essay on ethical relativism

Ethical Relativism essay

Ethical relativism is defined as the point or position that dictates that there are no existing absolute moral rights or wrongs. As a result the correctness of ones action is determined and viewed by the norms in which society accepts them. Depending on the standards sets by our society men’s action will fall to either right or wrong. Proving that through the years, men’s moral have evolved and things such as absolute no longer exist. Since correctness of actions depends on the norms that society requires, ethical relativism allows a wide array and variety of practices, values and cultures.

However, it also reduced rights, wrongs and truths as relatives. Relativism does not allow absolute ethics to exist (Panayot 1989)t. It points out that if majority of the people or a decent number believe that something is right, then it is indeed right. It also states that what may be right for a particular person, may not be right and appropriate to other persons. Since there are no absolute moral truths and ethics that exist, all ethical opinion, lifestyle, points and views are equally right.

There are two important classification of ethical relativism: subjective ethical relativism and conventional which is popularly known as cultural ethical relativism. The first kind of relativism defines truth of moral principles to be relative to individuals. According to this kind of relativism, what an individual thinks that is rightfully correct for him is in fact right and no one can contest and tell him indifferently. What is right for someone is completely left for him to decide and he is independent to choose the guiding principles in which he will live his life.

On the other hand, cultural ethical relativism defines truth of moral principles to be relative to culture (Panayot, 1989). This belief states that what is right for someone depends on what culture he is in and belongs. The principles that guide his culture are also the principles that he employs in his daily life. The culture that is being practiced by the society determines the correctness of actions. It serves as the highest authority in which individual beliefs and principles are way inferior.

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A prime example of ethical relativism in effect is seen during the early American History. Two hundred years ago, slavery is acceptable to the society. The nation allows the use of slaves. Today however, slavery is prohibited as it is a mean of racial discrimination. Society today dictates that every individual must be equal, thus slavery is unacceptable in our society. Another primary example that can be observed is the practice made by Eskimos. Eskimos have this peculiar and striking practice in which elder members of the clan are allowed to die from hunger and cold.

In our case we believe that this is morally wrong. In fact, euthanasia is a hot topic on debate among individuals which is tied with ethics and morality. The Spartans, which are world renowned warriors and soldiers from the history of ancient Greece firmly believe that being a theft is morally and appropriately correct, however from our practices today we know it is wrong. Many cultures and tribes from the past up to the present, had allowed practices and methods in which babies are killed.

But since, their culture permits killing of babies, no one is punished for murder. However, our laws today and our civilization would not allow such actions. Another issue that is worth taking is the issue on gender. Some cultures permit homosexual behavior, while others nation condemn it. In Moslem societies, polygamy is allowed to be practiced, however Christian cultures view it as immoral. Thus, right and wrong are dictated by society. Ethical relativism does support the idea of God, since there is no such thing as absolute set of ethics.

Absolute set of ethics can easily be tied up to the existence of God as an absolute divine ruler which tells what is right from wrong. Ethical relativism implies that there is no absolute right and wrong, and no God will determine right and wrong actions. In return the burden of proving if actions are right lies heavily on the shoulder of our society, since our society must determine through integration of observation, logic, emotion, patterns, experience and law the correctness or wrongness of actions.

Panayot, B. (1989). Skepticism in Ethics. Indiana University Press: Indiana.

Ethical Relativism

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Cultures differ widely in their moral practices. As anthropologist Ruth Benedict illustrates in Patterns of Culture , diversity is evident even on those matters of morality where we would expect to agree:

We might suppose that in the matter of taking life all peoples would agree on condemnation. On the contrary, in the matter of homicide, it may be held that one kills by custom his two children, or that a husband has a right of life and death over his wife or that it is the duty of the child to kill his parents before they are old. It may be the case that those are killed who steal fowl, or who cut their upper teeth first, or who are born on Wednesday. Among some peoples, a person suffers torment at having caused an accidental death, among others, it is a matter of no consequence. Suicide may also be a light matter, the recourse of anyone who has suffered some slight rebuff, an act that constantly occurs in a tribe. It may be the highest and noblest act a wise man can perform. The very tale of it, on the other hand, may be a matter for incredulous mirth, and the act itself, impossible to conceive as human possibility. Or it may be a crime punishable by law, or regarded as a sin against the gods. (pp.45-46)  

Other anthropologists point to a range of practices considered morally acceptable in some societies but condemned in others, including infanticide, genocide, polygamy, racism, sexism, and torture. Such differences may lead us to question whether there are any universal moral principles or whether morality is merely a matter of "cultural taste." Differences in moral practices across cultures raise an important issue in ethics -- the concept of "ethical relativism."

Ethical relativism is the theory that holds that morality is relative to the norms of one's culture. That is, whether an action is right or wrong depends on the moral norms of the society in which it is practiced. The same action may be morally right in one society but be morally wrong in another. For the ethical relativist, there are no universal moral standards -- standards that can be universally applied to all peoples at all times. The only moral standards against which a society's practices can be judged are its own. If ethical relativism is correct, there can be no common framework for resolving moral disputes or for reaching agreement on ethical matters among members of different societies.

Most ethicists reject the theory of ethical relativism. Some claim that while the moral practices of societies may differ, the fundamental moral principles underlying these practices do not. For example, in some societies, killing one's parents after they reached a certain age was common practice, stemming from the belief that people were better off in the afterlife if they entered it while still physically active and vigorous. While such a practice would be condemned in our society, we would agree with these societies on the underlying moral principle -- the duty to care for parents. Societies, then, may differ in their application of fundamental moral principles but agree on the principles.

Also, it is argued, it may be the case that some moral beliefs are culturally relative whereas others are not. Certain practices, such as customs regarding dress and decency, may depend on local custom whereas other practices, such as slavery, torture, or political repression, may be governed by universal moral standards and judged wrong despite the many other differences that exist among cultures. Simply because some practices are relative does not mean that all practices are relative.

Other philosophers criticize ethical relativism because of its implications for individual moral beliefs. These philosophers assert that if the rightness or wrongness of an action depends on a society's norms, then it follows that one must obey the norms of one's society and to diverge from those norms is to act immorally. This means that if I am a member of a society that believes that racial or sexist practices are morally permissible, then I must accept those practices as morally right. But such a view promotes social conformity and leaves no room for moral reform or improvement in a society. Furthermore, members of the same society may hold different views on practices. In the United States, for example, a variety of moral opinions exists on matters ranging from animal experimentation to abortion. What constitutes right action when social consensus is lacking?

Perhaps the strongest argument against ethical relativism comes from those who assert that universal moral standards can exist even if some moral practices and beliefs vary among cultures. In other words, we can acknowledge cultural differences in moral practices and beliefs and still hold that some of these practices and beliefs are morally wrong. The practice of slavery in pre-Civil war U.S. society or the practice of apartheid in South Africa is wrong despite the beliefs of those societies. The treatment of the Jews in Nazi society is morally reprehensible regardless of the moral beliefs of Nazi society.

For these philosophers, ethics is an inquiry into right and wrong through a critical examination of the reasons underlying practices and beliefs. As a theory for justifying moral practices and beliefs, ethical relativism fails to recognize that some societies have better reasons for holding their views than others.

But even if the theory of ethical relativism is rejected, it must be acknowledged that the concept raises important issues. Ethical relativism reminds us that different societies have different moral beliefs and that our beliefs are deeply influenced by culture. It also encourages us to explore the reasons underlying beliefs that differ from our own, while challenging us to examine our reasons for the beliefs and values we hold.

Ethical Relativism

Lesson Plan

Moral Relativism

Many students come to the classroom assuming values are variant.  Have you heard any of the following?

• After all, we are all different, right?
• Wouldn’t it be boring if we all believed the same thing?
• To each his own!
• Celebrate diversity?
• Who am I to judge someone else if they feel they are doing the right thing?

These are common beliefs and claims and often come from a good place:  the desire to be open-minded and accepting of others.  And indeed, in many areas of our life, we should acknowledge diversity is simply cultural, religious, or personally grounded.  Can I really make you agree that blue is the best color or that broccoli tastes delicious?  I bet not!

So, where are we when it comes to ethical values?  Ethical relativism claims that all values are depended on what people believe or accept—not just matters of taste like food and colors. Watch the video posted at the bottom; it offers some great clarifying definitions.  Have your students watch this video and then discuss wheat they think about values.

Discussion Questions after the video:

• Do you agree that all values depend on what a culture accepts? Or what an individual believes and feels?
• Can anyone think of a value that they would say is universal?

Come up with a list of beliefs and practices that claim X or Y is a good/bad thing to do.  Look at each one to see if everyone agrees that the example is truly relative or whether some of the examples may be more problematic.  Examples follow.

  Thinking further through careful reading

Louis Pojman has written an excellent analysis of moral relativism and why it cannot be claimed as a viable moral theory.  His essay “A defense of Ethical Objectivism” has been anthologized in many places.  Get copies for the students.  [Not available online]

In this essay he outlines the arguments for relativism and shows step by step both the consequences that follow from this position as well as why the argument itself is not sound.  He then builds a case form moral objectivism appealing mostly to prima facie principles.  He ends by exploring why we find moral relativism such an attractive theory.

This essay is challenging and high school students will need both time to work through it and guidance along the way.

Discussion Questions

• Why is Ethical relativism an attractive theory?
• What problems does it avoid?
• Where might we run up against objections to relativism in our daily experiences?

If you would like to change or adapt any of PLATO's work for public use, please feel free to contact us for permission at [email protected] .

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Moral Relativism

Moral relativism is an important topic in metaethics. It is also widely discussed outside philosophy (for example, by political and religious leaders), and it is controversial among philosophers and nonphilosophers alike. This is perhaps not surprising in view of recent evidence that people’s intuitions about moral relativism vary widely. Though many philosophers are quite critical of moral relativism, there are several contemporary philosophers who defend forms of it. These include such prominent figures as Gilbert Harman, Jesse J. Prinz, J. David Velleman and David B. Wong. The term ‘moral relativism’ is understood in a variety of ways. Most often it is associated with an empirical thesis that there are deep and widespread moral disagreements and a metaethical thesis that the truth or justification of moral judgments is not absolute, but relative to the moral standard of some person or group of persons. Sometimes ‘moral relativism’ is connected with a normative position about how we ought to think about or act towards those with whom we morally disagree, most commonly that we should tolerate them.

1. Historical Background

2. forms and arguments, 3. experimental philosophy, 4. descriptive moral relativism, 5. are moral disagreements rationally resolvable, 6. metaethical moral relativism, 7. mixed positions: a rapprochement between relativists and objectivists, 8. relativism and tolerance, other internet resources, related entries.

Though moral relativism did not become a prominent topic in philosophy or elsewhere until the twentieth century, it has ancient origins. In the classical Greek world, both the historian Herodotus and the sophist Protagoras appeared to endorse some form of relativism (the latter attracted the attention of Plato in the Theaetetus ). It should also be noted that the ancient Chinese Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi put forward a nonobjectivist view that is sometimes interpreted as a kind of relativism.

Among the ancient Greek philosophers, moral diversity was widely acknowledged, but the more common nonobjectivist reaction was moral skepticism, the view that there is no moral knowledge (the position of the Pyrrhonian skeptic Sextus Empiricus), rather than moral relativism, the view that moral truth or justification is relative to a culture or society. This pattern continued through most of the history of Western philosophy. There were certainly occasional discussions of moral disagreement—for example in Michel de Montaigne’s Essays or in the dialogue David Hume attached to An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals . These discussions pertained to moral objectivity, but moral relativism as a thesis explicitly distinguished from moral skepticism ordinarily was not in focus. Prior to the twentieth century, moral philosophers did not generally feel obliged to defend a position on moral relativism.

Nonetheless, the increased awareness of moral diversity (especially between Western and non-Western cultures) on the part of Europeans in the modern era is an important antecedent to the contemporary concern with moral relativism. During this time, the predominant view among Europeans and their colonial progeny was that their moral values were superior to the moral values of other cultures. Few thought all moral values had equal or relative validity, or anything of that sort. The main impetus for such a position came from cultural anthropology. Anthropologists were fascinated with the diversity of cultures, and they produced detailed empirical studies of them—especially “primitive,” non-Western ones. At the beginning anthropologists accepted the assumption of European or Western superiority. But this assumption began to be challenged in the twentieth century, especially by some social scientists in the United States. An early dissent came from the sociologist William Graham Sumner, who proposed a version of moral relativism in his 1906 Folkways . But the most influential challenge originated with the anthropologist Franz Boas. He and his students—in particular, Ruth Benedict, Melville J. Herskovits, and Margaret Mead—explicitly articulated influential forms of moral relativism in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1947, on the occasion of the United Nations debate about universal human rights, the American Anthropological Association issued a statement declaring that moral values are relative to cultures and that there is no way of showing that the values of one culture are better than those of another. Anthropologists have never been unanimous in asserting this, and more recently human rights advocacy on the part of some anthropologists has mitigated the relativist orientation of the discipline. Nonetheless, prominent anthropologists such as Richard A. Shweder and the late Clifford Geertz have defended relativist positions in recent years.

An important early bridge from anthropology to philosophy was established by Edward Westermarck (1906–8 and 1932), a social scientist who wrote anthropological and philosophical works defending forms of empirical as well as metaethical moral relativism. In the latter half of the 20th century, moral philosophers began devoting considerable attention to moral relativism and some—most notably Richard B. Brandt (1954) and John Ladd (1957)—took quite seriously the empirical effort of anthropology to understand the moralities of different cultures, to the point of making such empirical inquiries themselves (an anticipation of the recent emphasis on experimental philosophy, to be discussed in section 3 ). In the past several decades there has been increasing consideration of moral relativism, and there is now an enormous literature on the subject (the Bibliography below is very limited). Most of these discussions are situated in the domain of “pure metaethics,” but not all. For example, there is considerable work on moral relativism in connection with human rights (Donnelly 2013, part 2 and Okin 1998), political philosophy (Accetti 2015, Bilgrami 2011 and Long 2004) and feminist philosophy (Code 1995 and Khader 2019). There are also discussions of moral relativism in applied fields such as medical ethics (Earp 2016).

In general, the term ‘relativism’ refers to many different ideas. For example, in anthropology it sometimes connotes, among other things, the rather uncontroversial notion that anthropologists should strive to be impartial and unprejudiced in their empirical inquires. However, in moral philosophy ‘relativism’ is usually taken to suggest an empirical, a metaethical, or a normative position. The empirical position is usually:

Descriptive Moral Relativism ( DMR ). As a matter of empirical fact, there are deep and widespread moral disagreements across different societies, and these disagreements are much more significant than whatever agreements there may be.

Sometimes what is emphasized is moral diversity rather than strict disagreement. DMR is often thought to have been established by anthropology and other empirical disciplines. However, it is not uncontroversial: Empirical as well as philosophical objections have been raised against it. Hence, it is one focal point of debate.

The metaethical position usually concerns the truth or justification of moral judgments, and it has been given somewhat different definitions. Metaethical relativists generally suppose that many fundamental moral disagreements cannot be rationally resolved, and on this basis they argue that moral judgments lack the moral authority or normative force that moral objectivists usually contend these judgments may have. Hence, metaethical relativism is in part a negative thesis that challenges the claims of moral objectivists. However, it often involves a positive thesis as well, namely that moral judgments nonetheless have moral authority or normative force, not absolutely or universally (as objectivists contend), but relative to some group of persons such as a society or culture. This point is typically made with respect to truth or justification (or both), and the following definition will be a useful reference point:

Metaethical Moral Relativism ( MMR ). The truth or falsity of moral judgments, or their justification, is not absolute or universal, but is relative to the traditions, convictions, or practices of a group of persons.

With respect to truth-value, this means that a moral judgment such as ‘Polygamy is morally wrong’ may be true relative to one society, but false relative to another. It is not true, or false, simply speaking. Likewise, with respect to justification, this judgment may be justified in one society, but not another. Taken in one way, this last point is uncontroversial: The people in one society may have different evidence available to them than the people in the other society. But proponents of MMR usually have something stronger and more provocative in mind: That the standards of justification in the two societies may differ from one another and that there is no rational basis for resolving these differences. This is why the justification of moral judgments is relative rather than absolute.

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of different formulations of relativism (for discussion of some of these, see Fricker 2013, Krausz 2011 and López de Sa 2011). It is important to note several distinctions that may be made in formulating different metaethical relativist positions. First, a distinction is sometimes drawn between content relativism, the view that sentences may have different contents (meanings) in different frameworks, and truth relativism, the view that sentences have the same content in different frameworks, but their truth-value may vary across these frameworks (for a discussion of this distinction in terms of moral relativism, see Prinz 2007: 180–3). In the discussions that follow, truth relativism is ordinarily assumed. Second, it is sometimes said that the truth or justification of moral judgments may be relative to an individual person as well as a group of persons. In this article, the latter will be assumed, as in the definition of MMR , unless otherwise noted. Third, that to which truth or justification is relative may be the persons making the moral judgments or the persons about whom the judgments are made. These are sometimes called appraiser and agent relativism respectively. Appraiser relativism suggests that we do or should make moral judgments on the basis of our own standards, while agent relativism implies that the relevant standards are those of the persons we are judging (of course, in some cases these may coincide). Appraiser relativism is the more common position, and it will usually be assumed in the discussion that follows. Finally, MMR may be offered as the best explanation of what people already believe, or it may be put forward as a position people ought to accept regardless of what they now believe. There will be occasion to discuss both claims below, though the latter is probably the more common one.

Metaethical moral relativist positions are typically contrasted with moral objectivism. Let us say that moral objectivism maintains that moral judgments are ordinarily true or false in an absolute or universal sense, that some of them are true, and that people sometimes are justified in accepting true moral judgments (and rejecting false ones) on the basis of evidence available to any reasonable and well-informed person. There are different ways of challenging moral objectivism. Moral skepticism says that we are never justified in accepting or rejecting moral judgments. Other views—variously called moral non-cognitivism, expressivism, anti-realism, nihilism, etc.—contend that moral judgments lack truth-value, at least beyond the truth-value implied by the minimalist claim that to assert that S is true is simply to assert S (a related view, the error theory, claims that moral judgments are always false). MMR is often distinguished from all of these views: Instead of denying truth-value or justification, it affirms relative forms of these. However, metaethical moral relativist views are sometimes regarded as connected with positions that say moral judgments lack truth-value, since the relativist views contend that moral judgments lack truth-value in an absolute or universal sense. This is sometimes simply a question of terminology, but not always. If it is said that moral judgments lack truth-value (beyond the claim of minimalism), then there cannot be relative truth-value in the sense that moral relativists usually intend (though it might be contended that there is a sense in which there could still be justification). As will be seen below, there is a debate about the relationship between MMR and non-cognitivist or expressivist positions.

