be mistaken,

Ok, sadism toward children solely for entertainment "seems" to be mistaken to you.  And sadism toward children solely for entertainment "seems" to be morally good to an extreme sociopath.  How would you "demonstrate" whose position was more objective?  I have an answer:  appeal to what the vast majority of people believe.  But that comes at the price of you admitting error, and admitting that what has "seemed" immoral to the vast majority of human beings, is a legitimate basis upon which to label their moral views "objective".

its similar to the position of a person who says they won’t believe the world isn’t a figment of there imagination until someone proves it actually exists. Or the solipsist who refuses to believe other people actually exist until someone proves it. Or the person who demands you prove the proposition “nothing is red all over and blue all over at the same time”.

I realize you feel strongly about your moral outlook.

My Answer to Matthew Flannagan's Third Challenge to Moral Relativism

This is my reply to an article by Dr. Matthew Flannagan entitled

The Challenge of Moral Relativism: Three Problems with Relativism

9:03 PM (15 hours ago)

by Matt Flannagan

This is the third of a series of posts on moral relativism. These talks are based on some talks I have given on the subject in the last few months. In the first post, I looked at what the basic issues are. The second post examines some of the reasons people offer for accepting relativism. This last post looks at some problems with relativism.

Today most ethicists whether Christian or non-Christian reject relativism.

Truth isn't decided by majority opinion or what "most" ethicists think.  You agreed to this earlier when you said:

Moreover, the fact there is a consensus of judgement on a particular issue does nothing to establish the judgement is correct, consensuses have been mistaken, the history of science shows lots of examples where the consensus belief was later shown to be incorrect. The issue isn’t whether everyone thinks something, its why they think it and whether it’s correct.

Flannagan continues:

Critics of relativism argue it faces several problems, which give us reason to reject it. I will focus on three.

1. The Problem of Moral Progress and Moral Reform.

Relativism is incompatible with moral progress or reform.  While relativists can accept that the moral judgements of societies change they can't consistently claim these changes amount to progress.

If my 7 year old daughter takes three months to stop disobeying me on the bedtime I impose on her on school nights, that is legitimate "moral progress" despite the fact that what time kids must go to bed is 100% subjective, relative and nowhere expressed or implied in nature or the bible or any other source you might deem a source for objective morals.

If society at one time supports relativism-1slavery or racial segregation, and then later disapproves of these things. Relativists cannot say that society has thrown off an incorrect view and adopted a correct, one. Instead, it must say that it has gone from one correct view to another one.

No, the relativist would be more accurate to stop characterizing anybody's morals as 'correct' or 'incorrect'.  Connecting morals to objectivity is like connecting "greasy" to "radio wave".  It is a category error, and your obvious extreme fear of actually putting your money where your mouth is (i.e, your unwillingness to state a specific moral proposition and the reasons you think it is "objective") confirms that you fear, at least secretly, that moral objectivity constitutes a category error.  You know perfectly well you are never going to demonstrate that any moral is objective, especially since I raked you over the coals after you set forth "don't torture babies to death solely for entertainment" as an example of an objective moral.  I asked you what moral yardstick you used which told you that such act was always immoral for all people, and you skipped town.  Apparently your argument is so weak, you cannot seriously set it forth unless your opponent agrees with you that it is true.

A related problem is that relativism suggests that moral reformers who spoke out against slavery and segregation were in fact in the wrong.

Again, it would promote accuracy and truth if moral relativists either stopped using "right", "wrong", "correct", "incorrect" to characterize their judgment of another's morals...unless they carefully qualify that their standard of truth for such matters is itself also relative and subject to possible revision.

They were opposing what society approved of and hence what was right for members of society.

This problem also applies to subjectivism. If a member of the Ku Klux Klan holds racist judgements at one time and then later rejects these judgements as bigotry, The subjectivist can’t say he has moved from a mistaken to a correct. Instead, he has changed from one correct view to another.  Individuals don’t grow in moral insight or develop more discernment.

