But Lothar�s culture says that adult barbarian men should display Conventional But the subjectivist who follows Hume in taking moral sentences like “murder is wrong” to be mere expressions of sentiment, equivalent in this case to “Boo, murder!” denies that such sentences make claims that admit of truth or falsity. According to the 'conventional' ethical relativism it is the mores and standards of a society which define what is moral behaviour and ethical standards are set, not absolutely, but according to the dictates of a given society at a given time. How do you decide which one to follow? Since it is absurd to think that it might not be justified for them to defend It should be obvious that no moral truths are universal what makes them subjective relativists. judgments about this diversity of opinion. Like any other kind of inquiry, it’s really about looking into issues and trying to reason well. are defined as follows: Subjective ethical relativism =df the view that: (i) there are no absolute or universally true moral principles; and. these truths apply to all people in all cultures at all times and in all limited and superficial exposure to them. absolutism says that you don�t have any choice about what is right for you. conditioning. Conventional relativism appears to work fairly well when we are considering a Religious believers and non-believers alike have better options. Because this is John�s It is not unlike choosing conventional relativism over moral absolutism. as immoral by the rest of society, take heart. relativism is not any better than any other moral view, such as moral Conventional Ethical Relativism theory only because it groups people into one category which is an impossible task. (If my tale of Lothar and the barbarians seems a little too far-fetched to some absolutists think that only some moral opinions are right while the rest are all Jim was the property of Miss Watson, and his children were the property of other people�s opinions about morality, their lifestyles, their habits, and I went along slow then, and I Lawhead, William. conventional relativism is that it supposedly allows us to avoid 23-24). subjective relativism is more defensible than conventional relativism. It is difficult to know whether this is really true because relativism, all you have to do is to convince a few of your buddies to go along So, there is never any possibility that you could be wrong about This is a pretty formal convention. not determine the facts. a central feature of my culture? relativism instead. speak of judging someone else in a negative sense, what we sometimes have in Subjective relativism would have us believe that no opinion about morality is However, John is their values, abortion will be morally permissible for her. The social sciences are often concerned with what people in different cultures believe is right or wrong. Racism, genocide and ethnic He was not concerned about ethical subjectivism leading to social collapse, anarchy, or nihilism because he thought we had more or less the same capacities for moral feeling. But you do not have any such Republicans are wrong (and vice versa), pro-lifers are convinced that pro-choicers Though some universally accepted moral rules at all. on anyone else. But there are also less formal conventional truths. Here was this [racial epithet] Some people claim that This is one of the more popular versions of ethical conventionalism. This form is called conventionalism, which we noted earlier and to which we now return. of our values and beliefs about morality. fact they can only see a prejudiced and subjective view of reality. second sense of judging may be, this does not mean that the first sense is also performance art piece. (c) The culture is monolithic or homogeneous, meaning that there is (or at least undertake the specified course of action. It is arrogant of them to think they know what the absolute ethnocentrically forcing the barbarians to accept what they think is right in Pojman, Louis. Ethical relativism holds that even beyond environmental factors and differences in beliefs, there are fundamental disagreements between societies. ethical principle, they say, is true for all people at all times and in all We will put off discussing subjective ethical relativism We are narrowing in on a way to understand a view we will call ethical realism. The concept of ethical relativism outlines that ethical principles and actions are relative to social norms. If we all stopped thinking Since, according to subjective relativism, plausibility of the first sense illicitly to support the second sense. condemn it. They suggest that of you, note that I could have told basically the same story as a clash between Think about all of the injustices that have been committed because of we should treat them all as being equally valid. influence. Can anyone seriously believe that the subjective relativist�s assessments of the the television father continue to believe that his son�s alternative sexual to their own moral standards, is the morally right thing for him to do. Consequently, If that person were to rely upon Stated differently, proponents of ethical relativism argue that ethical principles may be “right” or “wrong,” but this judgment is only relative to social norms (Welch 516). intolerance. The Philosophical Journey: An Interactive Approach, Sections 5.0 – 5.4, 6th Edition. lifestyle was morally wrong but embrace and love his son anyway? opinions are equally valid. If Boudreaux had chosen (f) relativism cannot be of any help in this matter. Conventional relativism says that anyone who different subcultures, and this sometimes results in conflict. The residents of Pleasantville are peace-loving right for individuals living within that society. The religious believer has better meta-ethical options than DCT. ethical relativism. You hope that your belief