Most arguments for MMR are based on DMR and the contention that it is implausible to suppose fundamental moral disagreements can always be resolved rationally (for overviews of these arguments, see Plakias 2020 and Seipel 2020b). Sometimes it is said that some moral disagreements are faultless, meaning that neither party has made a mistake (see Kölbel 2004). For instance, Harman (1996), Prinz (2007) and Wong (1984 and 2006) have all stressed the importance of moral disagreements in arguing for MMR , and such arguments will be considered in some detail in subsequent sections. However, some arguments for MMR have a rather different approach, and two of these should be noted here.

First, MMR might be defended as a consequence of the general relativist thesis that the truth or justification of all judgments is not absolute or universal, but relative to some group of persons. For example, this general position might be maintained on the ground that each society has its own conceptual framework and that conceptual frameworks are incommensurable with one another. Hence, we can only speak of truth or justification in relative terms (see the discussion of incommensurability in the Summer 2015 archived version of the entry on relativism (section 4.2)). This position might be thought to have the disadvantage that it can only be put forward as true or justified relative to some conceptual framework (the suggestion is usually that this framework is our own), and many find it implausible with regard to common sense judgments and judgments in the natural sciences. However, this is one avenue to MMR . But most proponents of MMR focus on distinctive features of morality and reject general relativism. In fact, they often contrast morality and science with respect to issues of truth and justification. For example, Harman (2000b), Prinz (2007) and Wong (1996 and 2006) all associate moral relativism with naturalism, a position that usually presupposes the objectivity of the natural sciences.

Second, a metaethical moral relativist position might be defended by emphasizing aspects of morality other than disagreement. For example, Rovane (2011 and 2013) has maintained that relativism is best understood, not as a response to disagreement, but as a response to alternative conceptual schemes that portray different worlds that are normatively insulated from one another. On this account, the truth-bearers in one world are not logically related to the truth-bearers in another world (so there cannot be strict disagreement), and yet it is not possible to embrace both worlds (so they are alternatives). Rovane argues that in the moral domain, but not in the domain of the natural sciences, there may be different worlds in this sense. Hence, a moral judgment may be true for the occupant of one world, but not for the occupant of another. An implication of this view, she says, is that learning and teaching across different moral worlds might not be possible.

In a partially similar view, Velleman (2015) has claimed, on the basis of ethnographic and historical data, that different communities construct available action types differently. Moreover, reasons for action are always dependent on the perspective of the particular community since they arise out of the drive for mutual interpretability needed for social life within the community. Hence, there are no perspective-independent reasons. There cannot be straight-forward disagreement across these communities because they do not have common sets of action types. The communities may nonetheless address the basic themes of morality, but in incompatible ways given their different perspectives. So moralities can only have local validity.

Both Rovane and Velleman stress moral diversity rather than moral disagreement. They maintain, not that disagreements cannot be rationally resolved, but that there is no basis for showing that, among various incompatible alternatives, one is rationally superior to another.

In addition, it is worth noting that MMR is sometimes justified by appealing in a significant way to a distinctive analysis of moral judgments in combination with a claim about moral disagreement. For example, Prinz (2007) argues that what he calls “moral sentimentalism” implies a form of MMR once we acknowledge moral disagreements. According to moral sentimentalism, an action is morally right (wrong) if and only if some observer of the action has a sentiment of approbation (disapprobation) concerning it. Prinz defends this position on the basis of a metaethical argument that it is the most plausible account in light of empirical studies linking moral judgments and emotions. Since people often have conflicting sentiments about the same action, a judgment of the form ‘Action X is right’ may be true (when expressed by a person who approves of X ), and ‘ X is wrong’ may also be true (when expressed by a person who disapproves of X ). On this view, the truth of such moral judgments is relative to the sentiments of the persons who make them. Moral sentimentalism is a crucial feature of this argument and many philosophers would deny that moral rightness and wrongness depend on our sentiments in this way. But most arguments for MMR are not based on moral sentimentalism.

In another example, Harman (2000a) argues that a moral judgment that a person ought to do X (an “inner judgment”) implies that the person has motivating reasons to do X , and that a person is likely to have such reasons only if he or she has implicitly entered into an agreement with others about what to do. Hence, moral judgments of this kind are valid only for groups of persons who have made such agreements. An action may be right relative to one agreement and wrong relative to another (this combines agent and appraisal relativism insofar as Harman assumes that the person making the judgment and the person to whom the judgment is addressed are both parties to the agreement).

Harman’s relativism is presented as a thesis about logical form, but the relativist implication arises only because it is supposed that the relevant motivating reasons are not universal and so probably arose from an agreement that some but not all persons have made. In this sense, moral disagreement is an important feature of the argument. But the main focus is on the internalist idea that inner judgments imply motivating reasons, reasons that are not provided simply by being rational, but require particular desires or intentions that a person may or may not have. Internalism in this sense is a controversial view, and many would say that a moral judgment can apply to a person whether or not that person is motivated to follow it (see the section on ‘Psychological: Moral Motivation’ in the entry on moral epistemology ). However, internalism is not a standard feature of most arguments for moral relativism, and in fact some relativists are critical of internalism (for example, see Wong 2006: ch. 7)

It is worth noting that internalism is one expression of a more general viewpoint that emphasizes the action-guiding character of moral judgments. Though Harman and others (for example, Dreier 1990 and 2006) have argued that a form of moral relativism provides the best explanation of internalism, a more common argument has been that the action-guiding character of moral judgments is best explained by a non-cognitivist or expressivist account according to which moral judgments lack truth-value (at least beyond the claim of minimalism). In fact, some have claimed that the expressivist position avoids, and is superior to, moral relativism because it accounts for the action-guiding character of moral judgments without taking on the problems that moral relativism is thought to involve (for instance, see Blackburn 1998: ch. 9 and 1999, and Horgan and Timmons 2006). By contrast, others have maintained that positions such as non-cognitivism and expressivism are committed to a form of moral relativism (for example, see Bloomfield 2003, Foot 2002b, and Shafer-Landau 2003: ch 1). For an assessment of this debate, see Miller 2011, and for a discussion of non-cognitivism and related positions, see the entry on moral cognitivism vs. non-cognitivism .

Finally, the term ‘moral relativism’ is sometimes associated with a normative position concerning how we ought to think about, or behave towards, persons with whom we morally disagree. Usually the position is formulated in terms of tolerance. In particular, it is said that we should not interfere with the actions of persons that are based on moral judgments we reject, when the disagreement is not or cannot be rationally resolved. This is thought to apply especially to relationships between our society and those societies with which we have significant moral disagreements. Since tolerance so-understood is a normative thesis about what we morally ought to do, it is best regarded, not as a form of moral relativism per se , but as a thesis that has often been thought to be implied by relativist positions such as DMR and MMR . Despite the popularity of this thought, most philosophers believe it is mistaken. The main question is what philosophical relationship, if any, obtains between moral relativism and tolerance.

The remainder of this entry will discuss DMR , the contention that it is unlikely that fundamental moral disagreements can be rationally resolved, arguments for and challenges to MMR , mixed positions that combine moral relativism and moral objectivism, and the relationship between moral relativism and tolerance. But first there needs to be some consideration of the recent contributions of experimental philosophy to these discussions.

Experimental philosophy is an approach to philosophy that explicitly draws on experimental knowledge established by the sciences to address philosophical questions (see the entry on experimental moral philosophy ). There are three significant ways in which experimental philosophy has played an important role in discussions of moral relativism. These concern the extent to which there is moral disagreement or moral diversity among people (that is, DMR ), the extent to which folk morality is committed to an objectivist or relativist understanding of moral judgments (that is, the views of ordinary people concerning MMR ), and the extent to which acceptance of moral relativism affects moral attitudes such as tolerance (that is, ways in which views concerning MMR causally influence whether or not people have tolerant attitudes).

The first of these has a long history in discussions of moral relativism and in fact may be considered one of the earliest instances of experimental moral philosophy. As was seen in section 1 , for more than a century the work of anthropologists and other social scientists has contributed to the development of thought about moral relativism, both by purporting to provide empirical evidence for extensive cross-cultural disagreement and diversity about morality, and by proposing the notion that moral codes are true only relative to a culture as the best explanation of this. That is, these scientists have provided empirical grounds for accepting DMR , and they have suggested that some form of MMR is a reasonable inference from this data (though these positions were not always clearly distinguished). More importantly, the work cited in section 1 by Brandt (1954) and Ladd (1957), involving both empirical investigations into the moral values of Native Americans and philosophical reflection on the significance of these investigations vis-à-vis moral relativism, are significant examples of moral philosophers engaging in empirical inquiry in support of philosophical aims. Their empirical work did not immediately inspire other other philosophers to engage in similar research. Experimental philosophy in this sense—experiments or other empirical investigations conducted by philosophers—did not become prominent until nearly a half-century later. Nowadays philosophers do sometimes conduct experiments to investigate the extent of moral disagreement (for example, see the study of Western and East Asian values cited in Doris and Plakias 2008). What has been much more common in recent decades has been the citation by philosophers of empirical studies by anthropologists to establish facts about moral disagreement or diversity (for example, see Prinz 2007, Velleman 2015, and Wong 1984 and 2006). There has been a renewed interest in ethics by some anthropologists in the last few years (see Klenk 2019 and Laidlaw 2017), but this has not yet attracted much attention by philosophers. There is more about these issues in section 4 .

The second concern, the extent to which ordinary people accept some form of moral objectivism or some form of MMR (or some other non-objectivist position), has been the subject of considerable experimental research in recent years. This research has sometimes been conducted by psychologists (or other scientists), sometimes by philosophers, and increasingly sometimes by both working together (for overviews of this literature, see Pölzler and Wright 2019 and Sarkissian 2016). In the past, philosophers with a variety of meta-ethical commitments have sometimes claimed that in everyday moral practices people implicitly suppose that moral objectivism in some sense is correct (for example, see Blackburn 1984: 180 and Jackson 1998: 137). By contrast, on occasion some philosophers have maintained that ordinary people sometimes have attitudes that conflict with objectivism. For instance, Wong has argued that in some moral disagreements people grant that the person with the conflicting moral judgment is reasonable in accepting the judgment to the extent that these people are unsure if their own position is uniquely right—what he calls “moral ambivalence” (see Wong 2006: ch. 1). So who are correct, philosophers who claim that ordinary people accept a form of objectivism (folk moral objectivism) or philosophers who think that ordinary people at least sometimes accept something closer to MMR (folk moral relativism)?

Recent empirical research suggests that both positions may have some merit: the meta-ethical views of ordinary people are rather complex. A common method for measuring whether people are objectivists or relativists about a moral statement is to present them with a disagreement between two parties concerning the statement and to ask them if at most only one party could be correct. A response that only one could be correct indicates commitment to objectivism, while a response that more than one could be correct suggests commitment to relativism (or some non-objectivist position). Several studies employing this and related methodologies have provided evidence that, while many people are objectivists about morality, a significant number are not objectivists (for example, see Nichols 2004). Moreover, some studies have shown interesting correlations with these differences. For instance, being in a competitive rather than cooperative interaction and belief in a punishing God correlate with more objectivist intuitions (see Fisher et al. 2017 and Sarkissian and Phelan 2019) while openness to experience and to alternative possibilities are more common among those with non-objectivist intuitions (see Feltz and Cokely 2008 and Goodwin and Darley 2010). In addition, some studies purport to show that there may be causal relationships as well as correlations. For example, the desire to punish generates objectivist intuitions (see Rose and Nichols Forthcoming).

Other studies have shown different kinds of complexity. People are more likely to be objectivists about some moral issues (such as robbery) than they are about other moral issues (such as abortion). These differences also have correlations that might be partly explanatory: regarding an issue as objective correlates with strength of belief and perception of consensus on the issue (see Goodwin and Darley 2008 and 2010; cf. Ayars and Nichols 2020). Moreover, people are more likely to be objectivists about some issues than others even when they are allowed to determine for themselves which issues count as moral issues (see Wright et al. 2013).

Finally, it is more more probable that people give objectivist responses when they think that the parties to a moral disagreement share the same culture than when they think that the disagreeing parties belong to a very different culture. This might suggest that many of those who give objectivist responses are tacitly assuming a kind of objectivity on the assumption that the disagreeing parties have a common moral framework, but not in circumstances in which there are different moral frameworks (see Sarkissian et al. 2011).

In short, empirical work about folk meta-ethical outlooks suggests that there is considerable diversity in the extent to which, and the circumstances under which, people express moral objectivist views or moral non-objectivist views such as MMR . This might be taken to indicate that some people are objectivists and some are not. But it might also be taken to show that some people are “meta-ethical pluralists”: they are objectivists about some moral issues, but they are relativists about other moral issues (see Pölzler 2017, Wright 2018, and Wright, Grandjean and McWhite 2013). That is, perhaps some people implicitly deny the common assumption among philosophers that all moral beliefs should be given the same meta-ethical analysis.

Various questions may be raised about the value and significance of this experimental work. In recent years an important issue in psychology has been the extent to which experimental results can be replicated. It has been argued that the replication rate in experimental philosophy is comparatively high (see Cova et al. 2018) and some studies of people’s acceptance of moral objectivity have been replicated (for example, see Wright 2018). Another issue is whether the samples of these studies are sufficiently diverse to be indicative of the meta-ethical commitments of all human beings. Once again, there have been concerns that psychology studies have been unrepresentative (for example, because they rely too heavily on undergraduate students in the United States). However, at least some studies pertaining to moral objectivity have included a more diverse group of subjects (for example, Beebe et al. 2015 and Sarkissian et al. 2011). A different question is to what extent these studies actually measure acceptance of moral objectivism or moral relativism. Many studies focus on moral objectivism and these may leave unclear people’s views about a position such as MMR (Since there are a variety of positions that reject objectivism). However, some studies have focused on moral relativism specifically (for example, Sarkissian et al. 2011).

In any case, some philosophers may wonder about the philosophical relevance of this experimental research. One response is that it could affect criteria of success in meta-ethics. For example, it is sometimes suggested that most people are moral objectivists rather than moral relativists, and that a meta-ethical position such as moral realism gains credibility because it is in accord with folk morality so understood (see Smith 1991). The studies just cited and others appear to challenge the factual premise of this meta-ethical criterion (see Sarkissian 2017), and it has been argued that the best interpretation of the empirical data is that many people accept a form of relativism (see Beebe Forthcoming). Another response is that some of the complexity revealed in these studies might lead philosophers to consider more seriously the philosophical viability of a pluralist or mixed meta-ethical position according to which, for instance, moral objectivism is correct in some respects, but MMR is correct in other respects (in this connection, see Gill 2008 and Sinnott-Armstrong 2009). There is more on this issue in section 7 . In any case, there is increasing recognition of the importance of interpreting the significance of the experimental evidence for meta-ethics with care (see Bush and Moss 2020, Hopster 2019 and Pölzler and Wright 2020).

The final area in which experimental philosophy has contributed to discussions of moral relativism pertains to the relationship between relativism and moral attitudes such as tolerance. It is sometimes claimed that some forms of moral relativism provide a reason for tolerance (see section 8 ). But are moral relativists more likely to be tolerant than moral objectivists? Some recent psychological studies suggest that the answer may be “yes.” There is some correlation between accepting moral relativism and being more tolerant (Collier-Spruel et al. 2019), and there is some correlation between regarding a moral issue as objective and being less tolerant (Wright et al. 2008 and 2014), though it is also clear that other factors are relevant to whether behavior is tolerant or intolerant.

Insofar as these studies suggest that there is some correlation between acceptance of moral relativism and tolerance, this might be regarded as an unsurprising result for those who have argued that moral relativism provides a rational basis for tolerance. Of course, a psychological relationship does not show that there is a logical relationship. But some support might be derived from the fact that people are behaving in what, for this position, is a rational way. In addition, it has been claimed that an advantage of moral relativism is that, even though it does not provide a reason for tolerance, acceptance of it makes people more tolerant (see Prinz 2007: 208). These studies would provide support for this empirical claim.

Most discussions of moral relativism begin with, and are rooted in, DMR . Though this is not sufficient to establish MMR , the most common rationales for MMR would be undermined if DMR (or some descriptive thesis about significant moral disagreement or diversity) were incorrect. Moreover, if DMR were generally rejected, it is likely that MMR would have few proponents. Hence, it is important to consider whether or not DMR is correct. Defenders of DMR usually take it to be well-established by cultural anthropology and other empirically-based disciplines, and many believe it is obvious to anyone with an elementary understanding of the history and cultures of the world. Examples of moral practices that appear sharply at odds with moral outlooks common in the United States are not hard to come by: polygamy, arranged marriages, suicide as a requirement of honor or widowhood, severe punishments for blasphemy or adultery, female circumcision or genital mutilation (as it is variously called), and so on (for a review of some of the literature, see Prinz 2007: 187–95). At a more general level, Wong (1984) has argued that at least two different approaches to morality may be found in the world: a virtue-centered morality that emphasizes the good of the community, and a rights-centered morality that stresses the value of individual freedom.

Though it is obvious that there are some moral disagreements, it is another matter to say that these disagreements are deep and widespread, and that they are much more significant than whatever agreements there may be. Philosophers have raised two kinds of objection to this contention: a priori arguments that DMR could not be true, and a posteriori arguments that DMR is probably not true or at least has not been established to be true.

A priori objections maintain that we can know DMR is false on the basis of philosophical considerations, without recourse to empirical evidence. One argument, expressed in general form by Donald Davidson (1984a), states that disagreement presupposes considerable agreement (see the entry on Donald Davidson ). According to Davidson, a methodological constraint on the translation of the language of another society is that we must think they agree with us on most matters. For example, suppose we believed there were numerous disagreements between us and another society about trees. As the disagreements piled up, we reasonably would begin to think we had mistranslated a word in the language of the other society as ‘tree’: It is more likely that (what we take to be) their false beliefs about trees are really beliefs about something else. By generalization, it follows that there could not be extensive disagreements about trees between our society and the other one. Of course, there could be some disagreements. But these disagreements would presuppose substantial agreements in other respects. Davidson (1984b [2004a] and 1995 [2004b]) and others (for example, Cooper 1978 and Myers 2004) have claimed that this argument applies to moral concepts. If they are right, then there cannot be extensive disagreements about morality, and the agreements are more significant than the disagreements. DMR cannot be true.

