How can morals be relative

For some, moral relativism, which relativizes the truth of moral claims, follows logically from a broader cognitive relativism that relativizes truth in general. Many moral relativists, however, take the fact-value distinction to be fundamental. A common, albeit negative, reason for embracing moral relativism is simply the perceived untenability of moral objectivism: every attempt to establish a single, objectively valid and universally binding set of moral principles runs up against formidable objections.

A more positive argument sometimes advanced in defense of moral relativism is that it promotes tolerance since it encourages us to understand other cultures on their own terms. Critics claim that relativists typically exaggerate the degree of diversity among cultures since superficial differences often mask underlying shared agreements.

In fact, some say that there is a core set of universal values that any human culture must endorse if it is to flourish. Moral relativists are also accused of inconsistently claiming that there are no universal moral norms while appealing to a principle of tolerance as a universal norm.

Naturally, most moral relativists typically reject the assumption that such judgments require a non-relativistic foundation. In the view of most people throughout history, moral questions have objectively correct answers.

There are obvious moral truths just as there are obvious facts about the world. Cowardice is a bad quality. A man should not have sex with his mother. Heroes deserve respect. Such statements would be viewed as obviously and objectively true, no more open to dispute than the claim that seawater is salty. This assumption was first challenged in fifth century B. The idea was that moral beliefs and practices are bound up with customs and conventions, and these vary greatly between societies.

The Greeks said nothing could induce them to do this. The Callatiae were horrified at the suggestion. The sophists—notably Protagoras, Gorgias, and some of their followers—were also associated with relativistic thinking. As itinerant intellectuals and teachers, the sophists were cosmopolitan, impressed by and prompted to reflect upon the diversity in religions, political systems, laws, manners, and tastes they encountered in different societies.

More popular and influential was the contrast that many drew between nomos law, custom and physis nature, natural order. So, relativistic thinking seems to have been in the air at the time.

Strictly speaking, it is a form of moral nihilism rather than moral relativism, but in rejecting the whole idea of objective moral truth it clears the ground for relativism. Even though moral relativism makes its first appearance in ancient times, it hardly flourished. Plato vigorously defended the idea of an objective moral order linked to a transcendent reality while Aristotle sought to ground morality on objective facts about human nature and well-being.

A few centuries later, Sextus Empiricus appears to have embraced a form of moral relativism, partly on the basis of the diversity of laws and conventions, and partly as a consequence of his Pyrrhonian skepticism that sought to eschew dogmatism.

But Hellenistic skepticism gave way to philosophy informed by Christianity, and moral relativism effectively became dormant and remained so throughout the period of Christian hegemony in Europe. Relativism thus ceased to be an option until the advent of modernity. In the 17th century, Hobbes argued for a social contract view of morality that sees moral rules, like laws, as something human beings agree upon in order to make social living possible.

An implication of this view is that moral tenets are not right or wrong according to whether they correspond to some transcendent blueprint; rather, they should be appraised pragmatically according to how well they serve their purpose. Hume, like Montaigne, was heavily influenced by ancient skepticism, and this colors his view of morality. His argument, that prescriptions saying how we should act cannot be logically derived from factual claims about the way things are, raised doubts about the possibility of proving the correctness of any particular moral point of view.

So, too, did his insistence that morality is based ultimately on feelings rather than on reason. Hume was not a relativist, but his arguments helped support elements of relativism. With the remarkable progress of science in the 19th and 20th centuries, the fact-value distinction became entrenched in mainstream philosophy and social science. Science came to be seen as offering value-neutral descriptions of an independently existing reality; moral claims, by contrast, came to be viewed by many as mere expressions of emotional attitudes.

This view of morality suggests that all moral outlooks are on the same logical plane, with none capable of being proved correct or superior to all the rest. According to one interpretation, Marx holds that there is no objectively true moral system, only interest-serving ideologies that use moral language.

But Marx wrote little about ethics, so it is hard to pin down his philosophical views about the nature of morality and the status of moral claims. Nietzsche, on the other hand, wrote extensively and influentially about morality. Scholars disagree about whether he should be classified as a relativist, but his thought certainly has a pronounced relativistic thrust.

It is true that Nietzsche likes to rank moralities according to whether they are expressions of strength or weakness, health or sickness; but he does not insist that the criteria of rank he favors constitute an objectively privileged vantage point from which different moralities can be appraised.

These philosophical ideas prepared the ground for moral relativism mainly by raising doubts about the possibility of demonstrating that any particular moral code is objectively correct. But anthropological research in the 19th and 20th centuries also encouraged relativism. Indeed, many of its leading contemporary champions from Franz Boas to Clifford Gertz have been anthropologists.

One of the first to argue at length for moral relativism was William Sumner. To those living within that society, the concept of moral rightness can only mean conformity to the local mores. Sumner acknowledges that if members of a culture generalize its mores into abstract principles, they will probably regard these as correct in an absolute sense.

This may even be psychologically unavoidable. But it is not philosophically legitimate; the mores themselves cannot be an object of moral appraisal since there is no higher tribunal to which appeals can be made. The work of Franz Boas was also tremendously influential.

