Moral relativism

This article attempts to confine itself to discussion of relativism in morality and ethics. For other manifestations of relativism, see relativism.

In philosophy, moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect objective and/or universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances. Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition's truth; it is the opposite of moral absolutism. Relativistic positions often see moral values as applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or in the context of individual preferences. An extreme relativist position might suggest that judging the moral or ethical judgments or acts of another person or group has no meaning, though most relativists propound a more limited version of the theory.

Some moral relativists — for example, the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre — hold that a personal and subjective moral core lies or ought to lie at the base of individuals' moral acts. In this view public morality reflects social convention, and only personal, subjective morality expresses true authenticity.

Moral relativism differs from moral pluralism — which acknowledges the co-existence of opposing ideas and practices, but accepts limits to differences, such as when vital human needs get violated. Moral relativism, in contrast, grants the possibility of moral judgments that do not accept such limits.

In popular culture people often describe themselves as "morally relativist," meaning that they are accepting of other people's values and agree that there is no one "right" way of doing some things. However, this actually has little to do with the philosophical idea of relativism; relativism does not necessarily imply tolerance, just as moral objectivism does not imply intolerance. These people's moral outlook can be explained from both theoretical frameworks.

History

Commentators may describe relativism as a temporal idea of the "new" that conflicts with objective moral standards supplied by tradition. Moral relativism, however, encompasses views and arguments that people in some cultures have held for a very long time, such as the ancient Jaina Anekantavada principle of Mahavira (c. 599 – 527 BC) and the ancient Taoist writings of Chuang Tzu (4th century BC).

History records relativist positions over several thousand years. The assertion by Protagoras (c. 481 – 420 BC) that "man is the measure of all things" provides an early philosophical precursor to modern relativism. The Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484 – 420 BC) observed that each society regards its own belief system and way of doing things as the best, in contrast to that of others. Various ancient philosophers also questioned the idea of an objective standard of morality.

In the early modern era, Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) notably held that nothing is inherently good or evil. The 18th-century Enlightenment philosopher David Hume (1711 - 1776) serves in several important respects as the father both of modern emotivism and of moral relativism, though Hume himself did not espouse relativism. He distinguished between matters of fact and matters of value, and suggested that moral judgments consist of the latter, for they do not deal with verifiable facts obtained in the world, but only with our sentiments and passions. But Hume regarded some of our sentiments as universal. He famously denied that morality has any objective standard, and suggested that the universe remains indifferent to our preferences and our troubles.

In the modern era, anthropologists such as Ruth Benedict (1887 – 1948) cautioned observers against ethnocentricism — using the standards of their own culture to evaluate their subjects of study. Benedict said that morals do not exist — only customs do; and that in comparing customs, the anthropologist "insofar as he remains an anthropologist . . . is bound to avoid any weighting of one in favor of the other". To some extent, the increasing body of knowledge of great differences in belief among societies caused both social scientists and philosophers to question whether any objective, absolute standards pertaining to values could exist. This led some to posit that differing systems have equal validity, with no standard for adjudicating among conflicting beliefs. The Finnish philosopher-anthropologist Edward Westermarck (1862 – 1939) ranks as one of the first to formulate a detailed theory of moral relativism. He portrayed all moral ideas as subjective judgments that reflect one's upbringing. He rejected G.E. Moore's (1873 – 1958) ethical intuitionism — in vogue during the early part of the 20th century, and which identified moral propositions as true or false, and known to us through a special faculty of intuition — because of the obvious differences in beliefs among societies, which he said provided evidence of the lack of any innate, intuitive power.

Philosophical views

Moral relativism generally stands in marked contrast to moral absolutism, moral objectivism, moral realism, and moral naturalism, which all maintain the existence of moral facts: facts that entities can both know and judge, whether through some process of verification or through intuition. An example includes the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778), who saw man's nature as inherently good. Other moral objectivist believe that humankind can derive moral knowledge from external sources such as a deity or revealed doctrines. Some hold that moral facts inhere in nature or reality. In each case, however, moral facts remain invariant, though the circumstances to which they apply may differ. Moreover, each of these schools of thought sees moral facts as objective and determinable.