Davidson’s argument is controversial. One response is that, even if it were compelling in some cases, it would not have force with respect to moral concepts. ‘Tree’ is an ordinary, descriptive concept based on direct observation. In view of this, mistranslation seems more likely than substantial disagreement. But what about concepts concerning what is amusing, interesting, or exciting? These have to do with human reactions to the world, and it may be said that our knowledge of human nature suggests that some reactions vary widely. A claim that there is much disagreement about what people find amusing—about what makes them laugh—does not immediately generate the suspicion of mistranslation. If moral concepts were more similar to ‘amusing’ than to ‘tree’, as some believe, then the Davidsonian argument might not undermine DMR even if it were convincing in other cases. Davidson, however, believed the argument applies across the board, to evaluations as well as empirical beliefs. Another response to his argument is to claim that, even if it does apply to evaluations, it would only apply to very basic ones and would leave room for substantial disagreements beyond these (if this were the case, then Davidson would have established only what I call a mixed position in section 7 ). For some critical responses to the Davidsonian critique of relativism, see Gowans 2004: 144–6, Prinz 2007: 195–9 and Rovane 2013: 247–62.

Another a priori objection to DMR was suggested by Philippa Foot (1978a and 1978b) in a response to emotivism. Just as there are shared criteria of ‘rude’ such that not just anything could be considered rude, she argued, there are shared criteria of moral concepts such that not just anything could be a moral virtue or obligation. For example, there are substantial constraints on what could be considered courage. Hence, there are significant limits to the extent of moral disagreements.

One response to this argument, interpreted as an objection to DMR , is that it faces a dilemma. On the one hand, if ‘courage’ is understood broadly, in terms of confronting a difficulty to achieve some perceived good, then it is likely that most everyone values courage. However, this leaves room for very different conceptions of courage. Both warriors and pacifists may value it, but they may regard very different kinds of actions as courageous. This puts less pressure on DMR , a point Foot later conceded to some extent (see section 7 )). On the other hand, if courage is defined narrowly, for example, as the virtue of a warrior who faces the threat of death in battle (as suggested by Aristotle), then there may be little disagreement about the scope of the concept, but considerable disagreement about whether courage so-defined should be valued (pacifists would say no). A proponent of DMR might say that this is also a significant moral disagreement. Against this, it may be said that our understanding of human nature and culture shows that everyone values courage understood within some fairly significant limits. This is a more empirical point, in line with the objections in the last paragraph of this section.

Some versions of the a priori approach emphasize the constraints imposed by “thinner” moral concepts such as goodness, rightness, or morality itself (for example, see Garcia 1988). Once again, a defender of DMR might say that, if these concepts have enough content to preclude significant disagreement in their application, then it is likely that many societies do not apply them at all—a form of moral disagreement in itself. Another response would be to argue, following R.M. Hare (1981), that a formal analysis, for example in terms of a kind of prescriptivity, is plausible with respect to some thinner moral concepts, and that this is consistent with significant moral disagreements. However, the a priori critics question the adequacy of any such analysis. Much of this debate concerns the acceptability of formal versus material definitions of morality (see the entry on the definition of morality ).

The second approach to rejecting DMR focuses on the interpretation of the empirical evidence that purportedly supports this thesis. Some objections point to obstacles that face any attempt to understand human cultures empirically. For example, it may be said that the supposed evidence is incomplete or inaccurate because the observers are biased. In support of this, it may be claimed that anthropologists often have had preconceptions rooted in disciplinary paradigms or political ideologies that have led them to misrepresent or misinterpret the empirical data. Or it may be said that even the most objective observers would have difficulty accurately understanding a society’s actual moral values on account of phenomena such as self-deception and weakness of will. These concerns point to substantial issues in the methodology of the social sciences. However, even if they were valid, they would only cast doubt on whether DMR had been established: They would not necessarily give us reason to think it is false. Of course, this would be an important objection to someone who claims DMR is established or relies on DMR to argue for MMR .

Another objection, more directly pertinent to DMR , is that anthropologists have tacitly and mistakenly assumed that cultures are rather discrete, homogenous, and static entities—rather like the shapes in a Piet Mondrian painting or a checkerboard. In fact, according to this contention, cultures typically are rather heterogeneous and complex internally, with many dissenting voices. Moreover, they often interact and sometimes influence one another, and they may change over time. From this perspective, the world of cultures is closer to an animated Jackson Pollock painting than to the unambiguous configuration suggested by the first image. If these contentions were correct, then it would be more difficult to know the moral values of different cultures and hence to know whether or not DMR is true. As before, this would not show that it is false (in fact, the point about heterogeneity might point the other way). However, we will see later that these contentions also pose challenges to MMR .

Other critics try to establish that the empirical evidence cited in support of DMR does not really show that there are significant moral disagreements, and is consistent with considerable moral agreement. A prominent contention is that purported moral disagreements may result from applying a general moral value (about which there is no disagreement) in different circumstances or in the same circumstances where there is a factual disagreement about what these circumstances are. Either way, there is no real moral disagreement in these cases. For example, everyone might agree on the importance of promoting human welfare (and even on the nature of human welfare). But this may be promoted differently in different, or differently understood, circumstances. Another contention is that moral disagreements may be explained by religious disagreements: It is only because specific religious assumptions are made (for instance, about the soul) that there are moral disagreements. Once again, the apparent moral disagreement is really a disagreement of a different kind—here, about the nature of the soul. There is no genuine moral disagreement. Of course, these possibilities would have to be established as the best explanation of the disagreements in question to constitute an objection to DMR .

Finally, some objections maintain that proponents of DMR fail to recognize that there is significant empirical evidence for considerable moral agreement across different societies (see Sauer 2019). Several kinds of agreement have been proposed. For example, the role-reversal test implied by the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) has been prominent beyond Western traditions: A version of it is also endorsed in The Analects of Confucius, some traditional Buddhist texts, and elsewhere (see Wattles 1996). Another form of this claim maintains that basic moral prohibitions against lying, stealing, adultery, killing human beings, etc. are found across many different and otherwise diverse societies. Yet another contention is that the international human rights movement indicates substantial moral agreement (see Donnelly 2013: ch. 4). On the basis of evidence of this kind, some such as Sissela Bok (1995) and Michael Walzer (1994) have proposed that there is a universal minimal morality, whatever other moral differences there may be. In a similar vein, Hans Küng (1996) and others have maintained that there is a common “global ethic” across the world’s major religious traditions regarding respect for human life, distributive justice, truthfulness, and the moral equality of men and women. These contentions, which have received increased support in recent years, must be subjected to the same critical scrutiny as those put forward in support of DMR . However, if they were correct, they would cast doubt on DMR . In the final analysis, there may be significant agreements as well as disagreements in people’s moral values. If this were the case, it would complicate the empirical background of the metaethical debate, and it might suggest the need for more nuanced alternatives than the standard positions.

Philosophers generally agree that, even if DMR were true without qualification, it would not directly follow that MMR is true. In particular, if moral disagreements could be resolved rationally for the most part, then disagreement-based arguments for MMR would be undermined, and there would be little incentive to endorse the position. Such resolvability, at least in principle, is what moral objectivism would lead us to expect. One of the main points of contention between proponents of MMR and their objectivist critics concerns the possibility of rationally resolving moral disagreements. It might be thought that the defender of MMR needs to show conclusively that the moral disagreements identified in DMR cannot be rationally resolved, or again that the moral objectivist must show conclusively that they can be. Neither is a reasonable expectation. Indeed, it is unclear what would count as conclusively arguing for either conclusion. The center of the debate concerns what plausibly may be expected. Adherents of MMR attempt to show why rational resolution is an unlikely prospect, while their objectivist critics try to show why to a large extent this is likely, or at least not unlikely.

Moral objectivists can allow that there are special cases in which moral disagreements cannot be rationally resolved, for example on account of vagueness or indeterminacy in the concepts involved. Their main claim is that ordinarily there is a rational basis for overcoming disagreements (not that people would actually come to agree). Objectivists maintain that, typically, at least one party in a moral disagreement accepts the moral judgment on account of some factual or logical mistake, and that revealing such mistakes would be sufficient to rationally resolve the disagreement. They suggest that whatever genuine moral disagreements there are usually can be resolved in this fashion. In addition, objectivists sometimes offer an analysis of why people make such mistakes. For example, people may be influenced by passion, prejudice, ideology, self-interest, and the like. In general, objectivists think, insofar as people set these influences aside, and are reasonable and well-informed, there is generally a basis for resolving their moral differences. However, though these claims are often made, it is another matter to establish empirically that self-interest is the source of disagreement, and it has been argued that there are considerable obstacles to doing this (see Seipel 2020a). (Objectivists might also say that at least some agreements about moral truths reflect the fact that, with respect to matters pertaining to these truths, people generally have been reasonable and well-informed.)

Proponents of MMR may allow that moral disagreements sometimes are rationally resolved. In particular, they may grant that this often happens when the parties to a moral dispute share a moral framework. The characteristic relativist contention is that a common moral framework is often lacking, especially in moral disagreements between one society and another, and that differences in moral frameworks usually cannot be explained simply by supposing that one society or the other is making factual or logical mistakes. These moral disagreements are ultimately rooted in fundamentally different moral orientations, and there is usually no reason to think these differences result from the fact that, in relevant respects, one side is less reasonable or well-informed than the other. They are faultless disagreements. This conclusion might rest on the observation that it is not evident that mistakes are at the root of these disagreement. But it might also depend on a theory, developed to explain such observations, that the frameworks are incommensurable: They do not have enough in common, in terms of either shared concepts or shared standards, to resolve their differences, and there is no impartial third standpoint, accessible to any reasonable and well-informed person, that could be invoked to resolve the conflict.

Various objectivist responses may be made to this argument. One is the Davidsonian approach, already considered, that precludes the possibility of incommensurable moral frameworks. Another response is that incommensurability does not preclude the possibility of rationally resolving differences between moral frameworks. For example, Alasdair MacIntyre (1988: ch. 18 and 1994) has argued that, in some circumstances, it is possible to realize, through an exercise in imagination, that a conflicting and incommensurable moral tradition is rationally superior to one’s own tradition. However, the most common objectivist response is to claim that some specific moral framework is rationally superior to all others. For example, it might be argued, following Kant, that pure practical reason implies a fundamental moral principle such as the Categorical Imperative (see Kant’s moral philosophy ), or it might be claimed, following Aristotle, that human nature is such that virtues such as courage, temperance, and justice are necessary for any plausible conception of a good life (see the sections on the human good and the function argument in the entry on Aristotle’s ethics, and the entry on virtue ethics ). If such an argument were sound, it might provide a compelling response to the relativist contention that conflicts between moral frameworks cannot be rationally resolved.

Proponents of MMR are unimpressed by these responses. They may say that the Davidsonian account cannot assure sufficient common ground to resolve conflicts between moral frameworks (or to ensure that there is really only one framework), and that MacIntyre’s approach is likely to work at best only in some cases. And they usually consider debates about the Kantian and Aristotelian arguments to be as difficult to resolve rationally as the conflicts between moral frameworks the relativists originally invoked. They may add that the fact that moral objectivists disagree among themselves about which objectivist theory is correct is further indication of the difficulty of resolving fundamental moral conflicts.

A rather different objectivist challenge is that the position of the proponent of MMR is inconsistent. The relativist argument is that we should reject moral objectivism because there is little prospect of rationally resolving fundamental moral disagreements. However, it may be pointed out, the relativist should acknowledge that there is no more prospect of rationally resolving disagreements about MMR . By parity of reasoning, he or she should grant that there is no objective truth concerning MMR .

To this familiar kind of objection, there are two equally familiar responses. One is to concede the objection and maintain that MMR is true and justified in some metaethical frameworks, but not others: It is not an objective truth that any reasonable and well-informed person has reason to accept. This may seem to concede a great deal, but for someone who is a relativist through and through, or at least is a relativist about metaethical claims, this would be the only option. The other response is to contest the claim that there is parity of reasoning in the two cases. This would require showing that the dispute about the irresolvability of moral disagreements (a metaethical debate) can be rationally resolved in a way that fundamental moral disagreements (substantive normative debates) themselves cannot. For example, the metaethical debate might be rationally resolved in favor of the relativist, while the substantive normative debates cannot be resolved.

Even if it were established that there are deep and widespread moral disagreements that cannot be rationally resolved, and that these disagreements are more significant than whatever agreements there may be, it would not immediately follow that MMR is correct. Other nonobjectivist conclusions might be drawn. In particular, opponents of objectivism might argue for moral skepticism, that we cannot know moral truths, or for a view that moral judgments lack truth-value (understood to imply a rejection of relative truth-value). Hence, proponents of MMR face two very different groups of critics: assorted kinds of moral objectivists and various sorts of moral nonobjectivists. The defender of MMR needs to establish that MMR is superior to all these positions, and this would require a comparative assessment of their respective advantages and disadvantages. It is beyond the scope of this article to consider the alternative positions (see the entries on moral cognitivism vs. non-cognitivism , moral anti-realism , moral epistemology , moral realism , and moral skepticism ). What can be considered are the challenges the proponent of MMR faces and what may be said in response to them. Some critics of MMR have raised questions about the coherence of the position (for example, Boghossian 2011 and 2017).

For example, it might be thought that MMR , with respect to truth-value, would have the result that a moral judgment such as “suicide is morally right” (S) could be both true and false—true when valid for one group and false when invalid for another. But this appears to be an untenable position: most people would grant that nothing can be both true and false. Of course, some persons could be justified in affirming S and other persons justified in denying it, since the two groups could have different evidence. But it is another matter to say S is both true and false.

A standard relativist response is to say that moral truth is relative in some sense. On this view, S is not true or false absolutely speaking, but it may be true-relative-to- X and false-relative-to- Y (where X and Y refer to the moral codes of different societies). This means that suicide is right for persons in a society governed by X , but it is not right for persons in a society governed by Y ; and, the relativist may contend, there is no inconsistency in this conjunction properly understood.

It might be objected that the notion of relative truth fails to capture the sense in which ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are normative terms about what ought to be as opposed to what is the case. The statement “suicide is morally right” is normative in this sense, but the statement “suicide is morally right for persons in a society governed by moral code X” is not normative, but descriptive: it tells us what persons who accept moral code X think, and as such it is something everyone could agree with, irrespective of their own moral code, if in fact this is what moral code X says. In response, it might be said that there are expressions of relativist moral statements that are normative. For instance, “suicide is morally right for us,” spoken by and to members of the group referred to by ‘us’, is not merely a description of what they believe: it tells them what they are morally permitted to do (in this sense, it is action-guiding).

Such relativist formulations may also give rise to a related and very common objection. Relativism often presents itself as an interpretation of moral disagreements: It is said to be the best explanation of rationally irresolvable or faultless moral disagreements. However, once moral truth is regarded as relative, the disagreements seem to disappear. For example, someone accepting X who affirms S is saying suicide is right for persons accepting X , while someone accepting Y who denies S is saying suicide is not right for persons accepting Y . It might well be that they are both correct and hence that they are not disagreeing with one another (rather as two people in different places might both be correct when one says the sun is shining and the other says it is not, or as two people in different countries may both be correct when one says something is illegal and the other says it is not). The relativist explanation dissolves the disagreement. But, then, why did it appear as a disagreement in the first place? An objectivist might say this is because people thinking this assume that moral truth is absolute rather than relative. If this were correct, the relativist could not maintain that MMR captures what people already believe. The contention would have to be that they should believe it, and the argument for relativism would have to be formulated in those terms. For example, the relativist might contend that MMR is the most plausible position to adopt insofar as moral judgments often give practically conflicting directives and neither judgment can be shown to be rationally superior to the other.

Another common objection, though probably more so outside philosophy than within it, is that MMR cannot account for the fact that some practices such as the holocaust in Germany or slavery in the United States are obviously objectively wrong. This point is usually expressed in a tone of outrage, often with the suggestion that relativists pose a threat to civilized society (or something of this sort). Proponents of MMR might respond that this simply begs the question, and in one sense they are right. However, this objection might reflect a more sophisticated epistemology, for example, that we have more reason to accept these objectivist intuitions than we have to accept any argument put forward in favor of MMR . This would bring us back to the arguments of the last section. Another relativist response would be to say that the practices in question, though widely accepted, were wrong according to the fundamental standards of the societies (for example, there were arguments against slavery presented in the United States prior to the Civil War). This would not show that the practices are objectively wrong, but it might mitigate the force of the critique. However, though this response may be plausible in some cases, it is not obvious that it always would be convincing.

This last response brings out the fact that a proponent of MMR needs a clear specification of that to which truth is relative. For example, if S is true-relative-to the moral code of a society, does this mean it is true-relative-to what people in the society think the moral code says or to what the fundamental standards of the moral code actually imply? These might not be the same. It is often supposed that truths can be undiscovered or that people can make mistakes about them. As just noted, a moral relativist could make sense of this by supposing that it is the fundamental standards of a moral code that are authoritative for people in a society that accepts that code. Hence, what is morally true-relative-to the moral code of a society is whatever the fundamental standards of the code would actually warrant. By this criterion, there could be moral truths that are unknown to people in the society that accepts the code, or these people could be mistaken in thinking something is a moral truth.

A similar point arises from the fact that it is sometimes thought to be an advantage of MMR that it maintains a substantial notion of intersubjective truth or justification: It avoids the defects of moral objectivism, on the one hand, and of moral skepticism and theories that disregard moral truth-value altogether, on the other hand, because it maintains that moral judgments do not have truth in an absolute sense, but they do have truth relative to the moral code of a society (and similarly for justification). This is thought to be an advantage because, notwithstanding the supposed difficulties with moral objectivism, morality is widely regarded as “not merely subjective,” and MMR can capture this. However, this purported advantage raises an important question for relativism: Why suppose moral judgments have truth-value relative to a society as opposed to no truth-value at all? If the relativist claims that a set of fundamental standards is authoritative for persons in a society, it may be asked why they have this authority. This question may arise in quite practical ways. For example, suppose a dissident challenges some of the fundamental standards of his or her society. Is this person necessarily wrong?

Various answers may be given to these questions. For example, it may be said that the standards that are authoritative in a society are those that reasonable and well-informed members of the society would generally accept. This might seem to provide a basis for normative authority. However, if this approach were taken, it may be asked why that authority rests only on reasonable and well-informed members of the society. Why not a wider group? Why not all reasonable and well-informed persons?

