Moral Relativism - Part Four

Part Four: The Catholic Church and Relativism
If the arguments against moral relativism are strong, how is it that so many people advocate and preach relativism on a day to day basis? Why is relativism so popular? I think this important question can be answered partly because of the problems supporters of absolutes encounter. This goes back to the two objections to moral absolutes raised in the previous post; 1) What if you get you objective standard wrong? and 2) What gives you the authority to judge the actions of others by your objective standard? The first of these two objections is the most powerful and the argument would appear to hinge on this point. If a person could provide absolute standards at once universal and convincing then the claims of moral relativism would be shot to pieces. Can such a system be demonstrated? Were you to ask a person to justify the absolute moral standards whereby he lives his life what would he say?

On Moral Relativism - Part Two

This is obviously the second post on moral relativism. Please read the first post if you want this to make sense.

Part Two: Moral Relativism leaves us with an unattractive society
Once the traditional argument against moral relativism of logical inconsistency has been lodged the next stage in the regular debate with the moral relativist is to object that if one was to take moral relativism seriously , one would have to affirm that what the Nazi’s did was ‘right for them’. The general thrust of this argument is of course to demonstrate that moral relativism would support a society that is unacceptable and therefore moral relativism is unacceptable. This argument is interesting, not only because of its powerful objection against moral relativism, but also because moral nihilism in this circumstance does not provide an easy alternative. An opponent of moral absolutes must then choose between moral relativism which apparently supports the Nazi’s actions and moral nihilism which refuses to judge the Nazi’s actions.

On Moral Relativism - Part One

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.