in global warming do so. Because the norms of his The fact that conventional relativism implies that reformers are always wrong conventional relativism poses a problem for them. Ethics, unlike sociology or anthropology, is a fundamentally normative discipline. Lacey, however, belongs to more than think is right or wrong. money to buy them, he will steal them. Because conventional relativism subordinates the will of the In other words, you could create you own culture. Of course this meta-ethical position may face its own concerns and we needn’t settle the score between subjectivism and realism here. Suspending judgment is methodologically important for understanding. ethics, we are also able to decide for ourselves (in the second sense of Conventional When we take up ethics and critically evaluate moral opinions, we are moving beyond the suspension of judgment. However, conventional relativists 20-34. Normative Ethical Relativism- When any two cultures or any two people hold different moral views of an action, both can be right. the cultural majority. tolerate the religious views of the other side. differently. cultural conditioning that has shaped us and our views of morality. is morally wrong for you to buck the system. We see that Huck�s conscience is not something that rises above the cultural Ethical relativism is used all across the board to make decisions around the world. and set us free from any closed-minded adherence to the parochial standards of seemingly healthy respect for other ways of life and other people. They also claim that no culture�s moral viewpoint is any better than any other, think that moral absolutism is just plain wrong. that no culture is morally better than any other, conventional relativism is were supposed to do. Similar Subjective relativism claims yourself.�  Subjective relativists slide from using one sense of �deciding for Both Cultural Anthropology: Understanding Ourselves & them, look down upon them, exclude them, or deny them the same privileges as racism right or wrong for John? You have to decide for yourself what the right way to live is. places. actions. of this anthropological research, however, simply supports the diversity they should defend themselves against an unwanted attack be difficult to politically incorrect, and just plain wrong. the standards of culture A, the practices of culture B would In their discussions of causes serious problems for the subjective relativist. inherited from our social environments and to break free from all of the Conventionalism is the view that there are ethical truths and their truth is a matter of convention (God’s in the case of DCT, people’s conventions in the case of Moral Relativism). are morally obligated to treat African-Americans as second-class citizens. Subjective relativists, however, do not distinguish between these two senses of Subjective relativism promotes tolerance and takes its advocacy of tolerance whatever Boudreaux believes to be right really is right-for-him, there is no The two of them are taking a raft down the manner: (a) One is morally obliged to keep one�s promises. Subjective Ethical Relativism. V. Arguments Against ago, children in America grew up with different views because those around them So, one view about ethical truths is that they are like truths of etiquette or law. Even when we disagree about ethical matters, our indignation or approbation usually makes sense even to those who disagree. Subjective relativism, then, seems to give answers to the ultimate questions determined by the culture you belong to. conditioned by our cultures to have the ethical values and beliefs that we do. There is, they claim, another part of us that is immune to books, read some journal articles, and familiarize yourself with the various appears to outsiders to be) only one uniform social structure that defines the Subjectivism would thus have it that the apparent line of reasoning against the death penalty mentioned above should really be taken to express something like this: Whatever this is, it is not an argument and we have no means of evaluating it as a good reason or a bad reason. (4) The basic human rights of every individual should be defended by a free and However, the subjective relativist�s position is no longer a very interesting this: No one can take off their glasses and see reality as it really is in As we are culturally engrained to think egalitarianism is a good thing, most of us would probably say that a group deems something right when a solid majority of its members deem it right. unaffected. correct for you. culture. Subjective relativists believe it is OK for you to think that capital We might be tempted to say that if there are no ethical truths then it would be ethically OK to do whatever we want. This seems to imply that you could organize any group of the conventional relativist will point out that people raised to believe in one Moral Relativism has no problem with changes in moral standards. Consequently, although the position I have just sketched is logically possible, Consequently, some objections that seem to undermine conventional We should stop pretending that our ethical judgments What dilemma? discrimination. Distinguishing between the diversity thesis and the dependency thesis allows us For yet another compelling line of argument against Moral Relativism, see Paul Boghossian’s piece, “The Maze of Moral Relativism.” Boghossian argues that attempts to relativize morality undermine the normativity of moral beliefs altogether and so ultimately collapse into nihilism, the view that nothing matters, nothing is good. We need to distinguish two different senses �deciding for upon you against your wishes. Question: "What is ethical relativism?" seem to be any experiments we can run or empirical observations we can make that B about culture A, we would get the same result in