To simplify: In our western culture we had this traditional story about morals. First there is a god who knows everything. Then the god gives the ten commandments to a prophet. And the prophet tells them to the people. The people want to obey that set of rules (because otherwise the god would get angry at them and cast down all kinds of punishments for the people). It was thought that man has a tendency to do sin, but he should use his willpower to control his behavior, obeying the given rules.

Then the moral philosophy was discussion about a) what is the set of universal rules and b) if we don't believe that the rules are given by a god, then how do we justify that set of rules? The basic assumption still was that a human being should use willpower to control his/her irrational and destructive drives. And there was this fear that if we fail to find the absolute justification for the moral rules, we are doomed into the swamp of cultural relativism where it is not possible to tell right from wrong.

Okay, now I feel that of course we do need some rules, and there is a lot of point in having a discussion to establish a common set of rules for everybody. But I just want to point out that this might not be the whole story of ethics and morals.

We can still ask "Why do we have a tendency to do bad things? Is the (self)control all we can do about it, or can we also find other ways of promoting inner benevolence, compassion, love and respect?" As I feel that this is what moral could be based on. And on this basis, of course, we still can have a set of rules. And a good, respectful discussion aiming at finding the general views which could be agreed by most of the people. There is nothing wrong with labelling such generally accepted moral judgements as "true".

But I feel that there is a small but meaningful difference in tone when we shift from the notion of absolute truth to just truth. Let's call them position A: "belief P is the absolute truth, and if you disagree you are stupid!" and position B: "we reached a common agreement about P, and we feel that P is true. If you disagree, please give your arguments so that we can all discuss them in an open and honest way." - Generally speaking, I feel that B is more ethical attitude than A, because B is open to differing views, pays respect to them and is willing to consider them.

Now I think Matti gives us a pretty good description of the situation B, where no-one claims to have the final truth, and everybody just sits down to discuss, trying to find what they can agree on.