A different response would be to say that the standards that are authoritative for a society are the ones persons have agreed to follow as a result of some negotiation or bargaining process (as seen above, Harman has argued that we should understand some moral judgments in these terms). Once again, this might seem to lend those standards some authority. Still, it may be asked whether they really have authority or perhaps whether they have the right kind. For example, suppose the agreement had been reached in circumstances in which a few members of society held great power over the others (in the real world, the most likely scenario). Those with less power might have been prudent to make the agreement, but it is not obvious that such an agreement would create genuine normative authority—a point the dissident challenging the standards might well make. Moreover, if all moral values are understood in this way, how do we explain the authority of the contention that people should follow a set of values because they agreed to do so? Must there be a prior agreement to do what we agree to do?

A related objection concerns the specification of the society to which moral justification or truth are said to be relative. People typically belong to many different groups defined by various criteria: culture, religion, political territory, ethnicity, race, gender, etc. Moreover, while it is sometimes claimed that the values of a group defined by one of these criteria have authority for members of the group, such claims are often challenged. The specification of the relevant group is itself a morally significant question, and there appears to be no objective map of the world that displays its division into social groups to which the truth or justification of moral judgments are relative. A proponent of MMR needs a plausible way of identifying the group of persons to which moral truth or justification are relative.

Moreover, not only do people typically belong to more than one group, as defined by the aforementioned criteria, the values that are authoritative in each group a person belongs to may not always be the same. If I belong to a religion and a nationality, and their values concerning abortion are diametrically opposed, then which value is correct for me? This raises the question whether there is a basis for resolving the conflict consistent with MMR (the two groups might have conflicting fundamental standards) and whether in this circumstance MMR would entail that there is a genuine moral dilemma (meaning that abortion is both right and wrong for me). This point is not necessarily an objection, but a defender of MMR would have to confront these issues and develop a convincing position concerning them.

The fact that social groups are defined by different criteria, and that persons commonly belong to more than one social group, might be taken as a reason to move from relativism to a form of subjectivism. That is, instead of saying that the truth or justification of moral judgments is relative to a group, we should say it is relative to each individual (as noted above, relativism is sometimes defined to include both positions). This revision might defuse the issues just discussed, but it would abandon the notion of intersubjectivity with respect to truth or justification—what for many proponents of MMR is a chief advantage of the position. Moreover, a proponent of this subjectivist account would need to explain in what sense, if any, moral values have normative authority for a person as opposed to simply being accepted. The fact that we sometimes think our moral values have been mistaken is often thought to imply that we believe they have some authority that does not consist in the mere fact that we accept them.

Another set of concerns arises from purported facts about similarities among and interactions across different societies vis-à-vis morality. People in one society sometimes make moral judgments about people in another society on the basis of moral standards they take to be authoritative for both societies. In addition, conflicts between societies are sometimes resolved because one society changes its moral outlook and comes to share at least some of the moral values of the other society. More generally, sometimes people in one society think they learn from the moral values of another society: They come to believe that the moral values of another society are better in some respects than their own (previously accepted) values. The Mondrian image of a world divided into distinct societies, each with it own distinctive moral values, makes it difficult to account for these considerations. If this image is abandoned as unrealistic, and is replaced by one that acknowledges greater moral overlap and interaction among societies (recall the Pollock image), then the proponent of MMR needs to give a plausible account of these dynamics. This is related to the problem of authority raised earlier: These considerations suggest that people sometimes acknowledge moral authority that extends beyond their own society, and a relativist needs to show why this makes sense or why people are mistaken in this acknowledgement.

Discussions of moral relativism often assume (as mostly has been assumed here so far) that moral relativism is the correct account of all moral judgments or of none. But perhaps it is the correct account of some moral judgments but not others or, more vaguely, the best account of morality vis-à-vis these issues would acknowledge both relativist and objectivist elements. Such a mixed position might be motivated by some of the philosophical questions already raised (recall also the suggestion in the section on experimental philosophy that some people may be “meta-ethical pluralists”). On the empirical level, it might be thought that there are many substantial moral disagreements but also some striking moral agreements across different societies. On the metaethical plane, it might be supposed that, though many disagreements are not likely to be rationally resolved, other disagreements may be (and perhaps that the cross-cultural agreements we find have a rational basis). The first point would lead to a weaker form of DMR The second point, the more important one, would imply a modified form of MMR (see the suggestions in the last paragraph of section 4 ). This approach has attracted some support, interestingly, from both sides of the debate: relativists who have embraced an objective constraint, and (more commonly) objectivists who have allowed some relativist dimensions. Here are some prominent examples of these mixed metaethical outlooks.

David Copp (1995) maintains that it is true that something is morally wrong only if it is wrong in relation to the justified moral code of some society, and a code is justified in a society only if the society would be rationally required to select it. Since which code it would be rationally required to select depends in part on the non-moral values of the society, and since these values differ from one society to another, something may be morally wrong for one society but not for another. Copp calls this position a form of moral relativism. However, he believes this relativism is significantly mitigated by the fact that which code a society is rationally required to select also depends on the basic needs of the society. Copp thinks all societies have the same basic needs. For example, every society has a need to maintain its population and system of cooperation from one generation to the next. Moreover, since meeting these basic needs is the most fundamental factor in determining the rationality of selecting a code, Copp thinks the content of all justified moral codes will tend to be quite similar. For instance, any such code will require that persons’s basic needs for such things as physical survival, self-respect and friendship be promoted (these are said to be necessary for minimal rational agency). The theory is mixed insofar as the rationality of selecting a code depends partly on common features of human nature (basic needs) and partly on diverse features of different societies (values). Whether or not justified moral codes (and hence moral truths) would tend to be substantially similar, despite differences, as Copp argues, would depend on both the claim that all societies have the same basic needs and the claim that these needs are much more important than other values in determining which moral code it is rational for a society to select.

Wong (1996) defended a partly similar position, though one intended to allow for greater diversity in correct moral codes. He argued that more than one morality may be true, but there are limits on which moralities are true. The first point is a form of metaethical relativism: It says one morality may be true for one society and a conflicting morality may be true for another society. Hence, there is no one objectively correct morality for all societies. The second point, however, is a concession to moral objectivism. It acknowledges that objective factors concerning human nature and the human situation should determine whether or not, or to what extent, a given morality could be one of the true ones. The mere fact that a morality is accepted by a society does not guarantee that it has normative authority in that society. For example, given our biological and psychological make-up, not just anything could count as a good way of life. Again, given that most persons are somewhat self-interested and that society requires some measure of cooperation, any plausible morality will include a value of reciprocity (good in return for good on some proportional basis). Since these objective limitations are quite broad, they are insufficient in themselves to establish a specific and detailed morality: Many particular moralities are consistent with them, and the choice among these moralities must be determined by the cultures of different societies.

Wong has developed this approach at length in more recent work (2006). His “pluralistic relativism” continues to emphasize that there are universal constraints on what could be a true morality. The constraints are based on a naturalistic understanding of human nature and the circumstances of human life. For Wong, given a variety of human needs and the depth of self-interest, morality’s function is to promote both social co-operation and individual flourishing. In addition, morality requires that persons have both effective agency and effective identity, and these can only be fostered in personal contexts such as the family. Hence, the impersonal perspective must be limited by the personal perspective. Any true morality would have to respect requirements such as these.

Nonetheless, according to Wong, the universal constraints are sufficiently open-ended that there is more than one way to respect them. Hence, there can be more than one true morality. This is pluralistic relativism. For Wong, the different true moralities need not be, and typically are not, completely different from one another. In fact, they often share some values (such as individual rights and social utility), but assign them different priorities.

Wong presents pluralistic relativism as the best explanation of what he calls “moral ambivalence,” the phenomenon of morally disagreeing with someone while recognizing that the person is still reasonable in making the conflicting judgment—to the point that one’s confidence in being uniquely right is shaken. The extent to which moral ambivalence is widespread is an empirical question (see section 3 ). In any case, Wong presents a sustained and detailed argument that an empirically-based understanding of the nature and conditions of human life both limits and underdetermines what a true morality could be. In many respects, his position is the most sophisticated form of relativism developed to date, and it has the resources to confront a number of the issues raised in the last section (for some critical responses to Wong and his replies, see Xiao and Huang 2014; for more recent discussion, see Li 2019, Vicente and Arrieta 2016, and Wong 2020).

A somewhat similar mixed position has been advanced, though more tentatively, by Foot (2002a and 2002b; see also Scanlon 1995 and 1998: ch. 8). She argued that there are conceptual limitations on what could count as a moral code (as seen in section 4 ), and that there are common features of human nature that set limits on what a good life could be. For these reasons, there are some objective moral truths—for example, that the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews was morally wrong. However, Foot maintained, these considerations do not ensure that all moral disagreements can be rationally resolved. Hence, in some cases, a moral judgment may be true by reference to the standards of one society and false by reference to the standards of another society—but neither true nor false in any absolute sense (just as we might say with respect to standards of beauty).

Foot came to this mixed view from the direction of objectivism (in the form of a virtue theory), and it might be contended by some objectivists that she has conceded too much. Since there are objective criteria, what appear as rationally irresolvable disagreements might be resolvable through greater understanding of human nature. Or the objective criteria might establish that in some limited cases it is an objective moral truth that conflicting moral practices are both morally permissible. In view of such considerations, objectivists might argue, it is not necessary to have recourse to the otherwise problematic notion of relative moral truth.

A position related to Foot’s has been advanced by Martha Nussbaum (1993). With explicit reference to Aristotle, she argued that there is one objectively correct understanding of the human good, and that this understanding provides a basis for criticizing the moral traditions of different societies. The specifics of this account are explained by a set of experiences or concerns, said to be common to all human beings and societies, such as fear, bodily appetite, distribution of resources, management of personal property, etc. Corresponding to each of these is a conception of living well, a virtue, namely the familiar Aristotelian virtues such as courage, moderation, justice, and generosity. Nussbaum acknowledged that there are disagreements about these virtues, and she raised an obvious relativist objection herself: Even if the experiences are universal, does human nature establish that there is one objectively correct way of living well with respect to each of these areas? In response, Nussbaum conceded that sometimes there may be more than one objectively correct conception of these virtues and that the specification of the conception may depend on the practices of a particular community.

As with Foot, Nussbaum came to this mixed position from the objectivist side of the debate. Some moral objectivists may think she has given up too much, and for a related reason many moral relativists may believe she has established rather little. For example, bodily appetites are indeed universal experiences, but there has been a wide range of responses to these—for example, across a spectrum from asceticism to hedonism. This appears to be one of the central areas of moral disagreement. In order to maintain her objectivist credentials, Nussbaum needs to show that human nature substantially constrains which of these responses could be morally appropriate. Some objectivists may say she has not shown this, but could, while relativists may doubt she could show it.

Mixed positions along the lines of those just discussed suppose that morality is objective in some respects, on account of some features of human nature, and relative in other respects. For the respects in which morality is relative, it is up to particular societies or individuals to determine which moral values to embrace. Hence, the authority of morality depends partly on objective factors and partly on the decisions of groups or individuals. Insofar as this is true, such mixed positions need to say something about the basis for these decisions and how conflicts are to be resolved (for example, when individuals dissent from groups or when people belong to different groups with conflicting values). The objective features of mixed positions may help resolve these issues, or may limit their import, but at the point where these features give out there remain some of the standard concerns about relativism (such as those raised in the last section).

Another approach might be construed as a mixed position, though it was not put forward in these terms. Isaiah Berlin (1998) argued that, though some moral values are universal, there are also many objective values that conflict and are not commensurable with one another. He called his position pluralism and rejected the label ‘relativism’ (see the entry on Isaiah Berlin ). But if incommensurability implies that these conflicts cannot be rationally resolved, then it might suggest a concession to relativism.

Against such a position, an objectivist may ask why we should think objective goods are incommensurable: If X and Y are both objectively good, then why not say that the statement ‘ X is better than Y ’ (or a more restrictive comparative statement specifying respects or circumstances) is objectively true or false, even if this is difficult to know? Berlin’s view was that there are many examples of conflicting goods—for example, justice and mercy, or liberty and equality—where it is implausible to suppose they are commensurable.

Finally, it should also be noted that a rather different kind of mixed position was proposed by Bernard Williams (1981 and 1985: ch. 9). He rejected what he called “strict relational relativism,” that ethical conceptions have validity only relative to a society. But he endorsed another form of relativism. This was explained by reference to a distinction between a “notional confrontation,” where a divergent outlook is known but not a real option for us, and a “real confrontation,” where a divergent outlook is a real option for us—something we might embrace without losing our grip on reality. Williams’s “relativism of distance” says ethical appraisals are appropriate in real confrontations, but not in notional ones. For example, we could never embrace the outlook of a medieval samurai: Since this is a notional confrontation, it would be inappropriate to describe this outlook as just or unjust. This is the sense in which relativism is correct. But in real confrontations, relativism unhelpfully discourages the evaluation of another outlook that is a genuine option for us (for a development of Williams’s position by reference to the recent experimental literature, see Gaitán and Viciana 2018).

Williams was a strong critic of most forms of moral objectivism, yet he also criticized many of the nonobjectivist alternatives to objectivism. His outlook is not easily classified in terms of standard metaethical positions. With respect to his relativism of distance, it may be wondered why appraisals are inappropriate in notional confrontations: Why should the fact that an outlook is not a real option preclude us from thinking it is just or unjust? On the other hand, in real confrontations Williams thought the language of appraisal was appropriate, but he also thought these confrontations could involve rationally irresolvable disagreements. Though Williams rejects strict relational relativism, objectivists may argue that his position suffers from defects as serious as those that attend MMR . If the confrontations are real because the two outlooks have something in common, objectivists might ask, could this not provide a basis for resolving these disagreements?

The central theme in mixed positions is that neither relativism nor objectivism is wholly correct: At least in the terms in which they are often expressed, these alternatives are subject to serious objections, and yet they are motivated by genuine concerns. It might seem that a mixed position could be developed that would give us the best of both worlds (there are a number of other proposals along these lines; for example see Hampshire 1983 and 1989). However, an implication of most mixed positions (this does not apply to Williams) seems to be that, in some respect, some moral judgments are objectively true (or justified), while others have only relative truth (or justification). This should not be confused with the claim that an action may be right in some circumstances but not others. For example, a consequentialist view that polygamy is right in one society and wrong in another because it has good consequences in the first society and bad consequences in the second would not be a mixed position because the judgments “Polygamy is right in circumstances A ” and “Polygamy is wrong in circumstances B ” could both be true in an absolute sense. By contrast, a mixed position might say that “Polygamy is right” is true relative to one society and false relative to another (where the two societies differ, not necessarily in circumstances, but in fundamental values), while other moral judgments have absolute truth-value. This is a rather disunified conception of morality, and it invites many questions. A proponent of a mixed view would have to show that it is an accurate portrayal of our moral practices, or that it is a plausible proposal for reforming them.

Relativism is sometimes associated with a normative position, usually pertaining to how people ought to regard or behave towards those with whom they morally disagree. The most prominent normative position in this connection concerns tolerance. In recent years, the idea that we should be tolerant has been increasingly accepted in some circles. At the same time, others have challenged this idea, and the philosophical understanding and justification of tolerance has become less obvious (see Heyd 1996 and the entry on toleration ). The question here is whether moral relativism has something to contribute to these discussions, in particular, whether DMR or MMR provide support for tolerance (for discussion, see Graham 1996, Harrison 1976, Ivanhoe 2009, Kim and Wreen 2003, Prinz 2007: pp. 207–13 and Wong 1984: ch. 12). In this context, tolerance does not ordinarily mean indifference or absence of disapproval: It means having a policy of not interfering with the actions of persons that are based on moral judgments we reject, when the disagreement is not or cannot be rationally resolved. The context of discussion is often, but not always, moral disagreements between two societies. Does moral relativism provide support for tolerance in this sense?

Though many people seem to think it does, philosophers often resist supposing that there is a philosophical connection between accepting a metaethical position and reaching a practical conclusion (however, see Gillespie 2016). Hence, it is often thought that, though DMR may provide the occasion for tolerance, but it could not imply that tolerance is morally obligatory or even permissible. DMR simply tells us there are moral disagreements. Recognition of this fact, by itself, entails nothing about how we should act towards those with whom we disagree. MMR fares no better. For one thing, MMR cannot very well imply that it is an objective moral truth that we should be tolerant: MMR denies that there are such truths. (A mixed position could contend that tolerance is the only objective moral truth, all others being relative; but it would have to be shown that this is more than an ad hoc maneuver.) It might be said that MMR implies that tolerance is a relative truth. However, even this is problematic. According to MMR , understood to concern truth, the truth-value of statements may vary from society to society. Hence, the statement, “people ought to be tolerant” ( T ), may be true in some societies and false in others. MMR by itself does not entail that T is true in any society, and may in fact have the result that T is false in some societies (a similar point may be made with respect to justification).

Some objectivists may add that in some cases we should be tolerant of those with whom we morally disagree, but that only objectivists can establish this as an objective moral truth (for example, by drawing on arguments in the liberal tradition from Locke or Mill). To the objection that moral objectivism implies intolerance (or imperialism), objectivists typically contend that the fact that we regard a society as morally wrong in some respect does not entail that we should interfere with it.

Nonetheless, the thought persists among some relativists that there is a philosophically significant connection between relativism and tolerance. Perhaps the conjunction of MMR and an ethical principle could give us a reason for tolerance we would not have on the basis of the ethical principle alone. Such an approach has been proposed by Wong (1984: ch. 12). The principle is, roughly speaking, that we should not interfere with people unless we could justify this interference to them (if they were rational and well-informed in relevant respects). Wong called this “the justification principle.” Of course, it is already a tolerance principle of sorts. The idea is that it gains broader scope if MMR is correct. Let us suppose the statement that there is an individual right to freedom of speech is true and justified for our society, but is false and unjustified in another society in which the press is restricted for the good of the community. In this case, given MMR , our society might not be able to justify interference to the restrictive society concerning freedom of the press. Any justification we could give would appeal to values that are authoritative for us, not them, and no appeal to logic or facts alone would give them a reason to accept our justification.

If the justification principle were widely accepted, this argument might explain why some people have had good reason to think there is a connection between relativism and tolerance. But there is a question about whether the position is stable. Wong derived the justification principle from Kant, and Kant rejected MMR . If we were to accept MMR , would we still have reason to accept the justification principle? Wong thought we might, perhaps on the basis of considerations quite independent of Kant. In any case, this argument would only show that MMR plays a role in an argument for tolerance that is relevant to people in a society that accepted the justification principle. The argument does not establish that there is a general connection between relativism and tolerance. Nor does it undermine the contention that MMR may have the result that T is true in some societies and false in others.

