The Sillyness of Moral Pluralism

Moral Pluralism: That the definition of right or wrong depends on the person. You have your rules and I have mine and it’s cool what you do in your world with you’re your rules and same for mine. To say that this system will work, will allow us to live harmoniously, and allow us to reach our maximum potential as a group of individuals is plain silly … it makes no sense because we are not islands. The circle of my world overlaps with yours and theirs and hers and his… I have been thinking about this a lot lately because the words "moral pluralism" and "morals" keeps coming up everywhere and I have this weird feeling like that the writers think they are all talking about the same thing but they're not. So we are both spiritual and physical beings. Both realms governed by specific, inviolable laws. Here's a silly example of this pluralism as applied to the physical realm. Let's pretend that the physical laws that govern my realm are different than yours. In my world there is no gravity. I have overcome this by various technological methods that allow me to walk around, drive my car etc and I use special magneto-robo bolts to secure everything down (I am sure Isaiah and Aman could really help me here....). When our realms collide inevitably and I haven't told you about magneto-robo bolts yet, suddenly your the food you are eating starts floating away, the shower water isn't "coming down" and washing the soap from your face and the garbage can just floated up, flipped over and all the sticky, smelly trash got stuck in a tree in your front yard (which stays there once I leave and your "gravity" returns). This scenario will cause problems. End of story. Same holds true for spiritual laws. We all live on one world and we are going to have to come to terms with the fact that we must sit down and agree to live to the same set of spiritual laws just the way we have "agreed" to the physical realm in which we live in... Inviolable... consequences for violating laws of physics are obvious. Jump off a roof you will fall. Put too much pressure on that leg bone and it will snap, the pain will come and you will scream. The same is true for spiritual laws. We have just complicated things so much the consequences are less obviously visible though still immediate and present. The only real way for us to have a real conversation about morals and how to adhere to them (and really pinpoint “right and wrong”) is for us all to agree on “the absolute” set of rules by which to live by. Until this happens this conversation will always end in, “well, in my world, and in the way I choose to live, this is how it works…” And the only way for us to agree on one set rules to live by is to receive them from an authoritative source removed from ourselves, our opinions, likes, dislikes, hurts, feelings, attachments, "experiential" knowledge, moods, joys, etc. The child tends to get lost in the chaos of surface detail. The parent, whose job is to provide the safety and foster growth of the child, is not affected as much by all that chaos of surface detail. That parent sets rules for the child to ensure that safety and growth, enforces those rules, delivers consequences when the rules are broken and gives praise and rewards when they are obeyed. If 30 children in a classroom were allowed to operate in the class by their own rules, chaos would be the result and very little learning would take place… the goal of being in school. So if we want to create a system we can all live in that will allow us to maximize each of our potential as individuals and groups of individuals, it seems to me that working towards a common goal of "one set of moral laws" for all is key. In the meantime, if we are going to have a conversation about morals the first item of business before anythings else should be to clearly understand eachothers definition of that word.