Well, you did make a claim about what is the right translation when speaking to babyeaters:
we and they are talking about a different subject matter and it is an error of the computer translation programs that the word comes out as “morality” in both cases. Morality is about how to save babies, not eat them, everyone knows that and they happen to be right. If we could get past difficulties of the translation, the babyeaters would agree with us about what is moral, we would agree with them about what is babyeating
But there has to be some standard by which you prefer the explanation “we mistranslated the term ‘morality’” to “we disagree about morality”, right? What is that? Presumably, one could make your argument about any two languages, not just ones with a species gap:
“We and Spaniards are talking about a different subject matter and it is an error of the computer translation programs that the word comes out as “morality” in both cases. Morality is about how to protect freedoms, not restrict them, everyone knows that and they happen to be right. If we could get past difficulties of the translation, the Spaniards would agree with us about what is moral, we would agree with them about what is familydutyhonoring.”
ETA: A lot of positive response to this, but let me add that I think a better term in the last place would be something like “morality-to-Spaniards”. The intuition behind the original phrasing was to show how you can redefine Spanish standards of morality to be “not-morality”, but rather, just “things that we place different priority on”.
But it’s clearly absurd there: the correct translation of ética is not “ethics-to-Spaniards”, but rather, just plain old “ethics”. And the same reasoning should apply to the babyeather case.
To go a step further, moral disagreement doesn’t require a language barrier at all.
“We and abolitionists are talking about a different subject matter and it is an error of the “computer translation programs” that the word comes out as “morality” in both cases. Morality is about how to create a proper relationship between races, everyone knows that and they happen to be right. If we could get past difficulties of the “translation”, the abolitionists would agree with us about what is moral, we would agree with them about what is abolitionism.”
Well, you did make a claim about what is the right translation when speaking to babyeaters:
But there has to be some standard by which you prefer the explanation “we mistranslated the term ‘morality’” to “we disagree about morality”, right? What is that? Presumably, one could make your argument about any two languages, not just ones with a species gap:
“We and Spaniards are talking about a different subject matter and it is an error of the computer translation programs that the word comes out as “morality” in both cases. Morality is about how to protect freedoms, not restrict them, everyone knows that and they happen to be right. If we could get past difficulties of the translation, the Spaniards would agree with us about what is moral, we would agree with them about what is familydutyhonoring.”
ETA: A lot of positive response to this, but let me add that I think a better term in the last place would be something like “morality-to-Spaniards”. The intuition behind the original phrasing was to show how you can redefine Spanish standards of morality to be “not-morality”, but rather, just “things that we place different priority on”.
But it’s clearly absurd there: the correct translation of ética is not “ethics-to-Spaniards”, but rather, just plain old “ethics”. And the same reasoning should apply to the babyeather case.
To go a step further, moral disagreement doesn’t require a language barrier at all.
“We and abolitionists are talking about a different subject matter and it is an error of the “computer translation programs” that the word comes out as “morality” in both cases. Morality is about how to create a proper relationship between races, everyone knows that and they happen to be right. If we could get past difficulties of the “translation”, the abolitionists would agree with us about what is moral, we would agree with them about what is abolitionism.”