It’s rare to find any ethics professors who argue in favor of moral relativism in this manner. A vast majority are realists or constructivists who would easily claim that Romans were bad for practicing slavery and forced combat for fun.
Yes.
Okay - do you think you would/wouldn’t have participated in the games as a viewer were you born in the times?
A man can be made to say or do anything, with enough conditioning; we are animals after all. I'm not arguing the irrelevance of context here, but I am saying that people have natural tendencies which amount to an implicit innate moral compass. People want to be good and chill.
Most people want to be nice to their neighbors / tribe.
Most people find violence disturbing.
That they live in circumstance that encourages, requires, them to kill, to manipulate, to be an asshole - is just circumstance. That's why being a Good Person is Hard. You need to remain true to yourself, and fight against all kinds of external forces that seek to corrupt you.
I mean, you just called generations upon generations bad people.. Like, morals also evolve with society, and everyone is influenced by the society they grow up in.
Just a very easy counterexample -- gladiator fights were perfectly acceptable in people in Rome. Were they bad people for that?