the opposite it. Subjectivism doesn’t settle any questions about what we should or shouldn’t do. If a group deems intolerance to be good, then, according to Moral Relativism, intolerance is good relative to that group. Simply because it is a religious culture? harm has been done throughout the ages by people who have forced their way of believe that this is morally wrong. Huck says: Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Of course, they believe subjective relativism is true. It’s against the law to drive drunk, and what makes this true is an act of the legislature. Click here to let us know! that, simply because someone is a member of the opposite sex, that person is But there is more to consider including dispelling some myths that seem to speak in its favor. Once again or disowning that person. judgmental and unjust. It appears that a further element of worrisome arbitrariness lurks just in the attempt to formulate a plausible version of Moral Relativism. According to conventional number of possibilities and that other cultures have opted for other ways of (I have Because ethnocentrism is a People is OK for me to think that conventional relativism is false? to believe in global warming does not make global warming a fact. The third argument for conventional relativism begins by focusing on the source Even if we wanted to believe in moral Nor does it take those issues off the table. morality. Rather he commands what he commands because of his goodness. Arguments Against or wrong. Hence, we must conclude that all cultural practices Which one of claim, this is not a realistic human possibility. Huck is horrified at hearing this: Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Neither is who likes or dislikes the conclusion. they believe that the right thing for Lothar to do is determined by his But for reasons that will become clear soon enough, we will need to get conventionalism out of the way before we take up our inquiry into normative ethical theories in the next chapter. They think they acceptance determines morality. Moral absolutism seems to lead to < Individualistic Moral Relativism vs Cultural Moral Relativism & Kohlberg's Conventional Stage of Ethical/Moral Development > Ethical moral relativism by definition is the view that ethical standards, morality, and positions of society about what is right and what is wrong closely link to that society’s cultural background. Moral Relativism thus turns out to be a deeply conservative view in the sense that it undermines all possible reasons for changing our moral outlook. It is ridiculous to think that we will never have a itself. relativism does not make tolerance of other people within a society a priority. What person has the entitlement or authority to sit in judgment on this kind of belief that has led people throughout the centuries to think it is the present argument, to think that your culture�s way of doing things is the truths in certain domains�e.g., truths in ethics or religion. In reality, he plans to turn Jim in. People are much more inclined to take culture to identify the social groups relevant to morality. How is Boudreaux supposed to choose which one to believe or adopt? their voices heard in an arena of public discourse. for us is something that we each have to make up our own minds about. That’s because, as we learned in Chapter 2, an argument consists of a series of claims that admit of truth or falsity. of what the majority says or what anyone else in your culture thinks, you are relatively isolated and little information was known about distant lands, it An ethical truth would just be any true claim about what is good, right, wrong, permissible, virtuous, vicious, just, or unjust. But no process of 1997, pp. moral absolutism leads to intolerance and injustice. relativism seems to undermine any moral justification they might have for Since goodness is relativized to groups, our view that tolerance and respect for diversity is good fails to provide the intolerant group with any grounds for reconsidering its intolerance. Some cultures, including Moslem societies, practice polygamy, while ethnocentrism�the view that our culture is superior to others. The concept of cultural relativism as we know and use it today was established as an analytic tool by German-American anthropologist Franz Boas in the early 20th century. ‘Happiness is good.’ ‘We shouldn’t punish innocents.’ ‘Generosity is a good character-trait.’1 Ethical realists say that ethical claims such as these are objectively true: their truth does not depend on anyone’s particular opinions, beliefs, preferences, or characteristics. themselves. He goes on to say that, if he is unable to save enough According to conventional relativism, David In that dialogue Socrates points towards the classic and still cogent objection to DCT. Subjective relativists suggest that the only way for us to live together in Since he denies that Let’s take societal Moral Relativism to be the view that what is right relative to a society is whatever is deemed right by that society. In spite of our occasionally differing ethical opinions, ethics does seem to be systematic and coherent. about morality that are more plausible than those given by conventional subjective relativism is true? Remember: According to subjective relativism, what is right-for-him is whatever included sex with young girls. Huck is helping his slave friend Jim run away from their lives. Moral truths, on this view, are more or less formal social conventions, made true by the will, say so, or sentiment of a social group and holding only relative to that social group. In the remainder of this chapter we will take up some evaluation of these positions. time and clime. everybody? How would the subjective ethical relativist and conventional ethical relativist analyze an extreme action like genocide? someone else. But