Ethical Relativism

1. Ethical Relativism

2. Ethical Subjectivism • Boss: “Ethical subjectivism, also known as individual relativism, makes the claim that people can never be mistaken about what is morally right or wrong because there are no objective or universal moral standards or truths, instead, there are only opinions. It does not have to be backed up by reasons or facts. What is right or wrong for one particular individual is a matter of personal taste, rather like our preferences for particular foods or hairstyles.”

3. Complications • We don’t usually see the complications until our inner certainty runs into someone else’s inner certainty, but their inner certainty is the opposite of ours! Then we have a problem.

4. Moral Standards? • Boss: “The great majority of moral philosophers disagree with ethical subjectivism. These philosophers maintain that there are fundamental moral standards by which we can judge people.”

5. Resistance • One approach to the problem is to simply ask ourselves why we are resistant to universal values, at least in the modern Western world. The answer is that we hold freedom as one of our greatest values and we don’t want other people telling us what to think or how to act.

6. Individualism • People are not supposed to conform to what they are told is right and good, but they are to struggle to find their own personal truth and then live from that discovery rather than from some other authority’s rulebook.

7. Tolerance • Boss: “Many people confuse ethical subjectivism with an ethics of tolerance and respect for others’ lifestyles - an ethics that is often summed up by the phrase ‘live and let live’.”

8. Contradiction? • “Tolerance is a universal moral principle. The statement ‘live and let live’ implies a universal duty to respect others, regardless of how we personally feel toward them, and a duty not to harm them either directly or by interfering with their rights to pursue their own interests. According to ethical subjectivism though, universal moral duties do not exist.”

9. Sociological Relativism • Boss: “Some people also confuse ethical subjectivism with the obviously true observation that individuals do hold different views about what is morally right and morally wrong.”

10. Learning from the Past • The vast majority of people used to truly believe that slavery was right, that women were not as smart as men, and that children were simply the property of their fathers. But surely that does not make it right and good. It also does not mean that people holding these views were insincere. They probably really saw the world in this way. By what standard are we able to look at past values and see that they were not as moral as once believed?

11. Moral Uncertainty • When someone comes to us for moral advice and we simply tell them to do what they know is right, we could be saying two different things. On one hand, we could simply be saying that whatever they decide is right for them. This is relativity. But on the other hand, we might simply be acknowledging that we trust them and their own integrity to do the right thing.

12. An Example • In medical experiments concerning a new drug we know that some scientists think it will work while others are doubtful. This does not mean that both are correct. It just means we have not figured it out yet. We hold out hope that eventually we will know whether a medicine will help us or not. This same attitude of waiting to understand is helpful in ethics as well.

13. Moral Responsibility • Boss: “Moral responsibility, in terms of assigning moral blame or praise, becomes a moot issue with ethical subjectivists because there are no objective standards against which to measure the morality of a person’s actions; ethical subjectivism therefore precludes passing judgment on other people’s or even on our own actions.”

14. The Influence of Ideas • Boss: “Ethical theories do not exist in abstraction. Ethical theories inform and motivate our real-life decisions and actions. They shape the way we define ourselves, as well as our community and our ideas of community responsibility.”

15. Romantic Sentimentalism • It is good to encourage children to discuss moral issues and wrestle with these ideas. But that is not the same as claiming that their answers are equivalent to moral truths.

16. The Social Context • Boss: “Ethical subjectivism, by retreating into pure inner or subjective feelings, neglects to take into account the social context that gives moral sentiments their value in the first place. To remove morality from the social realm is to condone isolation and apathy in the face of others’ pain.”

17. The Kitty Genovese Syndrome • Much of ethics has to do with duties. That is, I am called upon to act in a certain way. If this calling is only a matter of whether I personally relate to it or agree with it or not, then it can lead to some of the many problems we all face today living in our modern society.

18. Critique of Ethical Relativism • Boss: “1. Ethical subjectivism incorrectly assumes that moral disagreement necessarily implies that there are no universal moral standards.”