Boas viewed cultural relativism—a commitment to understanding a society in its own terms—as methodologically essential to scientific anthropology. From an objective, scientific standpoint one may not pass moral judgment on the beliefs and practices that inhere within a culture, although one may objectively assess the extent to which they help that society achieve its overarching goals.

The debate over moral relativism in modern times has thus not been an abstract discussion of interest only to professional philosophers. It is thought to have implications for the social sciences, for international relations, and for relations between communities within a society.

In , the American Anthropological Association submitted a statement to the UN Commission on Human Rights criticizing what some viewed as an attempt by the West to impose its particular values on other societies in the name of universal rights.

The statement declared that:. Standards and values are relative to the culture from which they derive so that any attempt to formulate postulates that grow out of the beliefs or moral codes of one culture must to that extent detract from the applicability of any Declaration of Human Rights to mankind as a whole American Anthropologist , Vol.

Needless to say, the statement caused some controversy since many members of the AAA did not agree with the position it laid out. More recently, discussions of relativism have been at the center of debates about how societies with large immigrant populations should deal with the problem of multiculturalism. To what extent should the practices of minorities be accepted, even if they seem to conflict with the values of the majority culture? In France, a law was passed in banning face veils that some Muslim women view as required by Islam.

Those supporting the ban appeal to values they consider universal such as sexual equality and freedom of expression which the face veil is said to violate since it inhibits expressive interaction. But critics of the policy see it as expressing a kind of cultural intolerance, just the sort of thing that relativism claims to counter. Defining moral relativism is difficult because different writers use the term in slightly different ways; in particular, friends and foes of relativism often diverge considerably in their characterization of it.

Therefore, it is important to first distinguish between some of the positions that have been identified or closely associated with moral relativism before setting out a definition that captures the main idea its adherents seek to put forward.

Descriptive relativism is a thesis about cultural diversity. It holds that, as a matter of fact, moral beliefs and practices vary between cultures and sometimes between groups within a single society.

For instance, some societies condemn homosexuality, others accept it; in some cultures a student who corrects a teacher would be thought disrespectful; elsewhere such behavior might be encouraged. Descriptive relativism is put forward as an empirical claim based on evidence provided by anthropological research; hence it is most strongly associated with the work of anthropologists such as William Sumner, Ruth Benedict and Meville Herskovits.

There is a spectrum of possible versions of this thesis. In its strongest, most controversial form, it denies that there are any moral universals—norms or values that every human culture endorses. This extreme view is rarely, if ever, defended, since it seems reasonable to suppose that the affirmation of certain values—for instance, a concern for the wellbeing of the young— is necessary for any society to survive.

In its weakest, least controversial form, descriptive relativism merely denies that all cultures share the same moral outlook. The somewhat simple form of descriptive relativism, which takes any differences between the moral beliefs or practices of two cultures as evidence of a difference in moral outlooks, has been heavily criticized both by social scientists such as Solomon Asch and by philosophers such as Michele Moody-Adams.

Another objection is that many apparent moral differences between cultures are not really fundamental disagreements about questions of value—that is, disagreements that would persist even if both parties were in full agreement about all the pertinent facts. For instance, the taboo against homosexuality in some cultures may rest on the belief that homosexuality is a sin against God that will result in the sinner suffering eternal damnation.

The point of conflict between these cultures and those that tolerate homosexuality may thus be viewed as being, fundamentally, not about the intrinsic rightness or wrongness of homosexuality but the different factual beliefs they hold concerning the consequences of homosexuality.

In light of such difficulties, contemporary defenders of descriptive relativism usually prefer a fairly modest, tempered version of the doctrine.

Cultural relativism asserts that the beliefs and practices of human beings are best understood by grasping them in relation to the cultural context in which they occur. It was originally put forward as, and remains today, a basic methodological principle of modern anthropology.

It was championed by anthropologists like Sumner and Boas who saw it as an antidote of the unconscious ethnocentrism that may lead social scientists to misunderstand the phenomena they are observing. For instance, ritualistic infliction of pain may look, on the surface, like a punishment aimed at deterring others from wrongdoing; but it may in fact be viewed by those involved in the practice as serving a quite different function, such as purging the community of an impurity.

Thus, Gestalt psychologist Karl Duncker, argued that the action by an Eskimo of killing his aged parent, where this is socially sanctioned as a way to spare their suffering, is not the same act as the killing of a parent in a society where such an action would generally be condemned as murder. Since the meaning of each act differs, we should not infer that the values of the two societies are necessarily in conflict. The term cultural relativism is sometimes also used to denote the corollary methodological principle that social scientists, if they wish their work to have scientific status, should describe and analyze what goes on in the cultures they are studying, carefully eschewing any normative appraisal of what they observe.

Ethical non-realism is the view that there is no objective moral order that makes our moral beliefs true or false and our actions right or wrong. It continues to be widely held, and leading contemporary defenders of ethical realism include Thomas Nagel, John McDowell, and Richard Boyd. Ethical non-realists obviously reject ethical realism, but not all for the same reasons; consequently there are several types of ethical non-realism.

