IS MORAL RELATIVISM THE SAME OR CAN IT BE THE SAME AS ARGUING, "X MAY BE RIGHT BUT WE CAN ONLY GO BY WHAT IS PROBABLE"

There is no such thing as certainty in the literal sense. When we call something certain we mean it is very very likely to be true not that we really do know 100%. In morality, you may hold that it is absolutely true that rape is wrong. It is just wrong and there is nothing justifiable in it at all. This is calling it a certainty in itself and claiming that we see it as a certainty. Anybody who does not agree is simply wrong.

The notion that moral principles such as justice are facts of some kind can be worded as, "Take justice with absolute seriousness." It is not exactly the same but that does not matter. So a person with moral principles means they take them seriously.

But practicing the principles is difficult for it is rarely clear how to do the most loving and most just thing.  Moral rules in practical terms are a problem.

Taking principles as certain is absolutist even if you cannot practice them for lack of information.  Moral relativism rejects absolutes.

A moral relativist should be morally lax as regards principles! A relativist who shouts and blacklists those who contradict them is an absolutist who does not realise it.  It is a moral relativism which says that human rights and moral goods are not certainties or facts but just social constructs. They are not real. It self-refuting for if there is no justice then it is unfair to say there is! To say there is no truth is to make the truth claim that relativism is right.

Some confuse moral relativism with thinking in terms of probabilities. But probabilities assume something is definitively right but we have to do our best to figure what it is and that is where we could go wrong. The truth is the truth and does not care what we think which is the reason we could be wrong in what we think the truth is. It is not an issue with truth but how you clarify what is true and to what extent.

It is said that moral relativism as in this probability scenario dislodges moral certainties and moral absolutes. It is said that this view is not self-refuting. The contradiction, "Justice is only opinion and an artificial social construct so it is unjust to say it is real" is replaced with, "Justice is not a moral absolute for you don't know for sure how to be just."

Justice is an absolute and the problems of applying it don't affect that. Moral absolutes and moral certainties are entirely separable things. It may be true that Jesus had no big toes but there is no way to be certain and that inability to be sure has nothing to do with it being a fact. They say then, "Relativism is merely admitting you are not that sure if your moral stances are correct but you adopt them anyway. Stated that way relativism is not self-refuting. The relativists are not saying truth is not real but that all we can do is try to reach for it by thinking about what is likely to be true. It is suggested that we have to be very careful with testing the evidence to work out what is probable for our minds twist and distort and create bias." That is not relativism.

Absolutists can argue from probabilities as well and sometimes change rules so that the principles of love and justice are updated for each age.  The rules that will not change are the ones thought to be easily seen as just and loving.

People who are sure they have it right on morality are hated as fanatics. It is not always easy to tell who is like that. In social justice wars accusations of moral extremism and dogmatism are rife. For the anti-abortion person maybe they are only saying that the most probable thing that abortion is wrong. For the pro-abortion person they could also be thinking in terms of probabilities. All each can do is keep looking at evidence and testing.