Moral relativism
Moral relativism claims moral standards are not absolute or universal. It not only holds that ethical judgments emerge from social customs, personal preferences, and other sources, but that there is no single standard by which to assess an ethical proposition's truth. Many Relativists see moral values as applicable only within agreed or accepted cultural boundaries, and some would even suggest that one person's ethical judgments or acts cannot be judged by another. Not all relativists subscribe to these views in their strictest forms, but tend to adhere to a more limited version.
Some moral relativists, for example, Jean-Paul Sartre, hold that a personal and subjective moral core lies at the foundation of our moral acts. They believe that public morality is little more than social convention, and that only personal, subjective morality is truly authentic.
Moral nihilists, propound a view that bears some similarity to relativism. The most famous nihilist, Friedrich Nietzche, believed that without a God, morality is impossible; and, since Nietzche contends there is no God, there is no valid morality. A more modern version of this would be that there is no preferred, objective standard of moral truth, a function that the beief in God served in previous eras and does for many today; the absence of such a standard makes it impossible to have a morality grounded in anything other than in social convention or individual preference.
It should be noted that moral relativism is not the same as moral pluralism, which acknowldeges competing moral views, or moral tolerance, which allows for the co-existence of opposing ideas and practices, but does not necessarily suggest that they are equally valid. Moral relativism, in contrast, says that the opposing ideas are both true, based on their own standards of reference, or, in more its more sophisticated versions, that their truth cannot be determined, for their is no preferred standard of reference by which to judge other standards.
History
Moral relativism is not new. Protagoras' notion that "man is the measure of all things" is an early philosophical precursor to modern relativism. The Greek historian Herodotus observed that each society thinks its own belief system and way of doing things are best. Various ancient philosophers also questioned the idea of an absolute standard of morality.
The 18th Century Enlightenment philosopher, David Hume, is in several important respects the father of both modern emotivism and moral 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 that obtain in the world, but only with our sentiments and passions. Moreover, he, too, observed that there are differences in moral standards among individuals and socities. He is famous for denying any objective standard for morality, and suggested that the universe is indifferent to our preferences and our troubles.
In the modern era, anthropologists such as Ruth Benedict cautioned observers to not use their own cultural standards to evaluate those they were studying. To some extent, the knowledge of great differences in belief among societies caused both social scientists and philosphers to question whether there can be any objective, absolute standards pertaining to values. This caused some to posit that differing systems have equal validity, with no standard for adudicating between conflicting beliefs. The Finnish philosopher-anthropologist, Edward Westermarck was among the first to formulate a detailed theory of moral relativism. He contended that all moral ideas are subjective judgments that reflect one's upbringing. He rejected G.E. Moore's intuitionism, in vogue during the early part of the 20th century, due to the obvious differences in beliefs among socieities, which he said was evidence that there is no innate, intuitive power.
Some philosophical considerations
Moral relativism stands in marked contrast to [[moral absolutism] and moral realism, which maintain that there are objective moral facts, facts that can be both known and judged. These philosophies see morality as something that is based on objective standards, such as the innate characteristics in human nature, for example, as suggested by the philosophies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Ayn Rand; by external sources such as a deity or revealed doctrines, as maintained by various religions; or in nature or reality, for example, as adumbrated in the philosophies of Plato and Moore.
Some philosophers maintain that moral relativism devolves into emotivism, the movement inspired by logical positivists in the early part of the 20th Century (for example, Rudolph Carnap and A. J. Ayer. Going beyond Hume, the positivists contended that a proposition is meaningful only if it can be verified by logical or scientific inquiry. Thus, metaphysical propositions, which cannot be verified in this manner, are not simply incorrect, they are meaningless, nonsensical. Furthermore, moral judgments are primarily expressions of emotional preferences or states, devoid of cognitive content; consequently, they also are not subject to verification criteria. As such, moral propositions are meaningless (see, for example, C. S. Stevenson. Not all relativists would hold that moral propositions are meaningless; indeed, many make any number of assertions about morality, assertions that they undoubtedly believe to be meaningful (see, for example, the relativist philosopher, Bernard Williams); however, some philosophers have argued, since there is no means of analyzing a moral proposition by using objective verification criteria, it is essentially meaningless, and, in their view, relativism is therefore tantamount to emotivism.
The political theorist, Leo Strauss, subscribed to a species of relativism, for he believed there are no objective criteria for assessing ethical principles, and that a rational morality is only possible in the limited sense that one must accept its ultimate subjectivity. This view is very similar to the one advocated by the existentialist philosophers, Martin Heidegger and Sartre. The latter famously maintained that ethical principles only arise from our personal feelings at the time we act, and not from any antecedent principles.
Critics of Relativism
Those who believe in moral absolutes often are highly critical of moral relativism; some have been known to equate it with outright immorality or amorality. Historical events and occurances, such as the Holocaust, Stalinism, Apartheid, Genocide, Unjust wars, Genital mutilation, Slavery, Terrorism, and Nazism, among many other examples, present difficult problems for relativists. An observer in a particular time and place, depending on his outlook (e.g., culture, religion, background), might call something good that another observer in a particular time and place would call evil. Slavery, for example, was thought by many to be acceptable in other times and places, even moral, while it is viewed by many (though certainly not all), today, as evil. Many critics of relativism would say that any number of evils can be justified based on subjective or cultural preferences, and that morality requires some universal standard against which to measure ethical judgments.
Some relativists will state that this is an unfair criticism of relativism, for it is really a metaethical theory, and not a normative one, and that the relativist may have strong moral beliefs, notwithstanding his foundational position. Critics of this view, however, argue the complaint is disengenuous and that the relativist is not making a mere metaethical assertion, one that deals with the logical or linguistic structure of ethical propositions. These critics contend that he stating there is no preferred standard of truth or that standards are equally true addresses the validity and truth of the ethical judgments themselves, which, they contend, is a normative judgment.
Some philosophers (for example, Michael E. Berumen and R. M. Hare) argue that moral propositions are 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 at least allows for moral discourse with shared standards, notwithstanding the descriptive propeties or truth conditions of moral terms. They do not affirm or deny there are moral facts, only that logic applies to our moral assertions; consequently, they contend, there is an obejctive and preferred standard of moral justification, albeit, in a very limited sense. These philosophers also point out that, aside from logical constraints, all systems treat certain moral terms alike in an evaluative sense. This is similar to our treatment of other terms such as less or more, the meaning of which is universally understood and not dependent upon independent standards (measurements can be converted). It applies to good and bad when used in their non-moral sense, too, e.g., 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 disagree about certain facts. Indeed, this feature of language is among the tools that enables one to persuade or convince someone else to change his mind.
Berumen, among others, has said that if relativism were wholly true, there is no reason to prefer it over any other theory, given its contention that there is no preferred standard of truth. He contends that it is not simply a metaethical theory, but a normative one, and that its truth, by its own standard, cannot in the final analysis be assessed or weighed against other theories.
Universism
Universism is a new system of thought developed outside of formal, academic philosophy,and promoted by United Universists. They argue, among other things, that only those individuals causing or directly affected by an action can make any judgment about the action's ultimate rightness or wrongness. That is, individuals not directly involved in an action have no moral authority to judge that action. Any judgments, with or without authority, are understood to be relative to the individual's reason, experience and emotion, and thus different in many cases. This is similar to the outlook propounded by Sartre.