Moral relativism rejects the idea of an objective morality, but its proponents do not all agree as to the nature of morality.

Descriptive relativism

So-called descriptive relativists (for example, Ralph Barton Perry [1876 - 1957]) accept the existence of fundamental disagreements about the right course of action even when the same facts obtain and the same consequences seem likely to arise. However, the descriptive relativist does not necessarily deny the existence of a single correct moral appraisal, given the same set of circumstances. Other descriptivists believe that opposing moral beliefs can both hold true simultaneously, though their critics point out that this leads to obvious logical problems. The later descriptivists (for example, several leading Existentialists) regard morality as entirely subjective and personal, and beyond the judgment of others. In this view moral judgments resemble aesthetic considerations and remain resistant to rational analysis.

Meta-ethical relativism

Meta-ethical relativists maintain that all moral judgments have their origins either in societal or in individual standards, and that no single objective standard exists by which one can assess the truth of a moral proposition. While he preferred to deal with more practical real-life ethical matters, the British philosopher Bernard Williams (1929 – 2003) reluctantly came to this conclusion when he wrote from a meta-ethical standpoint. Meta-ethical relativists, in general, believe that the descriptive properties of terms such as "good", "bad", "right", and "wrong" do not stand subject to universal truth conditions, but only to societal convention and personal preference. Given the same set of verifiable facts, some societies or individuals will have a fundamental disagreement about what one ought to do based on societal or individual norms, and one cannot adjudicate these using some independent standard of evaluation. The latter standard will always be societal or personal and not universal, unlike, for example, the scientific standards for assessing temperature or for determining mathematical truths.

Relativism and emotivism

Some philosophers maintain that moral relativism dissolves into emotivism, the movement inspired by logical positivists in the early part of the 20th century. (Leading exponents of logical positivism include Rudolph Carnap (1891 – 1970) and A. J. Ayer (1910 – 1989).) Going beyond Hume, positivists regard a proposition as meaningful only if one can verify it by logical or scientific inquiry. Thus metaphysical propositions, which one cannot verify in this manner, are not simply incorrect, they are meaningless, nonsensical. Moral judgments are primarily expressions of emotional preferences or states, devoid of cognitive content; consequently, they are not subject to verification. As such, moral propositions are essentially meaningless utterances or, at best, express personal attitudes (see, for example, Charles L. Stevenson [1908–1979]). Not all relativists would regard moral propositions as meaningless; indeed, many make any number of assertions about morality, assertions that they undoubtedly believe meaningful. However, other philosophers have argued that, since we have no means of analyzing a moral proposition, it is essentially meaningless, and (in their view) relativism is therefore tantamount to emotivism.

The proposition that one cannot verify moral judgement by empirical means (and that it remains therefore meaningless) presents, according to many philosophers, a self-contradiction. In this view, the statement, "X is meaningless if it isn't subject to verification" cannot be verified by the very criterion set forth by the proposition.

Karl Marx

Some have linked Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) with a type of moral relativism. He asserted that each society's moral system simply came about as a product of its mode of production and of its class structure. He believed that the interests of the ruling socioeconomic class would prevail as a society's dominant moral system. How Marx viewed this sociological morality remains the subject of debate. Some argue he had a historicist view that the movement of history would bring society to a true, final form of morality. Others believe that Marx did not put much weight behind societal morality and that he used other moral standards.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Main article: Perspectivism

Friedrich Nietzsche identified morality as an error, introduced to human thought through the concept of dualism and maintained through the church. He saw his life-long task, the revaluing of all values, as rescuing mankind from these errors. He envisioned a future where individuals acted naturally, using their full natural potential or will to power. He believed that mankind would progress and fulfil this potential only by starting to act naturally and instinctively according to each individual's desires and drives. The Übermensch would represent the strong, powerful, natural and happy outcome. Happiness would naturally emerge, defined as "the feeling that power increases, that a resistance is overcome". Nietzsche wanted to prepare the soil for mankind's growth by "re-naturalising" human drives. Once we become free of morality (and, by association, of religion) he believed that the coming generations would grow unpolluted, free and strong. (See Beyond Good and Evil, The Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, etc.)