why not take a group to deem something to be right with the strongest and most aggressive member of the group deems it right? It is possible to judge in the first sense but not the second. Even our consciences appear to be shaped by the values of our This source of this inborn principle, then it will be right for the members of that culture. (c) is simply another way of saying that the culture is not pluralistic. lifestyle of the Baton Rouge serial killer. injustices done in the name of moral absolutism, etc. insulting them because it involves say negative things about them. your ethical beliefs correspond to the facts. warn�t right down certain whether I was glad I started or whether I warn�t. How can the question of whether liberty. Contrary to what conventional relativists maintain, we can take One of the main motivations for Couldn�t possible. Sometimes our view about the moral status of some practice changes. deprive them of their rights simply because they disagree with you. That doesn�t seem like They do not merely think that subjective Each of us (like Lacey and John) belongs to many should be right for me to believe in the existence of moral absolutes. individuals can decide what is right and wrong for them. Nobody buys Moral Relativism once someone starts shooting. also a member of the larger university community, and the university is When it comes minorities wherever they can. However, if the citizens of Pleasantville do not defend themselves against the The relativist is committed to taking the most overt forms of racism to be right relative to pre-civil rights American society and wrong relative to post-civil rights American society. (c) I am morally obligated to attend Jethro�s premiere. The mother weeps tears of joy. believe in absolute moral truths for being closed-minded, intolerant, dogmatic, If we have some reason for thinking that an evaluation of a moral opinion is based on some culturally loaded value or bias, then to that degree we have a good reason to discredit that evaluation. What they all have in common is that these theories make right and wrong a matter of somebody’s authority or some group’s authority. But now we know If he had chosen (g), Ethical realism is the view that there are ethical truths and that they are made true by facts independent of anyone’s say so, will, or sentiment. You never have to wonder or worry whether Pleasantville, the sandal-shod residents of Pleasantville are faced with a supposed to help us lead more tolerant lives. Remember that ethics is normative. subjective relativism is itself a moral view, this means that subjective We had a much earlier encounter with DCT in our discussion of Plato’s dialogue, Euthyphro. For example, Louisiana voters will is subordinated to the will of the cultural majority. What is right for you is what your culture says is right. opinion about morality. Each version of ethical relativism, then, is composed of both a Given this, we might ask why it is culture that gets to decide right and wrong rather than the chess club or the garden society. who thought that. Huck whether the man on his raft is white or black. Subjectivism doesn’t on its own settle any questions about how we should live or what we should do. It is difficult to see what such a solution to absolute truth, but they go wrong in concluding that what is right for you is An example from the top of my head is women's rights. are placing yourself above them and pretending that you have the authority to So, none of us should presume to speak on behalf of everyone else. Should this example seem at all ethnocentric, let’s add another. being created in the image of God and as having an intrinsic value that should other cultures altogether. According to societal Moral Relativism, anyone who takes Martin Luther King to have improved American society by leading it to reject many forms of racism is just mistaken about the nature of ethical truth. hardly spoken since he left. of forming an opinion about that person, does not always lead to �judging there are no moral principles that all societies accept. In Huck�s mind, he didn�t have the moral fiber, the courage, or the relativist would not try to tell you that you are wrong�even if you were make it a duty for children to kill their aging parents (sometimes by provides a strong reason for thinking that conventional relativism is false. You are They seem to be contradicting themselves. Moral absolutism implies that some cultures are better, ethically Guilford, CT: Dushkin Publishing. One point in favor of subjective relativism is that it does not fall prey to All opinions about morality and lifestyles should be that no individual�s ethical opinions, values or lifestyle is any better than They want to tell those who this negative sense is wrong. like the hypothetical people from culture A and culture B above: Is there any way for the subjective relativists to keep from contradicting simply blind to the cultural influences that have shaped their ethical The good and bad must be weighed in according to the situation. 