The most head-on rejection of ethical realism is perhaps the sort of moral error theory defended by J. A skeptical attitude toward moral realism can be more tentative than this. Hume is often interpreted as a moral skeptic who denies the possibility of proving by reason or by empirical evidence the truth of moral statements since our moral views rest entirely on our feelings.

More recently, Michael Ruse, has defended an updated version of Hume, arguing that we are conditioned by evolution to hold fast to certain moral beliefs, regardless of the evidence for or against them; consequently, we should not view such beliefs as rationally justified. And Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has shown how difficult it is to refute moral skepticism, especially the sort of non-dogmatic Pyrrhonian skepticism which holds that one may be justified within a restricted context in affirming a certain moral belief—for instance, in court it is wrong to lie as opposed to telling the truth—yet not be able to justify the claim that lying, or even perjury, is wrong in some absolute, objective sense.

Ethical non-realism is typically presupposed by moral relativists, but it is not the whole of moral relativism. Clearly, no one who believes in the absolute authority of divine law or the intrinsic value of a rational will would be likely to embrace relativism.

But merely denying that morality has an objective foundation of this sort does not make one a relativist; for moral relativism also asserts that moral claims may be true or false relative to some particular standpoint such as that of a specific culture or historical period. An especially influential version of this view, first put forward by Ogden and Richards, and later elaborated upon by A. Ayer and C. Stevenson, is emotivism.

Prescriptivism, for instance, the view developed by R. Hare, acknowledges that moral statements can express emotional attitudes but sees their primary function as that of prescribing how people should behave. Most forms of ethical non-cognitivism, like moral relativism, have been fueled by acceptance of a fact-value gap. But unlike ethical non-cognitivism, moral relativism does not deny that moral claims can be true; it only denies that they can be made true by some objective, trans-cultural moral order.

It allows them to be true in the humbler, relativistic sense of being rationally acceptable from a particular cultural vantage point. Meta-ethical relativism holds that moral judgments are not true or false in any absolute sense, but only relative to particular standpoints. This idea is essential to just about any version of moral relativism. Relativizing truth to standpoints is a way of answering in advance the objection that relativism implies that the same sentence can be both true and false.

But if they are speaking at different times or from different locations standpoints this is possible. Saying that the truth of a moral claim is relative to some standpoint should not be confused with the idea that it is relative to the situation in which it is made.

Only the most extreme rigorists would deny that in assessing a moral judgment we should take the particular circumstances into account. Most people would agree that lying in court to avoid a fine is wrong, while lying to a madman to protect his intended victim is justified. The particular circumstances surrounding the action alter its character and hence our appraisal of it.

Some meta-ethical relativists focus more on the justification of moral judgments rather than on their truth. But whether or not the person has these desires and intentions, and hence feels obliged to perform the action, is largely determined by the prevailing norms of the community to which she belongs.

Feelings of moral obligation provide a justification for particular beliefs and practices; but these only arise through agents being embedded in particular social groups whose moral outlook they share. Most moral relativists endorse some version of meta-ethical relativism.

But meta-ethical relativism is not quite fully-fledged moral relativism; for one could consistently affirm it and still insist that one particular standpoint was demonstrably superior to all others. 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.

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. 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.

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 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. 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 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 The constraints are based on a naturalistic understanding of human nature and the circumstances of human life.

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. 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 ; for more recent discussion, see Li , Vicente and Arrieta , and Wong A somewhat similar mixed position has been advanced, though more tentatively, by Foot a and b; see also Scanlon and ch.

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.

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 argued that, though some moral values are universal, there are also many objective values that conflict and are not commensurable with one another.

But if incommensurability implies that these conflicts cannot be rationally resolved, then it might suggest a concession to relativism. Finally, it should also be noted that a rather different kind of mixed position was proposed by Bernard Williams and ch. But he endorsed another form of relativism.

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. 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 and 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. 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 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 , Harrison , Ivanhoe , Kim and Wreen , Prinz pp. 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 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. 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 ch. 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.

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.

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. Moral relativism is a much misunderstood philosophical view. But there is a range of sophisticated views that attempt to take seriously the great diversity of moral systems and attitudes that exist around the world, and attempts to put them in the context of the social and moral problems that each society faces, rather than suggesting there is a single moral code that ought to apply to everyone at all times.

By signing up you agree to our privacy policy. Article Being Human. For example, perhaps Islamists got it right, or buddists. Different areas of the world can be right in their own moral systems, but ultimately I believe that there is one absolute moral truth.

The higher the stakes are, then more people will be on the same page about a moral issue like murder. Moral relativism finds that there is no objective way to establish that a particular morality is the correct morality one and concludes that there is no reason to believe in a single true morality.

This is compatible with the possibility of certain moral universals just as there seem to be linguistic universals. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Essay What is morality relative? Ben Davis May 1, What is morality relative? Are moral values absolute or relative? Why do we say morality is absolute? Why are moral values absolute? Are moral principles absolute?

Is there absolute moral truth? Is there a right and a wrong? What is the meaning of absolute truth?