LOL! Then that must be a good omen for the quality of the debate. (Best arguments from both sides, & all.)
BTW, The two sources he pointed to as the starting point for post modernism and moral relativism was in the mid 1800's. Darwin and Nietzche. After the mind numbing atrocities of the 20th century, It looks like he had empirical observation to back up his statement. In my book, that trumps your "hijack" fear.
Ah, but both Communism & Naziism owe much more to Hegelianism than to any biological theory. The fundamental evil here is their fundamental rationale for moral collectivism. Both ideologies believe there's a relentless logical process that plays itself out on the world historical stage. Hegel thought it was the rise & clash of nations, according to his theory of dialectical clashes of contradictions on some Ideal plane. Marx & Engels explicitly turned Hegel upside down, & argued for a predictable & inexhorable world historical progression based on "material" contradictions. Hegel thought one's nation was the moral actor and the person themselves was just a cog in the greater moral machine. Marx thought a person's economic class was the moral actor, with the individual essentially helpless to think in any meaningful way outside the box of their own economic class.
Hitler took this Hegelian endowment (very well known & accepted by all sides in the political debate in Germany) and decided that one's race was the collective instead of their nation or their economic class.
The resulting moralities might be "objective" when applied within one's collective, but they're "relativistic" when you look at the interaction between a person in one collective and a person in another. It's similar to when a postmodernist smugly assures us that all cultures' moral codes are merely "competing texts", with no objective moral basis for judging one over the other. It's that self-serving, ad hoc trap I mentioned earlier.
You could even use Darwin to argue against moral relativism: Humans are one species amongst many, but we are the only species with the ability & the necessity to use our big brains to consciously direct our lives, shape our society, etc. I think it's morally neutral for a lion to instinctively hunt down & chew into a gazelle that's minding its own business, since we are the only species who can even conceive of debating whether such actions are good or evil. But since we're the ones trying to decide what's good & what's evil, we have to base our decisions on what the effects are to us humans. OTOH, if we were gazelles discussing this... well, then we wouldn't be gazelles if we were discussing such abstract ideas, would we? :-)
I'm sure this isn't as clear as it seems to me, but the point is the Theory of Evolution does not imply moral relativism. Moral questions occupy a whole different subject area, only tenuously connected to questions of speciation & the Tree of Life.
The "link" with what you refer to as moral collectivism and the point that was being made about evolution, is the devaluing of Humans. No, I do not assert that this follows necessarily from evolution, but it is an implication that has arose from pure naturalism.
Let me explain. If one accepts evolution as fact, this produces the realization that we are accidents. We are not special, here for no reason, coming from no where and going no where.
we are the only species with the ability & the necessity to use our big brains to consciously direct our lives, shape our society, etc. I think it's morally neutral for a lion to instinctively hunt down & chew into a gazelle that's minding its own business, since we are the only species who can even conceive of debating whether such actions are good or evil
Even the reason, so beatifully praised here (and I agree with you), is only an accident. For many (excluding objectivists, of course), this produces a strong inference that if all this is an accident for no reason, than there really is'nt a set of ethics that we all should follow. Why bother, since that accidental reason is what produced a so called "moral standard" anyway.
This turns into a real problem when total naturalism takes control, and the realization sinks in that you have about 70 or 80 trips around the sun to have a good time, and there is no one to answer to, except other people.
The whole point was that Darwin started an intellectual justification for debasing man, and various philosophers did that too. Furthermore, now there was an actual SCIENTIFIC justification for denying necessity of G-d's existence, and modern philosophers took age old questions (i.e., the problem of evil) and took them to absurd conclusions, emboldened by a theory.
well, then we wouldn't be gazelles if we were discussing such abstract ideas, would we?
No, we sure would'nt. And as long as I have interesting people around me that will make me think, I thank my G-d that he gave me the attributes he did. ;-)