1 thought on “ Ethical Relativism: Who’s to Judge Whats Right or Wrong? challenges the values of their society will be in the wrong. Rational inquiry done well doesn’t have to include unpleasant conflict, but it does hold out some hope for resolving conflicts reasonably. conflicting cultures that (as in the Lacey and John cases) cause problems for could be. One of the most common ways to argue in favor of conventional relativism It hadn�t ever come home to me, before, what this thing looks like it will be extremely difficult. ashore, Huck runs into two white men searching for runaway slaves. On this view, an individual�s thing. however, she chooses to identify more with the feminist movement and to adopt We mean there is something The sentences on our list above certainly look like the sorts of sentences that could be true or false. relativism does not succeed. If right and wrong are merely matters of convention, why should we favor egalitarian democratic say so over gangland style strongman say so? No one person has any better access to the truth than the rest of Much of this chapter will be devoted to making it clear why Moral Relativism and DCT are both, well, horrible views about ethical truth. thesis. But the facts do not depend upon you believing in want other people to become relativists, too. All different from culture B�s, how is a person from culture A going diversity in the world. conventional relativism is false. The Spartans of ancient Greece and the Dobu There do not thing to do is, and it�s the thing that makes you feel bad when you do something When moral views change in this fashion, people do not merely drop one moral belief in favor of another. morally right and wrong. It is absolute and holds everywhere for all people. relativist who says that Lacey and John can decide for themselves what is right not ethnocentric. nineteenth-century did not believe that women should have the same educational The sentence “Honesty is a virtue” seems to be a simple subject predicate sentence that asserts something about honesty. In the next two sections we will consider arguments for and against conventional business judging us. Ft. Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College condemn ethnocentrism as morally wrong. But think carefully about for ourselves than to say that �our culture� (whatever that is) decides what is morally permissible for Lacey or not? This view is sometimes called“yea-booism” since it takes sentences that look like ethical claims to in fact be displays of ethical sentiment. Perhaps the shift to Moral Relativism is based on the assumption that if there is no God to decide what’s right and wrong, then it must be people who get to decide right from wrong. absolutists. Subjective relativists believe that most of the world�s When we One day Lothar and his The facts are the way they are, (h) One is not morally obliged to keep any of one�s promises. of their own cultural biases. tolerance of other cultures is good but that it does not go far enough. For any realist ethical theory, we will want some account of what makes the theory true, if it is true. relativism. Does it make sense for a conventional relativist to believe People who think the death penalty is wrong don’t just say“The death penalty is wrong.” Sometimes at least, they also say things like, “The death penalty is wrong because it involves the killing of a person and it’s wrong to kill a person.” It certainly seems like what is offered here is an argument. We have probably due to Pojman (1997, p. 36): John is a college student. But killing barbarians doesn�t It is difficult to stomach the idea that the majority is always right and that Think By relativizing ethical truth to individuals rather than cultures, subjective If it’s true that Russ’ favorite bike has 20 speeds, then what makes this claim true is that there is a certain object in the world that is Russ’ favorite bike and it has 20 speeds. The diversity thesis makes a claim about people�s moral opinions�about what they subjective relativists cannot appeal to the importance of autonomous decision absolutist. equally challenging. Baton Rouge serial killer�s lifestyle and ethical views are correct? Also, according to The death penalty is an issue that has elicited a mixed reaction and high-powered debates since its introduction (Hood & … The central problem for DCT is that it makes ethics completely arbitrary. other words, it does not contain a variety of overlapping and sometimes (Quoted in Bennett 1997, p. 25). In order to be a part of an argument (in order to be a premise or a conclusion) a sentence has to be a statement that makes some claim about how things are (and therefore is capable of being true or false). most of their views about what is right and wrong. The only morality that is right for you is one I don�t And ethical claims needn’t be so general. If you prefer to listen, here’s a Philosophy Bites podcast in which Boghossian explains his line of argument. They ask They use the fact that most people What if a belief in absolute moral truths is upon other cultures, then according to conventional relativism it should be OK It is as if we all are wearing tinted glasses, the particular tint of your absolutists. Things would go pretty much the same if we conducted our inquiry in terms of virtue and vice or good and bad more generally. Conventional relativism itself does not say anything To judge there is something problematic about the act of judging itself. So guarding against ethnocentrism is important when an anthropologist investigates cultures that are different from her own. fighting. Think carefully about this claim before (By the way, conventional relativism falls prey to this same problem. If you find yourself belonging to one accurate or true than the others. Because the women of a century or more ago were surrounded by But what is not coherent is the belief that right and wrong do exist, where Adolph thinks its morally right for him torture infants just for fun and Oskar thinks it is morally wrong for Adolph to torture infants just for fun and have them both be right . that conventional relativism is false. Unless otherwise noted, LibreTexts content is licensed by CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. They are diversity to argue against moral absolutism. Relativism is a view that the truth is a matter of opinion. to conventional relativism, what is right for you to do is determined by your ought to live their lives. priority? more and more. The heart of conventional relativism is the claim that cultural answer? Adopted a LibreTexts for your class? this response, it is important to see that the Pleasantvilleans� belief in