Some people define "moral relativism" as the attitude or belief that 'everything is permitted'. This is not necessarily the best definition of it. I have collected some examples of people using it this way.
"[Veit] Bader is concerned to avoid both the temptation to “universalise particular moralities” and on the other end of the spectrum the problem of moral relativism which implicitly condones anything. In order to avoid these poles, Bader proposes that the state should seek to secure a moral minimalist position. * * * He regards the minimal morality required in liberal-democracies to be more demanding as it includes such things as equal civic and political rights, equal legal rights and political autonomy."
"Book Review: Secularism or Democracy? by Veit Bader. Stumbling through the Past. April 11, 2011.
"Upholding the world's diversity as the norm, [Sergey] Lavrov is at the same time immune to the fashion for relativism in handling value system issues. His strongly held view is that contemporary societies should be built on solid moral foundations which alone can cement relationships between nations, peoples and ethnic groups. Lavrov is open about his aversion to Pontius Pilatus-style indifference expressed in his famous reply “What is truth?”. Rather, he sees the crisis of the European society whose value system were eroded by what Z. Brzezinski described as “a civil war within the West” as the root cause of most of the XIX and XX century tragedies."
"Notes of a Diplomacy Professional." Armen Oganesyan. The Voice of Russia. Nov. 2, 2011.
"Astonished, I asked them how could they not think that this ["open relationships"] was wrong. I got answers like: “well, since it is all out in the open and everybody knows that everybody is doing it, there is nothing fundamentally wrong. No one is cheating on a spouse because the spouse was also swinging.”
I said to them: “what about the seventh commandment – do not commit adultery.” One student answered that these people are really not religious. What the students didn’t seem to understand was that whether they were religious or not, there is a moral code that is rooted in the Bible which defines for us what is right and what is wrong. The problem is that when pressed, many of the students simply said that if it feels good and if it feels right then who am I to judge? I told them I wasn’t suggesting that they go over to somebody who is engaged in swinging and chastise them, but that they had to have an opinion on this practice. They looked at me with some disbelief."
"Living in a post-moral world." Rabbi Haskel Lookstein. Sermon for Parshat Noach. Oct. 29, 2011.
"For the advocates of redistributive policies and antidiscrimination policies the answer is clear: the freedom to "do your own thing" entitles a person to the resources to support them, and immunity from criticism for their chosen lifestyle – it is just their own thing after all! This is precisely the vision of the modern moral-relativist welfare state. This is what the advocates of redistributive and antidiscrimination policies have in mind when they hide behind this innocuous phrase. How dare you refuse to contribute your earnings to others who are just trying to do their own thing? How dare you deign to criticize the actions of other people, or discriminate against them – don't you realize that they are just doing their own thing?
In this corrupted sense, the notion of a society where people are free to "do their own thing" becomes a cruel joke, a nightmare tyranny in which this peaceful slogan belies a rigorous system of coercion and control. In such a society, people are not free to do their own thing at all. Not if "their own thing" happens to consist of thinking and telling the truth about the people and institutions around them, objectively assessing and judging the ideas and actions of others, and trying to live their own lives free from egalitarian molestation. In such a society, people are free to do their own thing only to the extent that they avoid objective reasoning and kowtow to the tenets of moral relativism, adopting the mushy "nonjudgmental" thinking." (Lew Rockwell)
"Moral relativism is the ideology that we can do, essentially, whatever we want. “It can be right for you but not right for me, and that’s okay”. As you said, “Also, morals are just opinions of what’s right and what’s wrong. As a result, you cannot say that your morals are superior to anyone else’s.” That’s MR at its finest." Tumblr
Paul Tournier:
“…the worst thing is not being wrong, but being sure one is not wrong. Nothing is more dangerous for us than to believe ourselves to be the authentic interpreters of the divine will. This is the source of all illuminism, of all brutal intolerance, of all proselytism and fanaticism. See how delicate a problem it is: objective criteria tend towards overbearing moralism…”
Paul Tournier. The Violence Within. Translated by Edwin Hudson, 1978. New York: Harper & Row, 1982, (originally Violence et Puissance, 1977) pp. 64–65.
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