So to kick this blog off I am starting with a (fairly heavily) modified version of an essay I recently had to submit to the university. The question was “Is Ethics relative? Discuss this by critically assessing ethical relativism.” This will roughly be addressed in the following few posts.
My argument against moral relativism will consist of four posts. The first will attempt to demonstrate that moral relativism is logically incoherent, the second that moral relativism leaves us tolerating unacceptable practices. The third post will argue for the existence of moral absolutes. I wrap this series up the argument with a quick overview of Christianity and its claims against the backgrounds of moral relativity and absolutes. I shall also expound on possible reasons why moral relativism has or does not have an important influence on our society today.
Firstly and most importantly it is important to define just what I am critically assessing. It may come as a surprise to some people that “Relativism does not entail that anything goes, or even that there are no universal values which hold for all societies. Relativism simply says that there are variations among morals which hold true in different societies.” This, however, is not the view expressed by your most common, garden variety relativist. Most people should be more familiar with the so-called ‘vulgar relativist’, a species still catered for in academic environments but far more common in the average individual especially when the conversation steers towards sexual matters. This relativist believes that “there are no moral principles universally accepted and hence … conclude[s] that there are no moral principles morally true” and “although there are no principals true for all; the principals which form part of the moral code of a limited group or of a person are true for the members of that group or person.” This is seldom expressed so clearly but is usually substituted with sayings such as “different strokes for different folks”, or by urging people to do what they feel is right, a statement no doubt accompanied with the warm, fuzzy glow of ‘tolerance’. It is with this, complete abandonment of universal morality, that I want to deal with today.(NB. The terms moral relativism and ethical relativism are used interchangably through this and the following posts. Both refer to the definition above)
Part One: Moral Relativism is logically incoherent.
The traditional and most obvious attack against the moral relativist it to point out an apparent contradiction in his argument. If we take the two statements above again the relativist “believes that there are no moral principles universally accepted and … conclude[s] that there are no moral principles morally true” while holding that “although there are no principals true for all; the principals which form part of the moral code of a limited group or of a person are true for the members of that group or person.” The first problem in this argument is the apparent contradiction between the two statements. The first statement appears to be advocating moral nihilism, yet the second statement seems to suggest a moral absolute. This is the traditional objection to ethical relativism. One cannot at once abolish any absolute value system and subsequently maintain that the relative values of a community or and individual are binding. The statement ‘all values are relative’ is in itself an absolute statement affirming, at once, the existence and nonexistence of absolute moral values.
One possible response from the ethical relativist is to make an “ethical or epistemological claim about moral principles” that any given moral principle is true only for those persons or the society that holds it. This translated, means that the moral relativist states that values or morality is an empirical fact in societies and not universally binding systems. This is a clever reply from the moral relativist. Basically if he makes this argument he is first suggesting that there are no absolute moral values. However we can simply see from empirical observation that societies hold certain moral values to be true. These values from this perspective are subjective and NOT universally binding. They just are. From this standpoint then the moral relativist appears as a neutral, disinterested bystander; a simple objective scientist reporting on the facts of morality as he sees them.
However there is a small issue with this argument. We might wonder if a person advocating the position above can continue to claim to be a moral relativist. Let’s look at the definition of moral relativism from above again; the moral relativist believes “there are no moral principles universally accepted and hence … conclude[s] that there are no moral principles morally true” and “although there are no principals true for all; the principals which form part of the moral code of a limited group or of a person are true for the members of that group or person.” It is the use of the word "true" in which lies the issue. Does a moral principle that is “true for a person” mean that it is good for a person to follow that moral principle? Or does it simply mean that their brain has been hardwired to accept the principle as true when it is really neither true nor false? If a moral relativist invokes the latter of these meanings he/she is really a moral nihilist. They accept that there are no absolute values but twist the meaning of moral relativism by appealing to the blatantly obvious evidence that societies and persons hold moral values to be true.
However, most people whom I meet would seem to imply the first of two interpretations of the word true given above. When someone says to me that something is “right” for them he/she seems to be saying that it is good that other people do what they think is right. When this is broadened into a philosophy (and it is) we find the traditional contradiction appearing in moral relativism. Thus the philosophy runs; there is no such thing as absolute moral values. Morality is instead found in people following their own subjective ethical principles. Here is where the problem lies for the moral relativist. They have yet to persuade us that we should hold ethical principles at all. ‘If there truly are no universal morals’, I could argue, ‘I have no reason to hold onto any beliefs, therefore nothing is true for me’. To this response a moral relativist would appear to be baffled. If there is no logical reason to hold ethical principles because none are found to be universally binding why not simply embrace moral nihilism?
To the moral nihilist masquerading as a moral relativist I only have this to say at present; it is not necessarily obvious that the “ethical or epistemological claim” above is well founded. Part of the claim implies that when people say right and wrong what they really mean is “right in my society” and “wrong in my society” as the only evidence for morality is the standards a community applies to itself and to others. For this type of moral relativist any judgements, concerning morality, applied across different cultures are mistakenly assuming that there are common, moral grounds between societies when in fact there are not. Thus the terms right and wrong can only be applied to those with whom we share a moral understanding. This is, in my opinion twisting the emperical data. On the contrary I would argue that when a regular person says ‘right’ with regards to important moral considerations what they actually mean is ‘right in all identical circumstances for all mankind. Even should this practice be considered wrong in a society hundreds of years hence it shall nonetheless be right because it is measured by an objective standard’. The languege of morality is a languege of judgements applied to all mankind or no one at all. Now someone might very easily be wrong about this objective standard. They might even be wrong in supposing that there is ever such a thing as an objective standard. Nothing, however, will change their meaning to ‘right in my society’. The best response to the moral nihilist and his cousins is of course and argument for absolutes which I shall investigate in my third post.
This, then, is the simplest response to ethical relativism. Take the situation where Society A subscribes to principle X but Society B rejects principle X. An Ethical Relativist will state that for Society A to subscribe to X is right for Society A. For Society B to reject X is also right for Society B. The simplest response is to say, ‘In maintaining that there are no universal moral laws both societies A & B are neither right nor wrong. It doesn’t matter what you do with X.’ Or if I can try to reducing the argument to its simplest form; One of the premises of moral relativism is that there are no absolute moral values. This is also the contention of moral nihilism. Moral relativism and moral nihilism are incompatible because moral relativism accepts (with limitations) some form of binding values whilst relying on moral nihilism for its premise.’ Why not simply embrace moral nihilism?
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