See above, i already showed the correctness and reasonableness of characterizing one's moving from disobedience toward a relative moral, to obedience to it, as legitimate moral progress.  And no, you cannot dumb that down by saying the bible tells children to obey their parents, because even you would agree that this cannot be absolute or objective, since a parent may possibly demand that a child commit murder or some act you think is objectively wrong, and commit it "in the name of the Lord",  in which case there would be an exception to "children obey your parents in the Lord", and in light of such exception, that particular biblical moral cannot be objective, but only subjective.

What will you do now?  Invoke Norman Geisler's "graded absolutism" wherein an absolute remains an absolute while being in some situations less important to obey than some other absolute (!?)

If so, behold:  "thou shalt not wrangle words".  Pretty difficult to see how you could mount anything remotely approaching a scholarly refutation of some position on morality, without disputing the meaning of words.

2.The possibility of Error

There is another problem with relativism. It seems plausible that we can be mistaken in our moral judgements.

That's your first problem, because in saying "seems", you are appealing to our intuitive feelings, and you surely recognize that we can possibly be wrong even in our strongest intuitions.

I can make judgements about what is right and wrong which are incorrect,

Not if you are judging another moral viewpoint. Once again, "correct" and "incorrect" do not apply to morals.  Only fools would ask "Is it correct to refrain from adultery?".  Morals are value judgments that draw from several subjective bases, therefore, it promotes truth more if we reserve "correct" and "incorrect" for purely factual disagreements. Since you disagree that all morals come from subjective bases, please state the one specific moral proposition and your reasons for saying it is objectively true.

and whole societies can do this.  Relativism, however, suggests mistakes like this are impossible. Subjectivism means that If I believe something is right, then I am right in doing it.

In the sense that one believes oneself morally justified to do whatever they feel like doing.  I cannot imagine how it could be anything else, except in the case of irrational people who allow themselves to get involved in things they personally believe are immoral, such as teenagers or drug addicts.  But thankfully, the views of irrational people hardly qualify as anything that anybody need worry about.

Relativism means that if a society endorses a practice then its right for members of that society to do the practice.

Because of the presupposition that there is no objective right, therefore, the only "right" to speak of would be necessarily relative.  But yes, I agree with you that without careful definition of terms, the way many relativists talk is confusing and creates inconsistencies.

The consequence is that mistakes about morality are impossible.  For a person or a community to make a mistake, it has to be possible for the standards an individual or society accepts to be different from the standards which are correct.

No, see above.  Nobody says it is a "mistake" to agree with the clocks in New Zealand which say it is "6 p.m." merely because at that particular instant, it is not "6 p.m." in China.   Time is surely a relative thing, and therefore 6 p.m. in New Zealand is not a time that can be nailed down by any standard that is truly objective.  Yet nobody says the relativity of the time exhibited by New Zealand clocks makes it a "mistake" to agree with the current time they exhibit.  Again, the school night bedtime I impose on my daughter is not a reflection of any objective truth in nature or the bible or natural theology.  Nobody "intuitively knows" what time kids must go to bed, so the actual time chosen by the parents is entirely subjective and relative.  Yet it would be legitimate for me to characterize her rebellion against that admittedly subjective moral as "mistaken" (i.e., she says "I'm not going to bed!", and I reply "you are mistaken.").

3. Relativism Implies that Obvious Moral Wrongs Are Acceptable
Perhaps the most important objection to relativism is that it implies that obvious moral wrongs are acceptable. If actions are right or wrong relative to an individual or societies standpoint, then anything at all can be justified. Genocide, rape, torture of children, racial intolerance, are all morally right for a person if he believes that they are or his society endorses them.

Thank you for starting to put your money where your mouth is, despite the fact that you chose to start doing so only at the end of your third article on moral relativism.

Now that you've identified rape as an "obvious" moral wrong (which Ii safely presume you take to signify an objective immorality), please identify the standard you are using, which declares that rape is immoral, and why you believe that standard's declarations about morality are objectively true.

And remember, "objective" means something is true for reasons apart from human opinion, belief or input:

Oxford Dictionary
 Not dependent on the mind for existence;

So you need to demonstrate the objective immorality of rape without appeal to input on the subject from any human mind.