In his more recent defense of pluralistic relativism (2006), Wong has argued that, since some serious moral disagreements are inevitable, any adequate morality will include the value of what he calls accommodation. This involves a commitment to peaceful and non-coercive relationships with persons with whom we disagree. Accommodation appears to be related to tolerance, but Wong argues for more than this: we should also try to learn from others, compromise with them, preserve relationships with them, etc. Wong’s defense of accommodation is immune to the objection that relativism cannot be a basis for such a universal value because his defense purports to be based on considerations that any adequate morality should recognize. However, for this reason, though it presupposes the considerations supporting the relativist dimension of his position (there is no single true morality), it argues from the non-relativist dimension (there are universal constraints any morality should accept, in particular, that one function of morality is to promote social co-operation). Hence, it is not strictly speaking an argument from relativism to accommodation.

As was noted in section 3 , aside from the philosophical question whether or not some form of moral relativism provides a reason for attitudes such as tolerance, there is the psychological question whether or not people who accept relativism are more likely to be tolerant. As was seen, there is some evidence that relativists are more tolerant than objectivists, and it has been claimed that, even if relativism does not justify tolerance, it would be a positive feature of relativism that acceptance of it makes people more tolerant (see Prinz 2007: 208). Of course, this judgment presupposes that, in some sense, it is good to be tolerant.

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Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

Ethical Relativism

by James R. Beebe

Dept. of Philosophy

University at Buffalo

Copyright ã 2003

Outline of Essay :

I. Introduction

II. Arguments in Favor of Conventional Ethical Relativism

A. Cultural Diversity

B. Avoiding Ethnocentrism

C. Culturally Conditioned Values

D. Lack of Knowledge

III. Arguments Against Conventional Ethical Relativism

A. A Universal Conscience

B. Conflicting Cultures

C. Create Your Own Culture

D. Reformers

E. Culture vs. Culture

F. Consistency

G. Diversity and Dependency

IV. Arguments in Favor of Subjective Ethical Relativism

A. Immunity to Some Earlier Objections

B. The Importance of Individual Liberty

C. Tolerance

D. Lack of Entitlement

E. Lack of Knowledge

V. Arguments Against Subjective Ethical Relativism

A. Violent Lifestyles

B. Judging Other People

C. Deciding for Yourself

D. The Psychology of Belief

E. The Truth of Relativism

F. Living Together in Peace

G. Moral Absolutes in Relativism

H. You Can’t Live It Out

VI. Conclusion

            Although most people are unfamiliar with the term ‘ethical relativism,’ almost everyone has probably encountered relativist slogans like the following:

(1) What’s right for you may not be what’s right for me.

(2) What’s right for my culture won’t necessarily be what’s right for your culture.

(3) There are no absolute moral truths.

(4) No moral principles are true for all people at all times and in all places.

(5) No ethical principle is any better than any other.

(6) All ethical opinions, lifestyles and worldviews are equally right.

It is possible to be a relativist either about all truths whatsoever or only about truths in certain domains—e.g., truths in ethics or religion.  Though some people claim to be relativists about all truths across the board, it is more common today for people to be relativists about ethics and to be absolutists about truths in other areas, like science and mathematics.  Because ethical relativism is the most common variety of relativism, it will be the focus of our discussion in this essay. 

            There are two basic kinds of ethical relativism: subjective ethical relativism and conventional (or cultural) ethical relativism.  The two kinds of relativism are defined as follows:

Subjective ethical relativism = df the view that:

(i) there are no absolute or universally true moral principles; and

(ii) the truth of moral principles is relative to individuals.

Conventional ethical relativism = df the view that:

(ii) the truth of moral principles is relative to cultures.

Notice that both views deny that there are any absolute or objective ethical truths.  Let’s call the view that there are absolute or universally correct moral principles ‘ moral absolutism .’  The only difference between two relativist views is that they disagree about that to which ethical truths or principles are supposed to be relative.  Each version of ethical relativism, then, is composed of both a negative and a positive element—the negative claim that there are no absolute or objective ethical truths and a positive account of that to which ethical truths are relative. 

            According to subjective ethical relativism (‘subjective relativism,’ for short), whatever you think is right for you really is right for you, and no one can tell you any differently.  What is right for you is completely up to you to decide.  You are sovereign over the principles that can tell you how to live your life. 

            According to conventional ethical relativism (‘conventional relativism,’ for short), what is right for you as an individual depends upon what your culture thinks is right for you.  What your culture says is right for you really is right for you.  The culture or society is the highest authority about what is right for individuals living within that society.  On this view, an individual’s will is subordinated to the will of the cultural majority. 

            In the next two sections we will consider arguments for and against conventional ethical relativism.  We will put off discussing subjective ethical relativism until after we have finished discussing conventional relativism.

            The argument from cultural diversity seeks to support conventional relativism by appealing to empirical facts about the wide variety of cultural practices around the globe.  The argument goes like this: Centuries ago, when cultures were relatively isolated and little information was known about distant lands, it might have been reasonable to think that the traditions and practices of one’s own culture represented the only right way of doing things.  But now we know that each of our conventions and norms reflects only one out of an endless number of possibilities and that other cultures have opted for other ways of doing things.  In this modern age of worldwide communication and information it is no longer reasonable to view the practices of one’s own culture as being the only correct cultural practices.

            Louis Pojman (1999, p. 27) describes some of the facts about cultural diversity that are often cited in support of this position:

For instance, Eskimos allow their elderly to die by starvation, whereas we believe that this is morally wrong.  The Spartans of ancient Greece and the Dobu of New Guinea believe that stealing is morally right; but we believe it is wrong.  Many cultures, past and present, have practiced or still practice infanticide.  A tribe in East Africa once threw deformed infants to the hippopotamus, but our society condemns such acts.  Sexual practices vary over time and clime.  Some cultures permit homosexual behavior, whereas others condemn it.  Some cultures, including Moslem societies, practice polygamy, while Christian cultures view it as immoral.  Anthropologist Ruth Benedict describes a tribe in Melanesia that views cooperation and kindness as vices, and anthropologist Colin Turnbull has documented that the Ik in northern Uganda have no sense of duty toward their children or parents.  There are societies that make it a duty for children to kill their aging parents (sometimes by strangling). 

According to the present argument, to think that your culture’s way of doing things is the only right way or the best way to do things reflects an extreme ignorance of the wide cultural diversity that has always existed in the world.  The anthropological study of foreign lands has (or ought to have) opened our eyes and set us free from any closed-minded adherence to the parochial standards of our own culture.  Faced with the tremendous cultural diversity the world offers, it is simply not reasonable to think that one set of cultural practices can be the one and only right set.  Hence, we must conclude that all cultural practices are equally valid.

            The first argument in favor of conventional relativism uses facts about cultural diversity to argue against moral absolutism.  The second argument claims that there is something intrinsically wrong with the view of moral absolutism itself.  Moral absolutism implies that some cultures are better, ethically speaking, than others.  Conventional relativists, however, argue that such a claim is ethnocentric.  Ethnocentrism , roughly, is judging another culture through the eyes of your own culture and not trying to see things from their perspective.  This almost inevitably leads to thinking that your culture is superior to others.  Most people today agree that ethnocentrism belongs in the same category with racism, sexism and other unacceptable forms of discrimination.  To be racist is to think that, simply because someone belongs to a different ethnic group, that person is inferior.  To be sexist is to think that, simply because someone is a member of the opposite sex, that person is inferior.  All forms of bigotry and prejudice involve judging other people solely on the basis of their group membership.  Ethnocentrism is not any different.  Instead of looking down on other races or sexes, the ethnocentric person looks down on and devalues other cultures. 

            Conventional relativists claim that their position—unlike moral absolutism—is not ethnocentric.  Because conventional relativists maintain that all cultures are equally valid and that no culture is any better than any other, they claim their position avoids any kind of ethnocentrism.  Because ethnocentrism is a pernicious form of discrimination, the apparent fact that conventional relativism avoids it and moral absolutism seems to fall into it is a reason for choosing conventional relativism over moral absolutism. 

 C. Culturally Conditioned Values

            The third argument for conventional relativism begins by focusing on the source of our values and beliefs about morality.  Think about how people have acquired most of their views about what is right and wrong.  From infancy our parents and teachers have sought to instill within us the values of our society.  Friends, books, television, movies, and sometimes priests or preachers have also contributed to helping us internalize the values of the society around us.  Children in America today grow up thinking that women and minorities deserve the same educational and professional opportunities as white men.  One hundred years ago, children in America grew up with different views because those around them impressed upon them a different set of values.  Most women from the nineteenth-century did not believe that women should have the same educational and professional opportunities as men.  It wasn’t just nineteenth-century men who thought that.  Because the women of a century or more ago were surrounded by a culture that did not place a high value on the capacities of women, most of them simply internalized the values of their society and accepted them as true.  It is only because women today grow up in a different cultural milieu that they find themselves with different views about the equality of the sexes.  We are conditioned by our cultures to have the ethical values and beliefs that we do.

            If we were to try to make judgments about the rightness or wrongness of the practices of some other culture, our thoughts would inevitably reflect the beliefs and values of our own culture.  If culture A ’s practices are different from culture B ’s, how is a person from culture A going to assess the practices of culture B ?  If that person were to rely upon the standards of culture A , the practices of culture B would obviously be viewed as wrong because they deviate from what culture A ’s standards say are right.  Of course, if you were to ask someone from culture B about culture A , we would get the same result in the opposite direction. 

            If we were somehow able to throw off all of the cultural baggage we have inherited from our social environments and to break free from all of the cultural conditioning that has shaped our minds, our emotions and our personalities, we might then be able to formulate a completely neutral and objective assessment of some other culture.  However, conventional relativists claim, this is not a realistic human possibility.  We can never get beyond the cultural conditioning that has shaped us and our views of morality.  Therefore, any time we try to sit in judgment on other cultures, we’re going to be just like the hypothetical people from culture A and culture B above: our judgments will simply reflect the values of our own societies.  Since this is the fundamental human condition, there is no reason to think that the judgments any person makes about some other culture will have any objective validity or truth.  Such judgments will always be subjective and culturally conditioned.

            It is as if we all are wearing tinted glasses, the particular tint of your glasses being a function of your upbringing and cultural background.  People from different cultures have glasses that are tinted different colors from ours.  Consequently, their view of reality will be different.  The catch is this: No one can take off their glasses and see reality as it really is in itself.  No one can view truth or reality, except through the distorting lenses of their own cultural biases. 

            Conventional relativists claim that those who believe in moral absolutes are simply blind to the cultural influences that have shaped their ethical opinions.  Absolutists think they can view reality as it is in itself, when in fact they can only see a prejudiced and subjective view of reality. 

            Since we are incapable of freeing ourselves from the cultural influences that have shaped our ethical views, what kinds of judgments should we form about other cultures?  According to conventional relativism, we should stop judging other cultures altogether.  We should stop pretending that our ethical judgments and opinions reflect anything more than the contingent, historical forces that have shaped our lives. 

 D. Lack of Knowledge

            The argument from lack of knowledge makes explicit a theme that is probably implicit in some of the earlier arguments for conventional relativism.  According to this argument, if there is some absolute or objective fact about which cultural practices are the right ones, we simply have no way of discovering what this fact is.  Even if we wanted to believe in moral absolutism, we would be faced with the daunting—and perhaps unanswerable—question, “How can we tell for certain that these cultural practices but not those are morally correct?”  Where would we go to obtain an answer to this question?  Some people suggest that certain sacred texts contain the answers we seek.  But the question that arises for these people is, “How can we tell for certain that this sacred text but not that one contains the absolute truth?”  How do we know that any sacred text will tell us the truth?  Once again the conventional relativist will point out that people raised to believe in one sacred text will think that theirs contains the truth, but people raised to believe in another sacred text will think that theirs is the only true sacred text. 

            For those who do not want to bring religion into the debate, the question is equally challenging.  There are just as many different secular opinions about what is right or wrong as there are religious opinions.  In science we can rely upon experimental methods and empirical observations to resolve differences of opinion.  But what can we use to resolve ethical disagreements?  There do not seem to be any experiments we can run or empirical observations we can make that could show some ethical judgments or principles to be the right ones.  In ethics there seems to be no way to prove some answers right and other answers wrong. 

            Since none of us seems to have any privileged access to the absolute truth about morality, conventional relativists urge us to stop treating our own ethical opinions as infallible or indubitable.  Every culture has its own view of morality.  Since we have no way to prove that some views are better than others, we should simply treat them all as being equally valid or correct.

            Some people respond to the conventional relativist’s arguments—particularly the culturally conditioned values argument—by claiming that all people have an innate ability to know what is right and wrong.  This source of this inborn ability, they say, is your conscience.  Your conscience tells you what the right thing to do is, and it’s the thing that makes you feel bad when you do something you know is wrong.  Because everyone has a conscience, moral absolutists say, we can rise above the cultural conditioning we have received from our social environments.  Contrary to what conventional relativists maintain, we can take off our colored glasses.  Our conscience shows us the truth about morality—not what our culture says is the truth, but the truth itself. 

            Mark Twain’s portrait of Huckleberry Finn provides a compelling counterexample to this line of argument.  Huck is helping his slave friend Jim run away from Miss Watson, Jim’s owner.  The two of them are taking a raft down the Mississippi River to a place where Jim will be legally free.  Huck says:

Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom.  Well I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he was most free—and who was to blame for it?  Why, me .  I couldn’t get that out of my conscience, no how nor no way.... It hadn’t ever come home to me, before, what this thing was that I was doing.  But now it did; and it stayed with me, and scorched me more and more.  I tried to make out to myself that I warn’t to blame, because I didn’t run Jim off from his rightful owner; but it warn’t no use, conscience up and say, every time: “But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and told somebody.”  That was so—I couldn’t get around that, no way.  That was where it pinched.  Conscience says to me: “What had poor Miss Watson done to you, that you could see her [racial epithet] go off right under your eyes and never say one single word?  What did that poor old woman do to you, that you could treat her so mean?...”  I got to feeling so mean and miserable I most wished I was dead.  (Quoted in Bennett 1997, pp. 23-24)

Jim tells Huck that he plans to work hard and save enough money to buy his wife and children out of slavery.  He goes on to say that, if he is unable to save enough money to buy them, he will steal them.  Huck is horrified at hearing this:

Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking.  Here was this [racial epithet] which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-flooted and saying he would steal his children—children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t ever done me no harm. 

I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him.  My conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I says to it: “Let up on me—it ain’t too late, yet—I’ll paddle ashore at first light, and tell.”  I felt easy, and happy, and light as a feather, right off.  All my troubles was gone.  (Quoted in Bennett 1997, p. 24)

When Huck gets the chance, he sets off toward shore in a canoe, telling Jim he is simply going to look around.  In reality, he plans to turn Jim in. 

As I shoved off, [Jim] says: “Pooty soon I’ll be a-shout’n for joy, en I’ll say, it’s all on accounts o’ Huck I’s a free man...  Jim won’t ever forgit you, Huck; you’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de only fren’ old Jim’s got now.”

I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me.  I went along slow then, and I warn’t right down certain whether I was glad I started or whether I warn’t.  When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:

“Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on’y white genlman dat ever kep’ his promise to ole Jim.”  Well, I just felt sick.  But I says, I got to do it—I can’t get out of it.  (Quoted in Bennett 1997, p. 25)

While ashore, Huck runs into two white men searching for runaway slaves.  They ask Huck whether the man on his raft is white or black.  Huck tells us:

I didn’t answer up prompt.  I tried to, but the words wouldn’t come.  I tried, for a second or two, to brace up and out with it, but I warn’t man enough—hadn’t the spunk of a rabbit.  I see I was weakening; so I just give up trying, and up and says: “He’s white.”  (Quoted in Bennett 1997, p. 25)

            Huck’s conscience was telling him that the right thing to do was to turn Jim in.  Jim was the property of Miss Watson, and his children were the property of someone else.  This “stolen” property needed to be returned to its rightful owner.  In Huck’s mind, he didn’t have the moral fiber, the courage, or the strength of will to do what was right.  He does not turn Jim in, but he does not think that he has done the right thing.  He despises himself for his weakness, and his conscience tells him that he is a morally despicable person. 

            We see that Huck’s conscience is not something that rises above the cultural conditioning he has received throughout his life.  Instead, it merely reflects the values of the slave-owning society he grew up in.  In response to the conventional relativist’s culturally conditioned values argument, some moral absolutists want to argue that only part of us is subject to cultural conditioning.  There is, they claim, another part of us that is immune to cultural conditioning—a part that can really tap into the absolute truth about morality without reflecting the contingent values of our society.  Twain’s very believable description of Huck suggests that cultural conditioning may very well extend so deeply into our psyche that there is no part of us that is left unaffected.  Even our consciences appear to be shaped by the values of our society.  Thus, it seems that this first argument against conventional relativism does not succeed. 

 B. Conflicting Cultures

            Consider the following case: Lacey is both a feminist and a Roman Catholic.  (This case is a modified version of Pojman’s (1997, p. 36) case of Mary, who is a U.S. citizen and a Roman Catholic.)  In her law practice, she specializes in defending the rights of women.  Most of the time, her commitments to feminism and Catholicism do not conflict with each other.  Her religion views women as being created in the image of God and as having an intrinsic value that should not be violated.  Consequently, Catholicism condemns most of the same abuses and injustices suffered by women that feminism condemns.  However, there is one obvious issue where Lacey’s joint commitments conflict: abortion.  According to the feminist movement, abortion is morally permissible.  According to Catholicism, however, abortion is not morally permissible. 

            Conventional relativism claims that what is right for you as an individual is determined by the culture you belong to.  Lacey, however, belongs to more than one culture, and the values of the two cultures conflict.  So, is abortion morally permissible for Lacey or not?  Which culture takes precedence over the other?  Which one should she listen to? 

            Some students think that Lacey should listen to the Catholic church more than to the feminist movement.  But why?  If you find yourself belonging to one religious culture and one secular culture, why should the religious culture take priority?  Simply because it is a religious culture?  That doesn’t seem like much of a reason.  And what do you do if you belong to two secular cultures whose views conflict?  How do you decide which one to follow?

            Before offering an answer to these questions, I want to present another case, due to Pojman (1997, p. 36): John is a college student.  He belongs to a fraternity that is racist in both its creed and its practices.  However, John is also a member of the larger university community, and the university is officially non-racist in its policies and procedures.  The university, it turns out, is located in a town that is overwhelmingly racist.  Because this is John’s sixth year of college (he’s had some trouble with calculus), John has been living, working, shopping, and paying taxes in this town for quite some time.  He is, thus, very much an integral part of his community.  Of course, this town is located in a nation that is officially non-racist in its policies.  So, is racism right or wrong for John?

