Should we be moral relativists?

Below is an essay I wrote for my Introduction to Philosophy course from Coursera.  I thought I'd share it here.  I was limited to 750 words, so please let me know where I should add more for clarity.  Also, please bring up any arguments you have for or against my case.  

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Our morality is culturally developed, but should we accept that fact and let cultures be?  For the greater good of society, we should not be moral relativists.  If we are moral relativists, then we intentionally allow humans to not experience maximum happiness.  Experiencing happiness is the goal of life.  And by allowing cultures to be ignorant, we knowingly keep happiness from people.  To understand this point, one must acknowledge the fact there are specific actions which lead to happiness, or morally correct actions, and specific actions which hinders happiness, or morally wrong actions.  First, we must identify what these actions are. 

What makes an action morally correct?  If happiness is the goal of life, then morally correct actions increase the happiness of a person.  Broadly speaking, there are two types of morally correct actions: 1) helping others and 2) helping oneself.   By helping others, one feels a connection to one’s group.  This can be volunteering or doing a paid job.  By helping oneself, one feels personal growth.  In either, progression can be felt, which leads to the feeling of happiness. 

What makes an action morally wrong?  Morally wrong actions decrease the happiness of a person.  The clearest example is murdering another person because the murderer takes any chance of future happiness away from the other person.  Another example, one which can be felt by another person, is lying.  If a person lies to you, then you feel distrust, which is the opposite of feeling connected to the group.  So when someone lies to you, your “happiness level” drops.  Similarly, stealing is also a morally wrong action.  When someone steals, he/she is lying about ownership and the person whose item was stolen feels separated from the group, and thus less happy. 

But what if a person’s happiness stems from making others unhappy?  At this point, we must look at the greater community’s happiness level.  If one person’s happiness causes a net drop in a community’s happiness, then that person would be considered immoral.  For example, many people lie in order to make their life easier.  A common scenario would be a student lying about getting his homework done to his mother, father, and teacher.  The student’s happiness may increase (possibly only momentarily, until he gets caught), while the mother’s, father’s, and teacher’s happiness levels decrease because of the student’s lie.  This is a good example of when morals relative to groups differ: the student’s group of friends may have benefitted from the lie, thus they may conclude lying is not immoral, yet the adult group (mother, father, and teacher) suffered from the lie, thus they may conclude lying is immoral.  However, one must look into the long-term effects of the lie.  Everyone involved knows the student lied, which causes the majority of the people to distance themselves from the student.  Once this happens, the majority’s happiness level drops.  Thus, the lie that benefitted the student is still considered immoral.

What about people who are being treated unfairly, yet don’t know they are being treated unfairly?  An example is women living in the Middle East, where the culture is male dominant.  The women live happy lives.  This can be explained because people will make the most out of any situation. However, with almost certainty, increased freedom would lead the women to more happiness.  For example, people with disabilities often say being given special treatment is what annoys them the most.  This supports the idea that fair treatment leads to a happier life.  The difference is the people with disabilities have experienced both scenarios, where as the women may have never been treated fairly in their whole life.  Ignorance may amount to overall happiness, but education and freedom leads to more.  Moreover, being treated fairly makes one feel connected to the group, thus increasing happiness.

The big difference between being a moral relativist and a moral objectivist is the amount of people one has in mind.  A relativist breaks the entire human population into smaller groups, where as the objectivist thinks of the entire human population as a single group.  There clearly are actions, morally correct actions, which cause the cohesiveness of a group to become stronger.  Also, there are clearly actions, morally wrong actions, which cause the cohesiveness of a group to become weaker.  Because moral relativists can argue for morally wrong actions in certain groups, we should not be moral relativists, but should be moral objectivists.