Just like if you think the existence of trees is objective, you should be able to demonstrate such without needing to gain the input of any other human being.

   Many find this implication hard to swallow if a serial killer thinks it's permissible to kill women, is it really plausible to suggest this fact alone means his actions are right or did the fact German society adopted Nazism in the 1930s mean that Germans did no wrong when they implemented these policies.

 The weakness of the objectivist position shines through brightly with your appeals to human emotion.  It is likely you can never do better to refute moral relativism, than prey upon the strong feelings of other people.  As soon as you run into an opponent like me who requires that you do something more than blindly assume the immorality of an act, but that you actually demonstrate why it is objectively immoral, you can do nothing.  Just like the last time I asked you for the moral yardstick that tells you torturing babies to death solely for entertainment is objectively immoral.  You correctly feared that if you open that door, it will be immediately clear that your bases for this judgment are subjective, relative, and based on the strong feelings shared by most civilized adults...not exactly a proof of objectivity...since you earlier denounced using majority or consensus view to demonstrate an objective moral.

Conclusion

Let me now bring the threads of this talk to a close. I have explained what relativism and objectivism are. I noted some common reasons why people accept relativism and suggested these reasons fail. The appeal to diversity fails to make some important distinctions and appeals to tolerance, openness and so on are incoherent. I have also sketched several problems with relativism it entails moral reform is impossible moral error is impossible and that obvious moral wrongs are right. For reasons like this most philosophers, today reject moral relativism. While it's a challenge to the way, Christians think about ethics. I am not convinced it's a challenge which is very defensible.

Once again, Dr. Flannagan, for what reasons do you suppose that torturing babies to death solely for entertainment, constitutes objectively immoral conduct, now that we know that you refuse to ground an objective moral in human consensus?  And remember, if what you plan to show is an 'objective' thing, than you should be able to show it without appeal to what any human being has to say about it.

Or was I correct to say that you cannot win this debate unless your opponent agrees that your viewpoint is true?

And you might wish to tread lightly in combating my challenge.  I have written a long scholarly rebuttal to your book co-authored by Copan "Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God".  If your theory of "dispossession only" be true, then the Canaanites, by giving up their land to the Hebrews, were subjecting their pagan children to slow death by starvation, exposure, thirst, abuse by other pagans, etc.  So that if god commanded "dispossession only", then logically he was commanding for actions that were the functional equal of torturing children to death.  See my post proving the point, here's a quote:

Apologist Glenn Miller says life in the ANE outside one’s established town or province was unbearably hostile and could not be sustained except by routinely stealing and raiding of others, with threats to the dispossessed of forced slavery and prostitution being ever-present. If he is correct, the Hebrews knew it too as they chased any fleeing pagan woman and children outside the promised land. http://christianthinktank.com/rbutcher1.html

So you must answer the terrible irony that the dispossession-only hypothesis, if true, made life more unspeakably unbearable for children than the "kill'em all" hypothesis you were seeking to refute.  The point being that you can no longer appeal to child-torture as an objective immorality, unless of course you revise your hypothesis and try to convince others that child-torture is objectively good where God commands it (!?)

Now that's a nasty turn of events, eh?

Be careful what you pray for.  The bible-god might have a few surprises in store for you.



 Update, June 25, 2018;

In advertising my replies around the internet, I also advertised then on the following youtube channel




 This channel is owned by "InspiringPhilosophy", it is located at this link, and he took an active side with James Patrick Holding when I sued Holding for defamation in 2015-2016.  I therefore have good probable cause to believe that once InspiringPhilosophy recognizes that "Barry Jones" is the guy that sued Holding, InspiringPhilosophy will do what most Christian apologists do, and remove my posting.  So I include the screen shot here.  Now he'll have to decide:  If he gets rid of a problem by removing the post, he looks like the frightened barking child he is.  If he doesn't remove it, then he faces the daunting prospect of his friends asking him to post a rebuttal to my blog pieces, which answered Flannagan and did what InspiringPhilosophy wouldn't like, and showed that moral relativism is defensible while moral objectivism is total bullshit.