            Pojman (1997, p. 36) writes,

As a member of a racist university fraternity, KKK, John has no obligation to treat his fellow Black students as an equal, but as a member of the university community (which accepts the principle of equal rights), he does have the obligation; but as a member of the surrounding community (which [rejects] the principle of equal rights), he again has no such obligation; but then again, as a member of the nation at large (which accepts the principle), he is obligated to treat his fellow students with respect. 

Conventional relativism says that what is right for John depends upon what his culture says is right.  But which of the overlapping and conflicting cultures that he belongs to should be listen to? 

            Some students think that the nation is the most important culture John belongs to and that, therefore, he should not be racist.  But what if John identifies more with his fraternity than he does with his country?  Suppose that members of his fraternity believe the nation has gone downhill ever since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and that it is their sworn duty to combat civil rights for minorities wherever they can.  It is difficult to see how, in such a case, the culture that defines what is right for John should be the nation when he has rejected the beliefs, principles and practices of that nation. 

            Moreover, opting for the nation as the relevant culture for John seems completely arbitrary.  Conventional relativism itself does not say anything about nations, as opposed to smaller cultures.  John could just as well identify with white people worldwide or college students worldwide or people in Western industrialized nations or even with humanity itself.  Why should national affiliation trump all others? 

            The most tempting solution to the dilemmas facing Lacey and John is one that conventional relativists cannot accept.  It is natural to think that the decision about which culture to identify with should be left up to Lacey and John.  They should each decide for themselves which culture’s values will be the ones that determine what is right and wrong for them.  However, this way out of the dilemma is not open to the conventional relativist.  It is subjective relativism that claims that morality is relative to individuals and that individuals can decide what is right and wrong for them.  But conventional relativism says that it is cultures—not individuals—that decide.  A conventional relativist who says that Lacey and John can decide for themselves what is right for them would be giving up on conventional relativism and adopting subjective relativism instead.  Is there a solution to this dilemma that does not require abandoning conventional relativism?  It is difficult to see what such a solution could be. 

            Conventional relativism appears to work fairly well when we are considering a culture other than our own, especially when that culture meets the following conditions:

(a) The culture is non-Western and non-industrialized.

(b) The culture would be described by ethnocentric Westerners as “primitive.” 

(c) The culture is monolithic or homogeneous, meaning that there is (or at least appears to outsiders to be) only one uniform social structure that defines the culture’s social relations.

Condition (c) is simply another way of saying that the culture is not pluralistic.  In other words, it does not contain a variety of overlapping and sometimes conflicting cultures that (as in the Lacey and John cases) cause problems for conventional relativism.  I doubt that “primitive” cultures are ever as uniform or homogeneous on the inside as they appear to Western observers who have only limited and superficial exposure to them.  But even if Western stereotypes of these cultures were accurate, the fact remains that conventional relativism could not be made to work very well when applied to an obviously pluralistic and modern society like our own.  Each of us (like Lacey and John) belongs to many different subcultures, and this sometimes results in conflict.  It seems much more plausible to say that we must each, as individuals, decide what is right for ourselves than to say that “our culture” (whatever that is) decides what is right for us.  In short, subjective relativism seems like it might work better in America than conventional relativism. 

 C. Create Your Own Culture

            Thinking about the cases of Lacey and John, in which people belong to many different overlapping cultures, raises questions about the nature of a culture.  What exactly is a culture anyway?  Cultural anthropologist Richley Crapo (1993, p. 24) defines a culture as “a learned system of beliefs, feelings, and rules for living around which a group of people organize their lives.”  According to this definition, the shared way of life of any group of people counts as that group’s culture.  This seems to imply that you could organize any group of people into some set of shared practices, beliefs and rules and it would count as a culture.  In other words, you could create you own culture.

            David Koresh did.  If you are charismatic enough, you can take any rule—regardless of how lame-brained, idiotic, cruel, ignorant or twisted it may be—and convince at least some people to go along with it.  One of the rules that David Koresh instituted in the Branch Davidian culture was that married couples living in the Branch Davidian compound outside of Waco, TX, were not allowed to have sex with each other.  Only David Koresh was allowed to have sex with the women of the compound, and he could have sex with whomever he wanted.  This included sex with young girls.  According to conventional relativism, David Koresh’s sexual lifestyle was right for him.  Why?  Because the norms of his culture—which was in part something of his own making—said that it was OK. 

            If there is some kind of activity you would like to engage in but that is viewed as immoral by the rest of society, take heart.  According to conventional relativism, all you have to do is to convince a few of your buddies to go along with you, and—Voila!—you will made the previously questionable activity morally correct for you. 

            Surely it is absurd to think that any seemingly evil practice can become morally good simply by convincing a few other people to go along with it.  And yet that is what conventional relativism seems to imply. 

 D. Reformers

            Conventional relativism subordinates the will of the individual to the will of the cultural majority.  What is right for you as an individual is not up to you to decide.  What is right for you is what your culture says is right.  Think about what conventional relativism implies about reformers like Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mahatma Gandhi.  Reformers are people whose beliefs and actions run contrary to those of their surrounding culture and who strive to change the beliefs and actions of their culture for the better.  If MLK’s culture says that African-Americans should not be allowed to eat at the same lunch counters, drink out of the same water fountains, attend the same schools, and sit in the same seats on crowded buses as white people, then it was morally wrong for MLK to praise Rosa Parks for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white person one cold December day in 1955.  If the culture says that African-Americans should be treated as second-class citizens, then according to conventional relativism you are morally obligated to treat African-Americans as second-class citizens.  It is morally wrong for you to buck the system.  The system is always right.  In the eyes of conventional relativism, reformers are—by definition—always in the wrong. 

            It is difficult to stomach the idea that the majority is always right and that the status quo should always be respected.  The people whom we treat as our greatest heroes were people who stood up to the system and fought against the tyranny of the majority.  When was the last time you saw an action movie starring Mel Gibson or Harrison Ford in which they were on the side of the powerful majority?  Our movie heroes are always lone individuals, often misunderstood by those around them, who take courageous stands against the injustices of their society. 

            The fact that conventional relativism implies that reformers are always wrong provides a strong reason for thinking that conventional relativism is false. 

 E. Culture vs. Culture

            Consider the following case: Lothar is a barbarian.  Raping, pillaging and plundering are central to Lothar’s barbarian culture.  One day Lothar and his band of warriors set off for Pleasantville, a quiet little town in sunny, southern California.  The residents of Pleasantville are peace-loving vegetarians and animal rights activists who, when they are not tending to their organic farms or making pottery for burning incense, work as strong advocates for conventional relativism.  When Lothar’s barbarian war party arrives in Pleasantville, the sandal-shod residents of Pleasantville are faced with a dilemma: Should they defend themselves against the barbarian attack or not? 

            You may be thinking, “Dilemma?  What dilemma?  How can the question of whether they should defend themselves against an unwanted attack be difficult to answer?  Of course, they should defend themselves!”  Despite the plausibility of this response, it is important to see that the Pleasantvilleans’ belief in conventional relativism poses a problem for them.  As conventional relativists, they believe that the right thing for Lothar to do is determined by his culture.  But Lothar’s culture says that adult barbarian men should display their bravery and strength by sacking at least one city (preferably one with a Starbucks) per year.  So, according to conventional relativism, it is morally right for Lothar to sack Pleasantville.  Since it is morally correct for him to do so, it doesn’t seem right for the residents of Pleasantville to try and stop the barbarian attack.  They would be keeping Lothar from doing what, according to their own moral standards, is the morally right thing for him to do.  However, if the citizens of Pleasantville do not defend themselves against the barbarian invasion, they will be brutalized and killed. 

            Another problem that would be generated by any attempted defense of Pleasantville concerns ethnocentrism.  One of the main motivations for conventional relativism is that it supposedly allows us to avoid ethnocentrism—the view that our culture is superior to others.  A great deal of harm has been done throughout the ages by people who have forced their way of life upon other cultures.  By claiming that all cultures are morally equal and that no culture is morally better than any other, conventional relativism is supposed to help us lead more tolerant lives.  But killing barbarians doesn’t seem to be a very good way to display tolerance for barbarian culture.  By keeping the barbarians from sacking Pleasantville, the Pleasantvilleans would be ethnocentrically forcing the barbarians to accept what they think is right in opposition to what the barbarians think is right. 

            It is difficult to see how the citizens of Pleasantville could be morally justified in fighting against the barbarians.  Their belief in conventional relativism seems to undermine any moral justification they might have for fighting.  Keep in mind that I am not asking whether they would fight against Lothar and his warring band.  I am asking about the morality of their actions.  I want to know whether conventional relativism can provide a reason for thinking that the defeat of the barbarians would be a morally good thing.  I am unable to see how conventional relativists could provide such a reason.  Since it is absurd to think that it might not be justified for them to defend themselves, the case of Lothar and the barbarians provides a reason for thinking that conventional relativism is false.

            (If my tale of Lothar and the barbarians seems a little too far-fetched to some of you, note that I could have told basically the same story as a clash between the culture of a violent urban gang and the culture of the law-abiding citizens in the city where the gang lives.  Clashes between cultures with opposing viewpoints are more than merely fictional.) 

 F. Consistency

            What should conventional relativists say about a culture that is ethnocentric?  Is it right for them to be ethnocentric?  Or is it wrong?  Remember, according to conventional relativism, what is right for you to do is determined by your culture.  If your culture is ethnocentric, it seems like it should be morally right for you to act in an ethnocentric way.  And yet conventional relativists condemn ethnocentrism as morally wrong.  They use the fact that most people today view ethnocentrism as being wrong as a way to motivate people to become conventional relativists.  But if my culture says that it is OK to look down upon other cultures, then according to conventional relativism it should be OK for me to do so.

            What if my culture is absolutist?  What if a belief in absolute moral truths is a central feature of my culture?  According to conventional relativism, it should be right for me to believe in the existence of moral absolutes.  But, of course, a belief in moral absolutes is incompatible with a belief in conventional relativism because the first component of conventional relativism is the claim that there are no moral absolutes.  So, if my culture is absolutist, conventional relativism says that it is right for me to believe that conventional relativism is false.  Think carefully about this claim before reading further.  Does it make sense for a conventional relativist to believe that conventional relativism is true and yet at the same time to believe that it is OK for me to think that conventional relativism is false?  Conventional relativists think that it does.  It might (just barely) be possible for a conventional relativist to act consistently on their relativist views, but it looks like it will be extremely difficult. 

 G. Diversity and Dependency

            One of the most common ways to argue in favor of conventional relativism involves appealing to facts about cultural diversity.  Conventional relativists say, “How can you believe in moral absolutes?  Just look at all of the moral diversity in the world.  It should be obvious that no moral truths are universal or absolute.”  This line of argument, however, involves a confusion.  To sort out the confusion Pojman (1999, pp. 37-38) distinguishes between the following two claims:

The Diversity Thesis :

What is considered morally right and wrong varies from society to society, so there are no moral principles that all societies accept.

The Dependency Thesis :

What really is morally right and wrong depends upon what societies think is morally right and wrong.

(I have changed the wording of the dependency thesis, but the idea remains the same.)  The diversity thesis makes a claim about people’s moral opinions—about what they think is right or wrong.  It simply says there is a wide diversity of human opinion about morality.  Taken by itself, that claim is pretty harmless and indeed uncontroversial.  The diversity thesis itself does not make any value judgments about this diversity of opinion.  It simply reports the existence of the diversity. 

            Some people try to suggest there really are some moral principles that all societies accept.  It is difficult to know whether this is really true because so many social scientists disagree about this issue.  Some say that the ban on incest is the only universally accepted moral rule, while others claim there are dozens of other such rules.  Many social scientists claim there are no universally accepted moral rules at all.  It’s hard to know who to believe.  We do not, however, need to resolve this issue in order to consider the heart of the controversy concerning conventional relativism.  The most important of the two claims above is the dependency thesis, not the diversity thesis. 

            The dependency thesis says that moral principles depend upon cultural acceptance for their validity or correctness.  In other words, if a culture accepts some principle, then it will be right for the members of that culture.  If they do not accept another principle, that principle will not be right for that culture.  The heart of conventional relativism is the claim that cultural acceptance determines morality. 

            To illustrate the differences between the two theses, think about what a moral absolutist like Socrates would say about the diversity thesis.  Would he think it was true or false?  Many students are initially tempted to think that Socrates would disagree with the diversity thesis.  But think carefully about it.  The diversity thesis simply claims that people disagree about what is right and wrong.  How could Socrates deny that this is obviously true?  A moral absolutist need not (indeed should not) deny that people disagree about morality.  The difference between the conventional relativist and the moral absolutist concerns how the two parties view the diversity of moral opinions.  Conventional relativists think that everybody is equally right, while moral absolutists think that only some moral opinions are right while the rest are all wrong.  According to moral absolutism, the fact that there is an extremely wide diversity of opinions about morality simply shows that there are a lot of very mistaken people in the world. 

            Distinguishing between the diversity thesis and the dependency thesis allows us to see that—contrary to what most conventional relativists think—demonstrating how much diversity of opinion there is in the world does not in any way undermine moral absolutism.  Many relativists think that conventional relativism can be (and has been) proven true simply by doing enough anthropological research on the divergent beliefs and practices of people around the globe.  All of this anthropological research, however, simply supports the diversity thesis.  But it provides no reason for believing the dependency thesis.  Consequently, the argument from cultural diversity fails to show that conventional relativism is true. 

            Conventional relativism seems to face several serious problems.  It is, however, only one of the two main versions of relativism.  Some people claim that subjective relativism is more defensible than conventional relativism.  In this section we examine some of the main arguments offered in favor of subjective relativism. 

 A. Immunity to Some Earlier Objections

            One point in favor of subjective relativism is that it does not fall prey to some of the same objections that were levied against conventional relativism.  For example, recall the cases of Lacey and John.  They each belonged to overlapping cultures with conflicting values, and there did not seem to be any way for conventional relativism to say whether abortion was morally permissible for Lacey or whether racism was morally permissible for John.  Subjective relativism, however, can easily handle this sort of case.  According to subjective relativism, Lacey and John are free to choose how they will live their lives.  If Lacey chooses to make the values of the Catholic church her own personal values, then abortion will not be morally permissible for her.  If, however, she chooses to identify more with the feminist movement and to adopt their values, abortion will be morally permissible for her.  Similar considerations apply in John’s case.  By making moral correctness a function of personal choice, subjective relativism avoids the problem of conflicting cultures. 

            Subjective relativism is also able to provide a seemingly more acceptable verdict in the case of reformers who challenge or reject the values of their culture.  Because conventional relativism subordinates the will of the individual to the will of the culture or society, it seems that little room is left over for individuals to make their own, autonomous decisions about how they ought to live their lives.  Conventional relativism says that anyone who challenges the values of their society will be in the wrong.  Subjective relativism, however, says that what is right for you is up to you.  Regardless of what the majority says or what anyone else in your culture thinks, you are the one who should decide what kind of lifestyle or what kind of values you will adopt.  If you want to be a reformer and you want to challenge the society around you, subjective relativism says you are acting rightly if you are true to yourself. 

            Subjective relativism, then, seems to give answers to the ultimate questions about morality that are more plausible than those given by conventional relativism.  Consequently, some objections that seem to undermine conventional relativism do not harm subjective relativism in any way. 

 B. The Importance of Individual Liberty

            By relativizing ethical truth to individuals rather than cultures, subjective relativism is able to give more consideration to the importance of individual liberty.  In America we place an extremely high value on our freedom, our ability to direct the course of our own lives.  Subjective relativism makes individual liberty and freedom central to morality.  According to subjective relativism, it is not right for anyone to try to force their oppressive morality upon you against your wishes.  The only morality that is right for you is one that you have autonomously chosen. 

            Many subjective relativists believe that the theories of conventional relativism and moral absolutism do not adequately respect individual liberty.  Conventional relativism makes the culture or the majority in control and allows them to trample on the rights of individuals to choose how to live their lives.  Moral absolutism says that you don’t have any choice about what is right for you.  The moral absolutes that define morality are all predetermined ahead of time, and you have no say in the matter.  Because subjective relativism respects individual liberty more than conventional relativism and moral absolutism, subjective relativists claim this is a reason for choosing subjective relativism over these other views. 

 C. Tolerance

            Subjective relativists argue that conventional relativism’s emphasis on tolerance of other cultures is good but that it does not go far enough.  Conventional relativism says that no culture is better than any other and that we should treat them all as being equally valid.  However, conventional relativism does not make tolerance of other people within a society a priority.  Subjective relativists claim that it is not only cultures but individuals as well who deserve to be treated with tolerance.  Subjective relativism claims that no individual’s ethical opinions, values or lifestyle is any better than any other individual’s.  All opinions about morality and lifestyles should be treated as being equally good.  Tolerance of other individuals, then, is an important part of subjective relativism. 

            Think about all of the injustices that have been committed because of intolerance.  In the years following the Protestant Reformation, Protestants and Catholics slaughtered each other by the thousands because each side would not tolerate the religious views of the other side.  Racism, genocide and ethnic cleansing all involve an unwillingness to tolerate other people who are different from us.  Subjective relativists believe that most of the world’s intolerance results from a belief in moral absolutism.  If you believe in moral absolutes, you think there is only one right way to do things.  Moral absolutists think that everybody who disagrees with them is dead wrong.  It is this kind of belief that has led people throughout the centuries to think it is OK to abuse and slaughter other people.  They are the pagans, the barbarians, the heretics.  So, it is only right to rid the world of their corrupting influence. 

            Subjective relativism promotes tolerance and takes its advocacy of tolerance farther than conventional relativism does.  Moral absolutism seems to lead to intolerance.  Subjective relativists think the choice is clear: subjective relativism is preferable to either conventional relativism or moral absolutism. 

 D. Lack of Entitlement

            Subjective relativists ask, “Who’s to judge what is really right and wrong for everybody?  What person has the entitlement or authority to sit in judgment on the rest of us?”  Their answer is: “Nobody.”  When you judge other people, you are placing yourself above them and pretending that you have the authority to decide what is right and wrong for them.  But you do not have any such authority.  So, it is inappropriate for you to judge other people.  If you actually did have the authority to make such judgments, there might not be a problem.  As it is, however, there is nothing that entitles you to pass judgment on anyone else.  You’re no better than the rest of us.  Thus, you have no business judging us. 

            Not only do we not have the authority or entitlement to judge other people, there is something problematic about the act of judging itself.  Judging someone else displays an intolerance for the judged person’s way of life.  To judge another person is to do something unkind to that person.  It is not unlike insulting them because it involves say negative things about them. 