Debate on moral relativism

Other cultures

Those who support positions of absolutism often criticize moral relativism; sometimes equating it with "immorality" or amorality. They argue that various historical and cultural events and practices (including the Holocaust, Stalinism, Apartheid in South Africa, genocide, unjust wars, genital mutilation, slavery, terrorism, Nazism, etc.) present difficult problems for relativists, because these acts, which are condemned by the "majority of people" everywhere, are not absolutely "bad" from a relativist perspective. This is, in fact, exactly what moral relativism states, and there is no self-contradiction in it. But what the objectivist is pointing to is the contradiction he sees between moral relativism and the wrongness of the Holocaust, which he takes to be indisputable. The relativist, in turn, can stick to his ground and insist that the Holocaust was not absolutely wrong, and that it is a matter of opinion. The argument cannot be resolved by straightforward logic, since each party makes assumptions the other does not share, employs different axioms. However, the validity of an assumption or axiom can itself be questioned. The point of the Holocaust argument is to urge the rightness or wrongness of some ethical claims as being more self-evident, and therefore more properly axiomatic, than the meta-ethical assumptions of relativism. Self-evidence can be criticised as somewhat subjective, but it is nonetheless widely used to select axioms in areas like mathematics or logic.

Consequences

Some moral absolutists criticize moral relativism on the grounds that it may lead to what they would describe as "immoral acts" because it abandons an absolute standard of "right and wrong". This is a criticism directed against the consequences of relativism, and not against its truth. A common counter-criticism is that moral absolutism is as likely or more likely to lead to such "immoral acts" since a belief in absolute "right and wrong" can potentially be used to justify any number of acts that might generally be considered to be "atrocities". But by whose standards? If absolutist is correct as a meta-ethical stance, and if the absolutist has hit on the correct ethics, then what they do will ipso facto be morally right; so the counter-criticism must assume that the absolutist is wrong, at least about ethics; or, perhaps that the absolutism as a meta-ethical position would lead people to be over-confident about whether their ethical beliefs are actually true.

Absolutism per se does not entitle people to impose their beliefs on others; that may or may not be an objectively justifiable moral principle. Moreover, since absolutists believe there is only one correct set of moral principles, they must, if they are sincere, be careful in selecting what they are. Absolutism as a meta-ethical claim does not therefore constitute a rubber-stamp for approving or imposing any prevailing moral code. An absolutist who attempts that kind of manoeuvre may well be in the wrong — even objectively in the wrong — by their own standards. On the other hand, relativists are required to relativistically justify prevailing (personal or social) standards. So it can be argued that the counter-criticism compares a misuse of absolutism with a normal use of relativism.

Defending relativism

Another critique of moral relativism which falls into this category postulates that anyone who claims that no moral absolutes exist undermines their ability to justify their own existence. According to this argument, if a moral relativist is intellectually honest, they have no right to claim that they should remain unharmed by other individuals who adhere to a subjectively determined or culturally-bound moral theory which does not regard causing harm to others, or at least moral relativists, as wrong. In this sense, it is difficult for a moral relativist to hold that they have a right to exist (and in doing so, formulate their own set of moral values) in the first place. Just as they are unable to argue that slavery, the Holocaust, etc. are ultimately immoral, moral relativists are unable to argue that the discontinuation of their own lives at the hands of another individual (who adheres to a different set of values) would be ultimately immoral, either. They can claim that it is wrong in the sense of being against their moral code, but what is important here is the behaviour of the attacker; there is no reason why their attacker should be swayed by someone else's personal or cultural beliefs. In this sense, it is argued, moral relativism suffers from its inability to defend itself. This however doesn't imply that moral relativism is wrong, only that is has more difficulty in answering certain questions.

