There is a difference between the moral nihilism of implying that the Saudi culture has equal footing to our culture, and the obvious realization that there is no objective / absolute moral reference anywhere in sight. Many people refer to the first as "moral relativism", well fine I've long quit dissuading people of that definition, and have used it without rigor as well (since everyone else uses it anyway).
I've also come some way from that time. I no longer call Sam a "fool" (specially after his debate against
William Lane Craig), although I still heavily disagree that the "moral landscape" is a viable scientific research program (mostly because it will spur a lot of pseudo-scientific statistical rubbish that will be used to preach prejudices and agendas).
It
is a dangerous and unstable path, the search for a morally superior state of affairs. But
we have to do so and we have to assert our core values and aspirations, unless you want to walk the path of Nietzsche's prophetized endgame of moral nihilism.
This is why I do think that the "anti-multiculturalists" have a point. Unfortunately, they are heavily polluted with racism and xenophobia, destroying the issue altogether and polarizing it between racists and naive multiculturalists, to which all the cultural problems are solved with materialistic and economic solutions.
This is why whenever I see someone saying that we should not be proud of our own values and try to spread them all over the world, that such is a sign of "hubris" and the sign that we are like "the fanatics", I cringe, I react. It's simply not true. I hope more people realize that, before the second and third world get their act together and become more economically powerful than Europe and America combined. Because if we don't get our act together then, we might just find our morality being subdued, changed and degraded to medieval or oppressive values. Specially if we think that
perhaps our morals aren't that good, that perhaps the chinese way is better, or the Iran's, I mean what do we know about morals....Bobboau, notice what I said there:
I should tell you though that "moral relativism" as a guide does suck. This because MR is no moral guide at all, only an empirical observation of a state of affairs, i.e. that morals are not absolute and are different from place to place, people to people, and there is no "higher" moral authority to obey. (Such is the obvious consequence of stripping out religion from your philosophy: the end of all absolutisms).