            Subjective relativism urges us to admit that we are not entitled to stand in judgment over other people.  According to subjective relativism, we should view other people’s opinions about morality, their lifestyles, their habits, and their actions as being as equally valid as our own.  It is only by adopting subjective relativism that people can learn to stop judging others. 

 E. Lack of Knowledge

            Subjective relativists have their own lack of knowledge argument that is similar to the one offered by conventional relativists.  None of us, they note, can really tell for sure what is the absolute truth about morality.  What is right for us is something that we each have to make up our own minds about.  Conventional relativists correctly note that none of us has an infallible access to absolute truth, but they go wrong in concluding that what is right for you is something to be determined by your culture.  It is ultimately a personal decision.  You have to decide for yourself what the right way to live is. 

            Moral absolutists think they have everything all figured out.  They think they know what is right for everybody, and they try to force their morality on everyone else.  It is arrogant of them to think they know what the absolute truth is.  No one person has any better access to the truth than the rest of us.  So, none of us should presume to speak on behalf of everyone else.  What is right for you is something for you to decide and no one else. 

            The arguments offered in favor of subjective relativism can sound very convincing to many people.  There are, however, some serious problems for the view lurking just below the surface. 

 A. Violent Lifestyles

            Subjective relativism would have us believe that no opinion about morality is any better than any other and that no lifestyle is any better than any other.  All moral opinions and lifestyles are equally valid, they say.  Consider now the lifestyle of the Baton Rouge serial killer.  If no lifestyles are any better or any worse than any others, that means the lifestyle of the serial killer is not any worse than the lifestyles of Baton Rouge’s law-abiding citizens.  Remember: we are supposed to be tolerant of all lifestyles.  Also, according to subjective relativism, the opinion that rape and murder are morally wrong is not any better than the opinion that rape and murder are fine and dandy.  Both opinions are equally valid.  Each person (including the Baton Rouge serial killer!) gets to decide what is right and wrong for that person.  If a serial killer has decided that rape and murder are right for him, then these horrible crimes really are right for him, and it is inappropriate for us to think any differently. 

            Can anyone seriously believe that the subjective relativist’s assessments of the Baton Rouge serial killer’s lifestyle and ethical views are correct?  I don’t see how they could.  Subjective relativism’s claim that all lifestyles and all opinions about morality are equally valid cannot be true. 

 B. Judging Other People

            Subjective relativism claims that it is wrong to be judgmental, that we should not judge other people.  Something about this claim seems reasonable.  However, subjective relativism’s claim that we should not think that anyone else’s lifestyle or opinion is wrong seems absurd.  But if forming an opinion about someone else is judging them, how can we accept the first relativist claim and reject the second? 

            The key to understanding this issue is realizing there is an ambiguity in the phrase “judging someone else.”  In the most basic sense of this phrase, to judge someone else is to form an opinion about them.  For example, Louisiana voters were recently asked to decide whether Kathleen Blanco or Bobby Jindal should be their next governor.  Voters had to form an opinion about which candidate they think will do the best job.  Regardless of which candidate you may have voted for, no one will condemn you for having “judged other people.”  That’s what you were supposed to do.  In this sense of “judging,” it is impossible not to judge other people.  In fact, it is necessary in order to get along in society.

            The foregoing example reveals that there must be another sense of the phrase “judging someone else” that is reasonably taken to be objectionable.  When we speak of judging someone else in a negative sense, what we sometimes have in mind is an inappropriate rejection of the person being judged.  We have probably all seen an episode of some television show with the following motif: A couple’s estranged son has finally come home.  He has been gone for years, and they have hardly spoken since he left.  The mother weeps tears of joy.  However, the son has brought with him a “special friend,” and he has some important news to share: “Mom, Dad, I’m gay.”  The father disowns the son and will not speak to him.  He says, “You are no longer my son” and orders his son to leave his house.  The father is intolerant, unloving and verbally abusive. 

            When we call the father “judgmental,” we are not merely saying that the father has formed some opinion or other about his son.  We mean there is something about his opinions and the way he is acting upon them that is inappropriate.  To judge other people in this negative sense means that you will shun them, disown them, cut off whatever relationship you had with them, refuse to associate with them, look down upon them, exclude them, or deny them the same privileges as those who have not been so judged.  Subjective relativists claim that judging in this negative sense is wrong.  That seems like a reasonable suggestion.  Responding in a hateful way to another person is usually going to be a bad thing. 

            However, this does not mean that we should stop judging them in the first sense discussed above, but this is what subjective relativists recommend.  Couldn’t the television father continue to believe that his son’s alternative sexual lifestyle was morally wrong but embrace and love his son anyway?  Disagreeing with another person does not (and should not) always lead to shunning, excluding or disowning that person.  In other words, “judging someone” in the first sense of forming an opinion about that person, does not always lead to “judging someone” in the second sense of rejecting or cutting off all social ties with that person.  You can still love someone with whom you disagree. 

            Subjective relativists, however, do not distinguish between these two senses of “judging other people.”  They argue that, since the second sort of judging is inappropriate, so is the first.  But this conclusion does not logically follow.  It is possible to judge in the first sense but not the second.  However bad the second sense of judging may be, this does not mean that the first sense is also bad. 

 C. Deciding for Yourself

            Subjective relativists claim that you should get to decide what is right for you.  Something about this claim seems very true.  As autonomous, rational agents, we have the ability to make our own decisions, and our autonomy and rationality should be respected by others.  However, is seems absurd to think that the Baton Rouge serial killer should be free to decide that rape and murder are right for him.  We need to distinguish two different senses “deciding for yourself.”  Subjective relativists slide from using one sense of “deciding for yourself” to using a completely different sense, without acknowledging this is what they are doing. 

            In one sense, you must decide for yourself what to believe not only in ethics but in every area of your life.  You must evaluate the evidence that is available to you, the arguments for and against various positions, and make up your mind about what you think is true.  For example, if you are unsure about whether to believe in global warming, you can go to the library, check out some books, read some journal articles, and familiarize yourself with the various arguments that have been put forward.  Then, you must decide for yourself whether you think the evidence supports or does not support a belief in global warming.  Talking about “deciding for yourself” in this sense seems unobjectionable. 

            However, subjective relativists also like to talk about “deciding for yourself” in another sense.  In this second sense, subjective relativists claim that the fact that you chose lifestyle X for yourself makes lifestyle X right for you.  To see that this sense of “deciding for yourself” is different from the first, recall the global warming case.  Choosing to believe in global warming does not make global warming a fact.  When it comes to issues like global warming, your choices determine your beliefs, but they do not determine the facts.  You hope that your belief in global warming corresponds to the facts.  But the facts do not depend upon you believing in them in order for them to be the facts.  The facts are the way they are, regardless of what you think about them. 

            By contrast, subjective relativists claim that in ethics your choices determine not only your ethical beliefs but also the ethical facts.  If you decide that cheating on your boyfriend or girlfriend is morally permissible, that makes cheating morally permissible for you.  You never have to wonder or worry whether your ethical beliefs correspond to the facts.  Your beliefs create the ethical facts.  Without your beliefs, there would be no ethical facts about what is right for you.  So, there is never any possibility that you could be wrong about what is right for you.  According to subjective relativism, believing so makes it so. 

            Subjective relativists claim that, because we must obviously decide for ourselves what to believe (in the first sense of “deciding for yourself”) in ethics, we are also able to decide for ourselves (in the second sense of “deciding for yourself”) what the ethical facts are.  In their discussions of “deciding for yourself,” they never distinguish the two senses and use the plausibility of the first sense illicitly to support the second sense.  But the fact that the first sense gives no support to the second sense.  Consequently, subjective relativists cannot appeal to the importance of autonomous decision making to show that their view is true. 

 D. The Psychology of Belief

            The subjective relativism position also seems to misunderstand the psychology of belief.  Subjective relativists believe it is OK for you to think that capital punishment is right but that you should not think the opinions of those who oppose capital punishment are any less correct than your own.  Think about that for a minute.  Is what they recommend even psychologically possible?  How can I believe that position A is true and yet at the same time believe that those who think that position A is false are just as right as I am?  That sounds like nonsense.  If I believe position A is true, I am committed to believing that anyone who thinks position A is false is wrong.  Subjective relativism seems to be asking us to do something that is not humanly possible. 

 E. The Truth of Relativism

            Consider the following simply question: Do subjective relativists believe that subjective relativism is true?  This may seem like an utterly ridiculous question, unless you think carefully about it.  At first glance, the answer seems obvious.  Of course, they believe subjective relativism is true.  That’s what makes them subjective relativists.  However, this seemingly obvious answer causes serious problems for the subjective relativist. 

            Subjective relativists deny that there are any absolute truths in ethics.  No ethical principle, they say, is true for all people at all times and in all places.  The problem, however, is that subjective relativists think subjective relativism is the TRUTH about ethics.  They do not merely think that subjective relativism is true-for-them.  They think it is true for all people at all times and in all places.  They seem to be contradicting themselves.  Subjective relativism also claims that no moral view is any better than any other.  Since subjective relativism is itself a moral view, this means that subjective relativism is not any better than any other moral view, such as moral absolutism.  And yet you will never meet a subjective relativist who does not think that moral absolutism is just plain wrong.  They contradict themselves once again. 

            (By the way, conventional relativism falls prey to this same problem.  Conventional relativists also deny that there are any absolute truths in ethics, but they claim that conventional relativism is the absolute truth about ethics.  They also claim that no culture’s moral viewpoint is any better than any other, and yet they claim that any culture that subscribes to conventional relativism is correct while any culture that subscribes to moral absolutism is objectively wrong.)

            Is there any way for the subjective relativists to keep from contradicting themselves.  There might be one way, but it has some serious drawbacks.  Instead of claiming that subjective relativism is TRUE, subjective relativists could argue that subjective relativism is simply true-for-them and not necessarily true-for-others.  So, if you are a moral absolutist, this kind of subjective relativist would not try to tell you that you are wrong—even if you were intolerant and ethnocentric.  The subjective relativist I am imagining would claim that, while subjective relativism is true-for-them, moral absolutism would still be true-for-you.  This kind of subjective relativist does not fall into self-contradiction. 

            However, the subjective relativist’s position is no longer a very interesting one.  The features that make subjective relativism an attractive position for a lot of people are no longer present: the emphasis on trying to get other people to be more tolerant, the opposition to ethnocentrism, the critique of the injustices done in the name of moral absolutism, etc.  Subjective relativists want other people to become relativists, too.  They want to tell those who believe in moral absolutes that they are really wrong for being absolutists.  Relativists of all stripes are continually criticizing people who believe in absolute moral truths for being closed-minded, intolerant, dogmatic, politically incorrect, and just plain wrong.  But if belief in moral absolutism is merely wrong-for-the-subjective-relativist but not necessarily wrong-for-you, then the relativist is not in a position to criticize you for being an absolutist.  Going with the option under consideration avoids a contradiction, but only by making it impossible for the subjective relativist to disagree with absolutists.

            Consequently, although the position I have just sketched is logically possible, you will never meet a subjective relativist who believes in it.  All of the subjective relativists you will ever come across will believe that subjective relativism is the fundamental, objective and universal truth about morality.  This is not something they can believe in without contradicting themselves.  (For more on contradictions, point your browser to: http://www.geocities.com/beebejames/Contradictions101.)

 F. Living Together in Peace

            Subjective relativists suggest that the only way for us to live together in peace in a pluralistic society like ours is for us to treat everyone else’s opinions and lifestyles as being as equally valid as our own.  They suggest that moral absolutism leads to intolerance and injustice.  If we all stopped thinking that our opinions and ways were superior to those of other people, we would have a more peaceful, more egalitarian society. 

            Subjective relativists, however, misunderstand what democracy is all about.  Living together peacefully in a democracy does not mean having no opinions about what is right and wrong.  It means living together in peace with those with whom you strongly disagree.  It is ridiculous to think that we will never have a peaceful, just and fair society as long as Democrats are convinced that Republicans are wrong (and vice versa), pro-lifers are convinced that pro-choicers are wrong (and vice versa), evangelical Christians are convinced that purveyors of pornography are wrong (and vice versa), proponents of the death penalty are convinced that opponents of it are wrong (and vice versa), and proponents of affirmative action are convinced that opponents of it are wrong (and vice versa).  Subjective relativism makes the absurd suggestion that the only way to live together in harmony is to stop having any convictions about what is right or wrong.  Subjective relativists want us to stop thinking that anybody else’s opinion is wrong.  As long we think that, they say, we will be intolerant, judgmental and unjust.  Such a position completely misunderstands the beauty of democracy. 

            Citizens in a democracy are expected to respect the rights of others and to find peaceful means of resolving their disagreements.  You don’t have to agree with the people on the other side of the aisle, but you are not free to abuse them or deprive them of their rights simply because they disagree with you.  You are free to debate, to persuade, to campaign, to make commercials, and to donate money to political parties or private organizations that promote your interests.  But you are not free to harm those with whom you disagree.  That’s democracy: peaceful disagreement.  It’s not (as subjective relativism suggests) a lack of any real disagreement. 

 G. Moral Absolutes in Relativism

            Subjective relativists contradict themselves not only in claiming that subjective relativism is true but also by believing in the following absolute moral truths:

(1) Every person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of race, religion, class, color or creed.

(2) Different lifestyles and cultures should be treated with tolerance.

(3) Intolerance is morally wrong.

(4) The basic human rights of every individual should be defended by a free and just society. 

(5) We should strive to provide the citizens of our nation with as much individual liberty as is compatible with the free exercise of everyone else’s liberty. 

(6) It is wrong to deprive those with whom one disagrees of their right to make their voices heard in an arena of public discourse. 

(7) Racism, sexism and all forms of hateful discrimination are unjust and have no place in an equitable and peaceful society. 

Every relativist I have ever met (or expect to meet) believes in (1) through (7).  And they do not merely believe that (1) through (7) are true-for-them.  They believe these truths apply to all people in all cultures at all times and in all places.  In other words, relativists (subjective and conventional) treat (1) through (7) as moral absolutes.  Thus, contrary to the explicit statements of their own position, they do believe in moral absolutes after all. 

 H. You Can’t Live It Out

            Not only are self-contradictory positions necessarily false, they are also impossible to put into practice.  You couldn’t really live your life in accordance with subjective relativism if you wanted to. 

            Suppose that Boudreaux deliberates about what he should do in the following manner:

(a) One is morally obliged to keep one’s promises. 

(b) I promised my cousin Jethro that I would attend the premiere of his performance art piece. 

(c) I am morally obligated to attend Jethro’s premiere. 

(d) I want to do what is right. 

(e) Therefore, I will attend Jethro’s premiere. 

Statement (a) is an expression of a universal principle about what is morally right or wrong.  (b) is a statement of descriptive fact regarding Boudreaux’s interaction with Jethro.  (c) states a logical consequence of (a) and (b).  (d) expresses one of Boudreaux’s desires, which provides him (let us suppose) with sufficient motivation for caring about (c) and for following through with what he knows to be right.  Finally, (e) expresses Boudreaux’s decision or determination to undertake the specified course of action. 

            Suppose, however, that Boudreaux is a subjective relativist and consider what effect this might have on his practical deliberations.  Since he denies that there are any absolute moral truths, the moral principle in (a) can only be interpreted as being true-for-him, if he has decided to believe in it.  But Boudreaux could just as well have chosen to believe in any of the following, incompatible moral principles:

(f) One is morally obliged to keep one’s promises, unless it is inconvenient to do so. 

(g) One is morally obliged to keep one’s promises only if one has promised to do something pleasurable. 

(h) One is not morally obliged to keep any of one’s promises. 

Which one of these is right-for-Boudreaux?  Whichever one he happens to believe in.  Remember: According to subjective relativism, what is right-for-him is whatever he thinks is right-for-him.  So, none of the above options can be any more accurate or true than the others.  Since, according to subjective relativism, whatever Boudreaux believes to be right really is right-for-him, there is no reason for him to worry that his beliefs might be wrong-for-him.  They are right-for-Boudreaux of necessity.

            How is Boudreaux supposed to choose which one to believe or adopt?  His relativism cannot be of any help in this matter.  If Boudreaux had chosen (f) instead of (a), then (f) would have been right-for-him.  If he had chosen (g), then (g) would have been right-for-him.  And so on.  There is no belief choice he can make which will be ‘wrong-for-him.’ 

            In such circumstances, it is difficult to see how genuine practical deliberation can still be possible.  To deliberate is to weigh one’s options in light of one’s evidence, reasons, consequences and background beliefs.  But no process of weighing is applicable in the relativist’s case because every belief has equal weight or merit.  Regardless of what ethical beliefs Boudreaux may have, each of them is ‘true-for-him.’  Subjective relativism seems to make it impossible for Boudreaux’s practical choices to be anything but arbitrary.

            We have seen that conventional relativism and subjective relativism are both subject to very serious objections.  However, you should not forget that both forms of relativism also put forward some very challenging arguments against moral absolutism.  Relativists seem to be right about the evils of ethnocentrism and the virtue of tolerance.  Both forms of relativism also try to promote a seemingly healthy respect for other ways of life and other people.  Both relativists and absolutists face philosophical objections they must answer if their views of morality are going to be fully adequate. 

Bennett, Jonathan. 1997. “The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn.” In Christina Sommers and Fred Sommers (eds.), Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life: Introductory Readings in Ethics . Ft. Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, pp. 20-34.

Crapo, Richley H. 1993. Cultural Anthropology: Understanding Ourselves & Others , 3rd edn. Guilford, CT: Dushkin Publishing.

Pojman, Louis. 1999. Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong , 3rd edn. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

War Scene (1808-12) by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes. Courtesy of the National Museum of Fine Arts , Buenos Aires

Wrestling with relativism

Bernard williams argued that one’s ethics is shaped by culture and history. but that doesn’t mean that everyone is right.

by Daniel Callcut   + BIO

Travel and history can both inspire a sense of moral relativism, as they did for the Greek historian and traveller Herodotus in the 5th century BCE. What should one make of the fact that what counts as adultery, for example, differs around the world? In Lust in Translation (2007), the contemporary writer Pamela Druckerman chronicles how the rules of infidelity vary ‘from Tokyo to Tennessee’. It can be tempting to conclude that the correct answer to moral questions is ultimately settled by convention, perhaps like matters of etiquette such as how to eat your food. For Herodotus, the recognition of cultural difference led him to declare, echoing the words of the Greek poet Pindar, that ‘custom is king of all.’

The acclaimed British philosopher Bernard Williams , writing in the 1970s, showed that a common way of arguing for moral relativism is confused and contradictory. Nonetheless, he went on to defend a philosophical worldview that incorporated some of relativism’s underlying ideas. There is much to learn, when we think about the ongoing culture wars over moral values, from the encounters with relativism that recur throughout Williams’s work. First, however, it’s useful to understand why a prevalent feature of the culture wars, arguing over which words to use, itself quickly leads to arguments over relativism.