Intervention and inaction

A related criticism, in the sense that it essentially attacks relativism for being too weak, is that relativists cannot justify intervening in other cultures' practices, since that would be "to impose their own morality". In fact, this objection cannot be applied to all relativists, since not all hold non-imposition as a basic tenet. (Likewise, not all absolutists reject the principle. There is no obvious contradiction in the claim that "it is absolutely wrong to impose ones morality on others"). However, those who do hold to non-intervention as a primary virtue have to accept the criticism that they may be culpably unwilling to resist evil in some cases — cases which moral absolutists would call evil, and which they too might call evil if it occurred in their own society.

Argument from intolerance

A further counter-criticism might be that moral absolutism is as likely or more likely to lead to such "immoral acts" since a belief in absolute "right and wrong" can potentially be used to justify any number of acts that might generally be considered to be "atrocities". For example, many people ("Joan of Arc" being a prominent example) were burned to death in Europe during the second millennium simply because they disbelieved in the religion of the prevailing monarch, and this disbelief was held to be absolutely wrong and deserving of execution; few people today would accept this as being correct, and this fact supports the argument that it is difficult to demonstrate that the consequences of believing in moral absolutism or objectivism are necessarily less "immoral" than the consequences of believing in moral relativism.

However, this line of argument needs to show that moral objectivists necessarily hold that they have the right to impose their views on others. There is no obvious reason why this should be the case. It is quite conceivable that they could hold the opposite to be the case — that is objectively wrong to impose ones morality on others. A moral objectivist who is only interested in defending objectivism as a meta-ethical position could simply choose to favor tolerance in order to evade the criticism. One could also argue that any position of tolerance for 'what is wrong' from the point of view of objectivism is simply moral weakness, assuming that objectivism really does require, or, at least, justify the imposition of one person's ethical principles on another,

Moral improvement and innovation

Many people in other times and places thought slavery, for example, acceptable, even good; while most today view it as a great evil. Many writers and thinkers have held that one can justify any number of evils based on subjective or cultural preferences, and that morality requires some universal standard against which to measure ethical judgments. A moral relativist might respond that this criticism is only valid if one already accepts that such acts are indeed fundamentally evil - a position which the moral relativist would deny - and that the objection is therefore nothing other than an uncritical statement that morals are in fact absolute.

However, if it is their society that has, for instance, rejected slavery, they presumably agree that it is wrong, if their position is one of social or cultural moral relativism. This presents a meta-ethical problem in explaining what happens when a society has a collective change of heart. Consider the case of someone who has minority moral views within their society, and yet is vindicated (even relativistically) by future developments. If "right" and "wrong" literally mean "what my society accepts/rejects" then a social moral relativist in a slave-owning society of the past who says "slavery is wrong" is effectively saying "slavery is not approved of by my society", which is false — factually false. Yet, the relativist of the present is committed to agreeing with the relativist of the past, since they both oppose slavery.

The argument was phrased in terms of cultural relativism, but a similar argument applies to subjectivism. It is difficult for a moral subjectivist to claim that they have undergone any personal moral improvement, or that an attitude they used hold was wrong, when it was obviously what they felt was right at the time. For them, there is no external standard to judge against, so while their attitudes change, they cannot be said to improve or decline. It therefore seems that there is a difference in what can be expressed or justified between an objectivist and a relativist, although whether it involves the loss of anything worthwhile is open to debate.

Drawing boundaries

There are also difficulties in putting a boundary upon "society" or "culture" - what people feel to be their social or cultural groupings may well not align with legal and national groupings. The person holding "minority moral views within their society" may consider their "culture" more aligned with that minority than with the larger state or national society which determines what is lawfully acceptable,. This can be seen, for instance, where religious communities within a nation or state hold views on the morality of issues such as abortion or homosexuality which differ from the current legal position on those issues. This flexibility could lead to the objection that cultural moral relativism is "anything goes", since one could find — or found — a society that condones whatever one wishes to do.

