Meta ethics is a different domain. And in that case, what ethics wouldn't be "relativism"?

Yes! You're setting up the goalposts of extremes yourself. I feel like virtue ethics is a useful way to think about ethics in a broad social sense, but it's meaningless as a how-to guide. It doesn't allow for any advancement, just imitation of aspects of behavior that are considered virtuous in the time and place they're being practiced. I would be surprised if most musicians would say their goal is to exactly replicate a musical piece the way they first heard it.

It isn't relativism because the "goalposts" are set up according to the type of creature that you are. You are a human being, and there are some empirical facts about what leads to human flourishing. Simple things like: a good night's sleep, eating well, helping other people to some extent, and so on. So it cannot be pure relativism because there are certain facts about human nature that determine where we ought to aim. But from there we still have a great deal of freedom. We might even go almost all the way to Sartre's "existence precedes essence." Beyond some bare empirical facts about good physical and mental well-being, you must identify how to fill in the rest of the blanks concerning what leads to you in particular to flourish. It will be very different for different people. This doesn't mean anything goes: most of us are quite wrong about what would make our lives best. Look at me typing in comment sections instead of doing yoga or something! It's a lot of hard work to determine and then implement the actions that lead to eudemonia.

I don't think the Greeks though of it that way. They presupposed a world that changed cyclically, with small variations. Linear history, progress or decay in the scale that we imagine today could not be fathomed back then. For them, learning from experience and others wiser than oneself must have meant something very definite, not a conservative or reactionary stance

@@pablo_brianese Thanks for the clarification. My comment was meant to clear some way for a plausible virtue ethics rather than merely comment on the Greeks' historical views.

Utilitarianism is reducible to virtue ethics, and it's limiting to well being and suffering, where virtue ethics encapsulates broader ethical virtues. Deontology is simply immoral. Divine Command Theory is a meme.

Are you a hard or soft rule utilitarian? When do you decide to follow your rule, and when do you decide to ignore it? Would there be a situation where you would ignore having the most happiness in order to follow your rule? if yes - whats the point in the rule and if no is that not contradictory to your reason to having that rule in the first place - to maximise utility?

@wilfy8545 My short answer would just be that I'll look at it on a case-by-case basis in accordance with my axioms.