Bernard Williams in 2002. Photo by Eamonn McCabe/Popperfoto/Getty Images

Consider the following memorable scene in Sally Rooney’s novel Conversations with Friends (2017). The central character, Frances, who is sleeping with Bobbi, rejects her friend Philip’s insistence that ‘in basic vocabulary she is your girlfriend.’ Frances is right to resist Philip’s attempt to put a familiar label on things: she is trying to live in a way for which there aren’t words yet. Elsewhere in the book, Frances questions not only the word ‘couple’ but even the term ‘relationship’ to depict her life with Bobbi. If she isn’t sure how to describe her complicated situation, it’s in part because it doesn’t easily fit into the grids of conventional thought. She wants, to use an image from James Joyce, to ‘fly by’ the nets of language.

The words your society uses, as Frances is highly aware, shape the self you can become. Language is loaded with ethical expectations. If you agree that you are in a ‘couple’ with someone, for instance, then that commonly (though not always) carries with it the expectation that you will not be in bed with anyone else. That norm can be challenged, and has been, by those who are in open relationships. However, if you are trying to live in a way that is new, and doesn’t fit into accustomed categories, then it’s likely that you will be misunderstood and deprived of social recognition. Even so, as the American philosopher Judith Butler has argued in Undoing Gender (2004), there are situations where it’s better to be unintelligible than to force oneself into the existing menu of social options.

If everyday language can sometimes feel oppressive, it’s perhaps because it is inescapably descriptive and evaluative: it tells you not just how things are , but how they should be. If you are someone’s ‘girlfriend’, for instance, then a vast number of beliefs kick into action about how you should behave. This is why Frances is so wary about accepting the label.

P erhaps the clearest example of how language can be at once descriptive and value-loaded is in the case of what philosophers have come to call thick ethical concepts. Think of words such as ‘friendly’, ‘mean’, ‘aggressive’, ‘rude’, ‘impatient’, ‘brutal’ and so on, and notice how these terms evaluate behaviour positively or negatively at the same time as they describe it. Thick ethical concepts are named by contrast with thin ethical concepts such as ‘right’ and ‘should’ and ‘ought’. These highly abstract terms are almost purely evaluative and don’t seem to describe any specific actions. Rather, as the American philosopher Christine Korsgaard has put it in The Sources of Normativity (1996), they seem like those gold stars used at school that can be stuck upon anything.

The culture wars that take place over controversial moral questions are, in part, battles over which ethically loaded concepts should win out within a society. Should sexuality be conceptualised in terms connected with sexual purity and restraint (‘sanctity’, ‘chastity’ and so on) or in terms of sexual self-expression and experimentation (‘liberation’, ‘kink’ and so on)? This brings home the fact that ethical words and concepts are not just abstract ideas: they are the product and expression of different ways of living. Seen this way, the political intensity surrounding what is sometimes disparaged as ‘arguments over words’ makes total sense. The culture wars are concept wars over how best to live.

We all use ethical concepts in the broad sense I have introduced. People who think that they can live without values are failing to think through what that would really mean. But if we all, inevitably, evaluate our experience, we don’t all do so in the same way. In a recent podcast on the lessons from the Roman Empire, the historian Tom Holland stressed the dramatic contrast between the sexual mores of ancient Rome and those of the modern West. This is just one, perhaps already familiar, example of the commonplace fact that ethical norms vary across, as well as within, cultures. Moreover, even ethical concepts that are superficially shared can be understood in deeply different ways. Consider how respect is shown in a nod of the head: it can symbolise respect as a form of mutual recognition, or respect as deference to another’s superior strength.

Call it the anti-Humanist Fork: relativism or religion?

The fact of moral diversity therefore raises the issue of moral relativism. This, too, has become a part of the culture wars, especially as these debates have played out in the United States. Many moral traditions are based on the idea that there are universal values, perhaps rooted in human nature. Perhaps you yourself were raised with the universalist idea that there is a single true morality that applies to everyone, everywhere. But if living many different ethical ways of life is natural to human beings, then this encourages the idea that humans create multiple ethical worlds, and that ethical truth is relative to the world in question. Moral truth, like the truth about etiquette, simply varies from place to place. So far, so bad, for universalism.

When battles over moral relativism have featured in the culture wars, they tend to be framed in the following way. One side of the argument celebrates cultural diversity and unites this with an emphasis on the socially constructed nature of values. This is the outlook popularly associated with postmodernism, identity politics, and the rejection of universalist tradition. However, this seemingly ‘relativistic’ destination is precisely what alarms the moral conservative. Hence the other side of the culture wars: if there is no common human standard upon which to ground moral universalism, then something beyond the human is needed. This is the side of the culture wars associated with the need to return to religion, and a morally reactionary response to social diversity.

These debates about the sources of morality have become part of mainstream culture. The old-school secular humanist, faced with the difficulty of finding a universal basis for a human-centred morality, is presented with a dilemma: either choose a culture-centred ethics, or return to a God-centred one. Call it the anti-Humanist Fork: relativism or religion? Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury in the United Kingdom, recently stated in the New Statesman magazine that ‘The modern humanist is likely to be a far more passionate defender of cultural variety than their predecessors.’ What he didn’t dwell upon is the following irony: that proper recognition of moral diversity has tended to undermine the universalism upon which humanism is typically founded.

I t’s important to note that diversity of belief doesn’t by itself entail relativism. After all, different cultures have held different beliefs about the shape of the Earth. Does it follow that there is no non-relative fact of the matter and that all we can say is that the Earth is truly round relative to one culture, and truly flat relative to another? If your friend said the Earth was flat, you would perhaps show them the photo known as ‘Blue Marble’, taken as the Apollo 17 crew made its way to the Moon in 1972. If you are wealthy and extravagant enough, you might book them on a trip to space. You are unlikely to ‘go relativist’.

Being a non-relativist about the shape of the Earth, however, doesn’t require you to be a non-relativist about everything. Moral relativism remains an option. As we have already seen, if you combine the idea that Human beings construct ethical reality with the claim that How humans construct ethical reality varies between cultures , then moral relativism becomes hard to avoid. Indeed, those who are quick to move from observing the diversity of moral beliefs to embracing moral relativism are perhaps already inclined to think that morality is a cultural construct whereas the shape of the Earth is not. Others are drawn to relativism about morality because they think it a wiser, more tolerant outlook. As someone might say: ‘They have their way, we have ours, and that’s all there is to be said.’

Bernard Williams (no relation to Rowan) argued incisively against what he called ‘vulgar relativism’ in his first book, Morality (1972). A leading figure in English-language philosophy, he later popularised the term ‘thick concepts’ that I introduced earlier (he was the first to use the term in print, in 1985). Williams had a deep sense of the cultural and historical variety of ethical life. But he also saw that the typical way that moral relativism was taken to support toleration, notably by some anthropologists at the time, was fundamentally incoherent.

Perhaps, at least for a violent society, war is the answer

The vulgar relativist, Williams says, thinks that whether something is ‘morally right’ means ‘right for a given society’. As a result, to discuss whether, say, sex with multiple partners is morally right, you must first ask: right for whom? There is no universal answer: polyamory will be permitted, indeed celebrated, in some times and places, and morally denounced in others. This is the insight that is supposed to lead to a tolerant outlook. Indeed, the vulgar relativist, as described by Williams, holds that, because morality is tied to a way of life, ‘it is wrong for people in one society to condemn, interfere with, etc, the values of another society.’

The problem for vulgar relativism, as Williams goes on to show, is with the status of the principle of toleration. If it’s right to be tolerant, and ‘right’ is relative, then we must ask: right for whom? After all, if an aggressive warrior society is debating whether it should interfere with its neighbours, then according to its values the answer might be a definite ‘Yes, we should interfere.’ Perhaps, at least for a violent society, war is the answer. The point, as Williams makes clear, is that you can’t coherently say that All moral truth is relative to a culture and espouse a non-relative moral rule that all cultures should respect one another. The vulgar relativist is putting forward toleration as a universal moral principle, but this is flat-out inconsistent with moral relativism itself.

Vulgar relativism is ‘absurd’, Williams concluded, but this can give a misleading impression: he took seriously many of the ideas that underpin moral relativism. In fact, he agrees with the moral relativist that ethical reality is a human construction, and, like the relativist, he emphasises the variety of moral outlooks. Some moral and religious traditions hold that moral reality is as objective and universal as facts about the shape of the Earth. Williams certainly didn’t think this and went so far as to call his own moral position ‘nonobjectivist’.

P erhaps Williams’s respect for the moral relativist’s motivations emerges most strikingly in the following passage from his middle-period book Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985):

If you are conscious of nonobjectivity, should that not properly affect the way in which you see the application or extent of your ethical outlook? … If we become conscious of ethical variation and of the kinds of explanation it may receive, it is incredible that this consciousness should just leave everything where it was and not affect our ethical thought itself. We can go on, no doubt, simply saying that we are right and everyone else is wrong (that is to say, on the nonobjectivist view, affirming our values and rejecting theirs), but if we have arrived at this stage of reflection, it seems a remarkably inadequate response.

Williams argued for appropriate recognition of the cultural and historical location of one’s ethics and combined this with a shrewd sense of when moral assessment has a point and when it doesn’t. This took him close to the spirit of relativism – in fact, he even espoused what he called a ‘relativism of distance’.

The danger with an acute feel for history is that you can end up trapped in a relativist bubble

The belief at the heart of Williams’s relativism of distance is that it doesn’t makes sense to assert the truth of one’s moral outlook across the entire span of human history. He would have supported the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example, but at the same time questioned the value and wisdom of mentally applying it to warrior cultures thousands of years in the past. There was no need, Williams urged, for a ‘relativistic vow of silence about the past’ but on the other hand, ‘comments about it are not obligatory, either.’

Writing in The New York Review in 1998, Williams gave memorable expression to these ideas and sentiments:

Must I think of myself as visiting in judgment all the reaches of history? Of course, one can imagine oneself as Kant at the Court of King Arthur, disapproving of its injustices, but exactly what grip does this get on one’s ethical thought?

Immanuel Kant, the 18th-century moral philosopher, believed that everyone knew the same universal moral law, so that it was always intelligible to appeal to its presence. Williams, for the most part, thinks that what makes ethical sense is more culturally limited. When we look inside, what we find is not the moral law, but our historically formed identity.

The danger with an acute feel for history is that you can end up trapped in a relativist bubble. But if Williams shared the relativist’s sense of the culturally rooted nature of ethical life, he also wanted to incorporate into his moral philosophy the kind of critical tools that mean you don’t have to accept the worst things associated with moral relativism: either that ‘anything goes’, or that societies can’t assess and evaluate each other, or that you must accept the status quo in your own society.

W illiams’s great late work Truth and Truthfulness (2002) celebrated the virtues associated with the pursuit of truth. There is no objective and universal morality, according to Williams, but moral philosophy could still draw on the fact that some truths, like the shape of the planet, are objective and universal. If a moral outlook depends on blatant falsehoods, then it can be undermined by revealing the truth. To reject the claims of climate-change denial, for instance, you don’t have to debate whether there is an objective truth about morality. It’s enough to know that there is an objective truth about the effects of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, what has happened to global annual temperature since the Industrial Revolution, and so on.

Williams had little time for the idea, associated with postmodernism, that all of reality is a cultural construction. Humans have dramatically reshaped the Earth but they didn’t create the planet they live on. Ethical reality is constructed via interaction with ‘an already existing physical world’ that is not a cultural product. He tussled on numerous occasions with the American philosopher Richard Rorty , who, in the latter decades of the 20th century, became a kind of cultural figurehead for postmodernism in the academy. In fact, when I was a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, I spoke to Rorty about the contrast between his ideas and those of Williams. ‘Yes,’ Rorty said, Williams’s view chimed more with common sense but, as Rorty unforgettably concluded, ‘I want to change common sense!’

Like Rorty, however, Williams did emphasise the culturally constructed nature of ethical life. Influenced by the 19th-century thinker Friedrich Nietzsche , Williams became particularly interested in conceptual genealogy as a method in philosophy. What this means, in a nutshell, is that you can trace the origin and development of a concept or idea – liberty , for instance – to see whether the resulting narrative encourages use of the concept in question or whether it debunks it.

A concept’s history helps you understand whether you want to be part of the conceptual tribe that uses it

Think about this in relation to culture wars debates over love and sexuality. Not everyone will want to avoid, like Rooney’s character Frances, traditional concepts connected to romance. But conceptual genealogy invites you to reflect on the history of a word or concept such as ‘girlfriend’ and decide whether you want to continue to employ it. You might come to decide that, as Oscar Wilde in 1895 said about blasphemy, it ‘is not a word of mine.’

Many ideas associated with love, in particular marriage, have historically had very little to do with romance. As Stephanie Coontz’s work Marriage: A History (2005) illustrates, ‘most societies around the world saw marriage as far too vital an economic and political institution’ to be based on love. That’s a much more recent idea. Understanding the history of a concept helps you understand whether you want to be part of the way of life – call it the conceptual tribe – that uses it. Sometimes, joining an institution involves modifying its concepts for the better, as in the case of gay and lesbian marriage .

Truthfulness can be bracing, especially when focused on abuse of power. Williams drew on the tradition of philosophy known as critical theory, which stresses the examination and criticism of social structures. He writes:

[I]f one comes to know that the sole reason one accepts some moral claim is that somebody’s power has brought it about that one accepts it [and it is] in their interest that one should accept it [then] one will have no reason to go on accepting it.

No doubt one of Williams’s most admirable and enduring qualities was his desire to make philosophical room for inconvenient truths and the potentially startling clarity of speaking truth to power.

Williams argued that all human societies have a need for basic notions of accuracy and sincerity: the traits that combine to form the virtue of truthfulness. This introduced an element of universalism into his worldview. However, while the need for truthfulness is universal, Williams again made clear that different cultures have and will build differently on the need. He ends Truth and Truthfulness with the hope that the more ‘courageous, intransigent, and socially effective forms’ of the virtues associated with truth will live on.

I t’s fair to say, strange as it sounds, that Williams’s defence of truth and truthfulness was an unfashionable undertaking in the humanities at the time. He was prescient, writing at the end of his life and at the turn of the millennium, about the various forms of truth denial that would emerge (or re-emerge) in the 21st century. Think of how the age of the internet, of which he saw only the beginning, would make Holocaust denial common again. Indeed, in a passage now widely shared online, he wrote about how the internet ‘makes it easy for large numbers of previously isolated extremists to find each other and talk only among themselves.’

Moral criticism must often take the form of making the plain truth widely known. But what if some arguments do ultimately come down to disagreements over values? Perhaps disputes over climate change, for example, go much deeper than familiarity with the relevant science can remedy. Williams says little about rational argument over values themselves, perhaps limited by his worldview according to which principles ‘do not admit of any ultimate justification’ (as Korsgaard puts it ). Williams also expressed a worldly scepticism about what moral arguments can be expected to achieve. ‘What will the professor’s justification do,’ he wrote, ‘when they break down the door, smash his spectacles, take him away?’

He never thought moral philosophy could make ethical life any easier than it is

Williams’s work manifested the tension that one sees in the larger culture wars over values: between the desire to acknowledge what seem like universal and indisputable evils, and the desire to leave behind the legacy of universalism. He did, for instance in a book chapter titled ‘Human Rights and Relativism’, suggest that there are some very basic moral wrongs that almost all human beings recognise, even if elsewhere in his work he adamantly rejected the idea of a universal Moral Law.

Compare his outlook with that of the moral philosopher Derek Parfit , his longtime Oxford colleague. Parfit really did believe that ethical facts are as objective and universal as facts about the shape of the Earth, and searched for moral arguments that would convince everyone. In Shame and Necessity (1993), Williams argued , in contrast, that it makes more sense to pursue ‘social and political honesty’ than a ‘rationalistic metaphysics of morality’. If Williams had little time for Rorty’s postmodernism writ large, he also did not share Parfit’s hope (now associated with the Effective Altruism movement) that the study of ethics could become transformed into a science of morality, which would then be applied to solve the world’s problems.

Truthfulness, conceptual genealogy, comparative ethical study: these ingredients give Williams’s philosophy of value its critical bite. There are many resources left for ethical and political criticism after moral philosophy fully emerges from what Williams called ‘the shadow of universalism’ – or so he endeavoured to show. His aim was to hold on to the vital distinction between what is and what ought to be while maintaining that norms about what ought to be are themselves ultimately cultural creations. His position, in this respect, is akin to the view that human beings create the norms about what counts as good and bad art rather than discover mind-independent and timeless truths about beauty.

Williams never thought that moral philosophy could make ethical life any easier than it is. Nonetheless, he offers a vision of how philosophy, allied with other disciplines such as history, can provide both criticism and support for one’s ethical orientation in the world. And in his engagement with moral relativism, he doesn’t just point to a middle way between his contemporaries Richard Rorty and Derek Parfit. He offers an example of how to make one’s way through the culture wars.

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Ethical Relativism in Business Essay

Ethical relativism is a methodological principle of moral interpretation based on the claim that moral ideas and concepts are only relative and contingent. It leads to the denial of the possibility of creating scientific ethics (Dean, 2021). Its supporters do not see the dependence of morality on social conditions, and even fewer can understand the essence of objective historical laws that determine it. Ethical relativism manifested itself vividly in the teachings of the skeptics, then in the followers of Mandeville. It is also inherent in some modern bourgeois movements in philosophy: existentialism and pragmatism. For example, Ayer and Carnap find it impossible even to raise the question of the rightness or wrongness of moral evaluation.

The first reason why companies outsource tasks is that outsourcing reduces business costs. A company does not have to pay for maintaining jobs or training employees, which is somewhat controversial from an ethical point of view. It turns out that managers are guided solely by the financial component of the issue, ignoring the righteous mission of providing people with high-paying jobs. In addition, outsourcing allows one to focus on business development ( Top 4 reasons why companies outsource, 2022) . Guided by the principles of ethical relativism, executives may conclude that routine tasks take up too much time. They are better left to the people who need the work and the money, while highly skilled professionals handle the complex tasks. However, for contractors who agree to do the task, such work is primarily one-time and does not allow them much money, so this outsourcing decision is ethically questionable.

Reference List

Dean, T. (2021) ‘Ethics explainer: moral relativism,’ The Ethics Centre .

Top 4 reasons why companies outsource (2022).

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Ethical Relativism in Business." May 11, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/ethical-relativism-in-business/.

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