The equivalent of such gerrymandering in subjective or personal moral relativism would be for an individual to adopt different principles at different times, which would lead to a very acute form of "anything goes", unless forestalled by a meta-ethical principles that individuals need to be self-consistent. It could be argued that jumping ship in this way is dishonest, but the ethical acceptability of honesty is presumably as relative as anything else if relativism is true.

Meta-ethics

Some relativists regard this as an unfair criticism of relativism; they argue that this approach actually becomes a descriptive, or meta-ethical, theory and not a normative one; and that relativists may have strong moral beliefs, notwithstanding their foundational position. Critics of this view, however, see it as disingenuous, and argue that the relativists do not merely make meta-ethical observations. These critics contend that stating there is no preferred standard of truth, or that standards are equally true, addresses the ultimate validity and truth of the ethical judgments themselves, which, they contend, consists of a normative judgment. In other words, the separation between meta-ethics and normative ethics arguably becomes a distinction without a difference. Relativists, however, would regard the notion that no preferred standard of truth exists as a straw man argument. Richard Rorty (1931 - 2007), for example, argued that relativist philosophers believe "that the grounds for choosing between such opinions is less algorithmic than had been thought", but not that any belief is equally as valid as any other.

R. M. Hare

Some philosophers, for example R. M. Hare (1919 – 2002), argue that moral propositions remain subject to logical rules, notwithstanding the absence of any factual content, including those subject to cultural or religious standards or norms. Thus, for example, they contend that one cannot hold contradictory ethical judgments. This allows for moral discourse with shared standards, notwithstanding the descriptive properties or truth conditions of moral terms. They do not affirm or deny that moral facts exist, only that logic applies to our moral assertions; consequently, they postulate an objective and preferred standard of moral justification, albeit in a very limited sense. Nevertheless, according to Hare, logic shows the error of relativism in one very important sense (see Hare's Sorting out Ethics). Hare and other philosophers also point out that, aside from logical constraints, all systems treat certain moral terms alike in an evaluative sense. This parallels our treatment of other terms such as less or more, which meet with universal understanding and do not depend upon independent standards (for example, one can convert measurements). It applies to good and bad when used in their non-moral sense, too; for example, when we say, "this is a good wrench" or "this is a bad wheel". This evaluative property of certain terms also allows people of different beliefs to have meaningful discussions on moral questions, even though they may disagree about certain "facts".

Is relativism really nihilism?

Another family of criticisms aim to show that relativism is not really a positive moral theory at all: that it falls short of certain criteria its proponents believe any moral theory must fulfill. These criteria may include:

• Any moral theory must be normative. Descriptive relativism is not normative, so it is not a moral theory (other than an error theory).
• Morality, whatever it is, is something different from law and custom. Cultural moral relativism holds that it is exactly societal custom, and is therefore a reduction amounting to elimination.
• Morality, whatever it is, is something different from personal taste and preference. Subjectivism holds that it is exactly personal taste and preference, and is therefore a reduction amounting to elimination.

The essence of the criticism is that moral relativism is "really" moral nihilism or an error theory. As such, it may in fact be correct — the arguments do not tell us that it is not — but this criticism argues that it is being misrepresented as a positive theory.

Normative moral relativism

One might argue that if one assumed the complete truth of relativism — epistemologically as well as in in the moral sphere — one would have no reason to prefer it over any other theory, given its fundamental contention that no preferred standard of truth exists. With this objective view of relativism it obviously becomes not simply a meta-ethical theory, but a normative one, and its truth — by its own definition — remains (in the final objective analysis) outside assessment or beyond weighing against other theories. Relativism and objectivism thus can become the opposite sides of an argument about the existence (or not) of objective truth. Critics of this view assert that this argument places the burden of proof on relativism, by treating it as a theory that makes the positive existential claim "it is objectively true that there are no objective truths" (a claim no relativist would really make) as opposed to simply being the necessary consequence of a refusal to accept the objectivist's claim "there are objective truths". They argue that this objection can claim only to have defeated a rather singular version of relativism (singular in that it transparently appeals to an objective truth that it purports to deny). Relativists would prefer to present themselves as making omly negative claim: that there is no absolute truth.

