|
Moral relativism refers to a view that claims moral standards are not absolute or
universal, but rather emerge from social customs and other sources. Relativists consequently see moral values as applicable only within agreed or accepted cultural boundaries. Very few, if any,
people hold this view in its pure form, but hold instead another more qualified verson of it.
Protagoras' notion that "man is the measure of all things" may be seen as an
early philosophical precursor to relativism. Moral relativists hold that
an unsharable, personal, and aesthetic moral core lies at the foundation of
personal choices. They deny the possibility of sharing morality at all, except by
convention.
A simple way to express this view is that "everyone draws their own moral from the same story" and behaves according to their
own impression, acceptance, or rejection of it.
It is often confused with ethical relativism which holds
that morality can be shared but only between closely-knit groups sharing a moral
code and committed to joint action, e.g. an ethnic minority in a hostile situation.
A moral relativist, on the other hand, would hold that even people in such a circumstance do not follow a common moral code, but are simply unable to follow their varying personal urges due to social
pressure.
Moral Relativism vs. Absolute Morality
Moral relativism stands in contrast to moral absolutism, which
sees morals as fixed by an absolute human nature (Jean
Jacques Rousseau), or external sources such as deities (many religions) or the
universe itself (as in Objectivism). Those who believe
in moral absolutes often are highly critical of moral relativism; some have been known to equate it with outright immorality or
amorality. Moral universalism is a humanist neologism that exhorts the use of logical and universally-common ethical standards, which together
may form a philosophical alternative to both static absolutism and murky relativism.
Emotivism and Universism
The individual viewpoint, also known as emotivism, argues that people judge
morality based on their emotions and feelings. Universism further argues that
only those individuals causing or directly affected by an action can make any judgment about the action's ultimate rightness or
wrongness. Those judgments can be made on the basis of reason, experience and emotion.
Ethnocentrism or Cultural Relativism
Moral relativism has sometimes been placed in contrast to ethnocentrism. Essentially, the claim is that judging members of one society by the moral standards of
another is a form of ethnocentrism; some moral relativists claim that people can only be judged by the mores of their own society. Other moral relativists argue that, as moral codes differ among societies, one can
only utilize the "common ground" to judge moral matters between societies.
One consequence of this viewpoint, also known as cultural relativism, is the principle that any judgment of society on the
basis of the observer's moral code is invalid: individuals are to be judged against the standards of their society only, there
being no larger context in which judgement is meaningful. This is a source of conflict between moral relativists and moral
absolutists, since a moral absolutist would argue that society as a whole can be judged for its acceptance of "immoral"
practices, such as slavery or the death penalty. Such judgments can be argued to be arbitrary through cultural relativism,
although some relativists may still condemn slavery.
The philosopher David Hume suggested principles similar to those of moral
relativism in an appendix to his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751).
See also: moral purchasing, morality, ethics, Situational ethics, emotivism, Universism
References and external links
|