19. Example: Parenting • Just because we are not sure what to do does not mean we don’t have a sense of right and wrong. You can see this particularly well in issues around parenting. Parents often know the values they want their children to have but how to teach these values is not always clear.

20. Critique of Ethical Relativism • Boss: “2. Ethical subjectivism is based on the incorrect assumption that we cannot be mistaken in our moral beliefs.”

21. Is There Moral Growth? • We allow for the fact that we can grow in our morality, that we are capable of moral development. This implies that there is a moral good that we can move closer to and this is only possible if there is something beyond our personal opinion.

22. Critique of Ethical Relativism • Boss: “3. We do pass judgment on our feelings and actions. At times, we judge that it would be immoral to act upon certain feelings or desires.”

23. Morality and Feelings • Boss: “If morality is the same as feeling, then it makes no sense to restrain ourselves from acting on our feelings. To restrain ourselves only makes sense if we are using moral criteria or principles that are independent of our feelings.”

24. Critique of Ethical Relativism • Boss: “4. Ethical subjectivism is disastrous for the weak and defenseless.” When you think about it, you notice that if ethical subjectivism were true then it would limit morality to those who were actually able to implement their desires. The more powerful can use their subjective desire to hurt those beneath them anyway they want simply because they feel like it.

25. Partially Right • Boss: “Ethical subjectivists, for example, are correct in noting that morality begins with the individual experience and that these experiences are sometimes at variance with one another. Ethical subjectivists’ belief in the basic goodness of human nature and that our sense of morality is innate may also contain more than just a grain of truth at least for the 96 percent of us who have a conscience.”

26. Moral Community • Boss: “Moral experience and moral growth do not end with our limited individual experience. Nor are we as humans infallible in discerning the moral voice within us. There seem to be other voices, from both within and without, that compete with our conscience or sense of morality. For us to develop morally, our sense of what is right and wrong must be nurtured, as well as challenged, by our community.”

27. A Dangerous Theory? • We need to include our feelings, but we also need to see beyond them. We have personal and cultural blind spots and it is only when we are helped to see them that we can expand our awareness and let our circle of compassion grow larger.

28. Cultural Relativism • Boss: “Subjectivists claim that individuals create their own moral standards; cultural relativists argue that moral standards and values are derived from groups of people or cultures. Public opinion, rather than private opinion, determines what is right and wrong. There are no objective universal moral standards that hold true for all people in all cultures. Morality, instead, is regarded as nothing more than socially approved customs.”

29. Celebrating Diversity • It is obvious that different cultures have different ways of dressing, different foods, and different customs. In a pluralistic world we can celebrate these differences and enjoy the variety they bring to our lives. But is cultural variety the same as cultural relativism when it comes to ethics? Can we not stand in judgment of some practices, such as terrorism, simply because some people think it is a valid moral option?

30. Excusing? • Boss: “Cultural relativism is not the same as excusing certain cultural practices, such as slavery, on the grounds that the people of that culture sincerely believe that what they are or were doing is morally acceptable. Excusing entails granting an exemption or pardon from wrongdoing.”

31. Prescribing and Describing • Boss: “Cultural relativists claim that these practices were actually morally right for the members of that culture.” If we don’t like it then that only means we come from a different culture with different social customs. It doesn’t mean there is actually anything wrong with female circumcision, headhunting, or terrorism.

32. Tolerance or Intolerance? • Boss: “Cultural relativism is not the same as respect for cultural diversity. Cultural relativism is sometimes mistakenly advocated on the grounds that it promotes tolerance and respect for cultural diversity. However, this is based on a misunderstanding of cultural relativism since this very tolerance may promote intolerance and violation of human rights.”

33. Critical Thinking Needed • There is a difference between trying new foods and music and trying out headhunting while on a study abroad program! How we make these distinctions is what we will be studying over the next few weeks. But it all begins with being able to analyze our thinking about values such as respect and tolerance.

34. Respect Intolerance? • Why respect people unless it is because of the feeling and thinking that states that all people have a basic right to be respected? How can we show respect for this basic human right if we also tolerate policies that disrespect people and their basic needs?