Religious critiques of moral relativism

Moral relativism inevitably opposes absolute morality as taught by almost all world religions.

Roman Catholicism

Some people attribute the perceived post-war decadence of Europe to the displacement of absolute values by moral relativism. Pope Benedict XVI, Marcello Pera and others have argued that after about 1960 Europeans massively abandoned many traditional norms rooted in Christianity and replaced them with continuously-evolving relative moral rules. In this view, sexual activity has become separated from procreation, which led to a decline in the importance of families and to depopulation (compensated by immigration). Currently, Europe faces challenges from recent immigrants who brought with them absolute values which stand at odds with moral relativism.

Buddhism

Bhikkhu Bodhi, an American Buddhist monk, wrote:

“By assigning value and spiritual ideals to private subjectivity, the materialistic world view, threatens to undermine any secure objective foundation for morality. The result is the widespread moral degeneration that we witness today. To counter this tendency, mere moral exhortation is insufficient. If morality is to function as an efficient guide to conduct, it cannot be propounded as a self-justifying scheme but must be embedded in a more comprehensive spiritual system which grounds morality in a transpersonal order. Religion must affirm, in the clearest terms, that morality and ethical values are not mere decorative frills of personal opinion, not subjective superstructure, but intrinsic laws of the cosmos built into the heart of reality.”

See also

• Analytic philosophy
• Anthropology
• Business ethics
• Cultural Relativism
• Deontology
• Emotivism
• Ethics
• Factual relativism
• Global justice
• Kohlberg's stages of moral development
• Logic
• Metaethics
• Moral code
• Moral purchasing

• Moral universalism
• Morality
• Philosophy
• Relativism
• Sexual ethics
• Situational ethics
• Subjectivism
• Veritatis Splendor
• Survival of the fittest
• Social Darwinism

Bibliography

• Kurt Baier, "Difficulties in the Emotive-Imperative Theory" in Paul W Taylor (editor): The Moral Judgement: Readings in Contemporary Meta-Ethics Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963
• Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture (Mentor)
• Panayot Butchvarov, "Skepticism in Ethics" (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1989).
• Ronald F. Duska, "What's the Point of a Business Ethics Course?", 1 Business Ethics Quarterly 335-352(1991), reprinted in Sterling Harwood, ed., Business as Ethical and Business as Usual (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), pp. 11-21.
• R.M. Hare, Sorting out Ethics (Oxford University Press)
• Gilbert Harman & Jarvis Thomson, Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity (Blackwell Publishing), 1996.
• Sterling Harwood, "Taking Ethics Seriously -- Moral Relativism versus Moral Realism" in Sterling Harwood, ed., Business as Ethical and Business as Usual (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), pp. 2-4.
• Sterling Harwood, "Against MacIntyre's Relativistic Communitarianism" in Sterling Harwood, ed., Business as Ethical and Business as Usual (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), pp. 5-10.
• David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. Tom L. Beauchamp (Oxford University Press)
• G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge University Press)
• Jean-Paul Sartre, "Existentialism is a Humanism" in Existentialism From Dostoevsky to Sartre, ed. by Walter Kaufmann (World Publishing Company)
• Leo Strauss, The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, ed. Thomas L. Pangle (University of Chicago Press)
• Edward Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas Macmillan, 1906.
• Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Harvard University Press)
• David B. Wong, Moral Relativity (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986), 248 pages.

External links

• Arguments for and against moral relativism
• Objectivism and Relativism
• Moral Relativism - a Christian perspective.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• Moral Relativism debate guide
• Online Interview: Moral Relativism & the Perversion of American Values