I’ve just now given you an example where someone can be an absolutist on which criteria are to be used, but a relativist on the weight assigned to those criteria.
Dividing the world to pure absolutists (who can order each morality on a single axis) and pure relativists (who don’t order any moralities) is a very incomplete model.
If I rated morality as (2, 3) on two separate orthogonal axes of goodness (e.g. freedom and joy) and another morality as (3, 2) on the same two axes, a morality that rates (4, 4) is superior to either, and a morality that rates (1, 1) is inferior to both, while I wouldn’t be able to absolutely “order” versus , unless I appropriately weighted those two values—and those weights I needn’t consider absolute constants of the universe, even if I considered the maximization of those qualities as good absolutely.
Note: The above is meant as an example only, not as a description of my own system of morality.
The problem of comparing things on the different axes—“solved” by converting to units of utility—is the same for absolutists and relativists.
I’ve just now given you an example where someone can be an absolutist on which criteria are to be used, but a relativist on the weight assigned to those criteria.
Dividing the world to pure absolutists (who can order each morality on a single axis) and pure relativists (who don’t order any moralities) is a very incomplete model.