35. Sociological Relativism • Boss: “Sociological relativism is simply the observation that there is disagreement among cultures regarding moral values. Unlike cultural relativism, sociological relativism draws no conclusions; it makes no judgments about the rightness or wrongness of different cultural standards. Cultural relativists presuppose that sociological relativism is true, but sociological relativists do not necessarily accept cultural relativism as true.”

36. Some Values Are Shared • There are many examples of how when first describing different customs, it looked as though very different moral values were being discovered. A more in-depth examination revealed that it was not so different after all. No one approves of lying, stealing and cheating.

37. Example: Eskimos • Boss: “It is now apparent that much of what initially appeared to be disagreement about basic moral standards may instead be the result of situational differences.”

38. Example: Witch Burnings • Once people get their facts straight, immoral actions often stop. In other words people were not motivated to do things we disagree with because they were evil but because they misperceived what the good was.

39. Context • Boss: “Acknowledging the influences of these factors in shaping the particular moral practices and values of a culture does not imply that there are no underlying basic universal moral standards. Universal moral standards, rather than determining the exact content of a culture‘s moral values and customs, provide general guidelines and set limits upon the values and customs that are morally acceptable within their particular context.”

40. Social Darwinism • Boss: “Morality, in other words, does not exist in some abstract realm but is a part of the natural world and is intimately linked to our struggle for survival within it.” In other words, morality is just another way to help us survive.

41. Social Darwinism in Practice • The Social Darwinists used the success of Western countries over other parts of the world as proof that this is the way things were supposed to be, since Western people believed themselves to be better than other people and that Western values were better. Because they are better they can be imposed on people who might not have or even want these same values.

42. Anthropology • Boss: “In her landmark book Patterns of Culture, published in 1934, Benedict uncovered the inconsistencies in the Social Darwinists’ claim that Western society is at a higher level of moral, religious, and social evolution. She claimed that Darwin’s evolutionary theory does not imply that morality is found in a greater degree in civilized societies.”

43. No Objective Standards? • Boss: “Interpretation rather than analysis stands at the top of the ‘thinking’ pyramid. Our culturally shaped interpretations or worldviews about what is right and wrong are our reality. We thus have no grounds, other than our own cultural norms, for judging the morality of a practice such as cannibalism.”

44. A Political Agenda • Boss: “By advocating cultural relativism, anthropologists such as Benedict wanted to stop imperialist practices and replace them with greater respect for and tolerance of cultural differences. If moral values are relative to each culture, then no culture’s values can be superior to those of any other culture. And if no culture’s values are superior to those of any other, they reasoned, then Western cultures have no justification for imposing their morality on other cultures.”

45. A Trap? • They missed the fact that they were saying that their values of celebrating cultural diversity were better than the values of Social Darwinism. Their values of respecting ancient and tribal cultures were better than imperialism. But how can they say these values are better than other values if they have no standard by which to judge such values?

46. Moral Community • What is our moral community? It is the group of people who receive our care and concern. It usually starts with our family and then moves in outward rings to include our friends and larger community until it stops. What often looks like different moralities is simply the fact that different people draw their circles in different ways.

47. Expanding Moral Community • The modern ecological movement is asking that people enlarge their circles of care and community even more to include all of nature. Wars are usually the result of countries putting the welfare of other countries’ citizens outside the circle of concern. In fact, they usually have to demonize such people in order to get people to stomach the violence of war.

48. Example: Slavery • Boss: “Respect for human equality and a belief in justice were pre-Civil War American values. These values were even written into the U.S. Constitution. What has changed between now and then is not the basic moral principles but the definition of moral community. Slavery could only be morally justified by excluding the victims of slavery from the moral community.”

49. Flexible Boundaries • The Jews were once a part of the moral community of Germany, but then over a relatively short time they were excluded. By demonizing them and moving them outside of the concerns of the moral community, most Germans managed to ignore the great evil that was happening in their midst.

50. Protecting the Status Quo • Boss: “The cultural definition of moral community is, to a large extent, politically and economically motivated. Cultural relativism, in other words, supports a definition of the moral community that serves primarily to maintain the status quo.”