A critique of moral relativism

Since the issue of moral relativity has been brought up on several threads it might be about time to have a thread dedicated to it.As a disclaimer, it was about 10 years ago since I took a course on ethics at university, and it wasn't massively in depth so the information I present here can mostly be found on wikipedia with a little memory thrown in for good measure.

What is moral relativism, anyway?

principle sourceThere are differing concepts which can all be called moral relativism. They all share the central idea that morality can vary, that there can be different moral answers depending on time, society and individuals.Descriptive relativism is essentially that. It simply points out that there is a diversity of moral judgement across time, societies and individuals - as such there is no objective moral truth.Meta-ethical relativism suggests that since there is no objective standard by which to assess the truth of a moral proposition, right and wrong can only be judged against the standards of the society or individual preference. Slavery is wrong relative to our standards, but it is right relative to the standards of some villages in 17th Century Africa. Cultural relativism is just where morality is judged relative to the culture within which the moral question arises.Individual relativism is as above only from the individual's point of view (does he find his own actions right or wrong).Normative relativism makes statements about what should be morally right. An example of normative relativism is that a person should not judge the morality of another culture using the moral standards of his own.

Problems and their solutions

The first problem with moral relativism is straight forward: one cannot apply it to determine a moral course of action. i.e., there is no such thing as applied relativism. One can apply relativism in a sense, but I'm not sure on its validity. Take the example of 'would you kill one man to save 10 others?' Applying relativism might lead us thus: 'killing a man is wrong in my culture and not saving 10 men is considered less wrong unless we are in a self defence situation. We aren't in the latter so I should let them die according to my culture. what about me? What do I think? Hmm, my personal morality conflicts with societies, perhaps I should seek to change the laws of society to make it illegal to not save lives if doing so is not dangerous.' It isn't a system that can provide answers which are objectively true - but obviously the point of relativism.Another issue to tackle is normative relativism which leads to a principle of non-interference. The solution to this problem is less easy, and involves proposing an exception clause: that is to say - interference between cultures is acceptable if their morality conflict.
Applied relativism can't be used here; there is no way to use relativism to determine if any given conflict warrants intervention.

Moral relativism and bestiality

Finally - the issue that has come up so many times. Let us look at relativism and how it might make a decision on bestiality baring in mind what was said above.If a society exists which performs a monthly ritual of sex with dogs, what is moral relativism's response to that? We cannot say it is morally wrong without giving a reference point. It is right relative to its own standards of right and wrong relative to mine. On the other hand we can make a judgement on the practice of bestiality ourselves by using applied ethics of another variety.

Summary

The most important thing about moral relativity is that it cannot really be used to determine if a certain act is definitely moral or immoral. Other moral systems need to be used if one wishes to engage in applied ethics to reach a single answer. All moral relativity can conclude is 'according to his society, or to himself, or to whatever, he was morally correct.' or 'according to himself he was engaging in a moral crusade to change society, but the rest of his society considered his actions entirely immoral'.The biggest fundamental flaw in criticising moral relativism is found here. One cannot criticise it for not being able to make a definite moral judgement because that is the whole point of it! Something is only moral relative to some non-objective standard and can be immoral relative to some other non-objective standard. If you need to make a definite moral one needs to examine other methods of applied ethics.A person who is a moral relativist is not somebody who applies relative ethics to a moral problem or to decide one single moral course of action. A moral relativist is someone who does not believe there is more than one way to structure a society and thus determine its morals. They are someone who accepts there are differing methods of applied ethics and concludes that there is no way to determine the truth of any of them. Moral relativity can be used to show a culture that is engaging in an act which is immoral relative to its own claimed system of applied ethics (slavery can be shown to be immoral in the US by pointing to the Bill of Rights as the conclusions of the applied ethics of the culture).The contrast is moral absolutism, which rejects there are multiple valid ways of regulating the interaction of people and that there exists somewhere one and only one perfect system of regulation, only one moral code that has any validity whatsoever.If promoted I'd think 'Faith and belief' or 'Comparative religions' are the most relevant places. Another place for this kind of discussion might simply be 'The Coffee House'. I'll let someone else make that call thoughIf anyone can put forward a more rounded case for applied relativism, I'd be happy to hear it.

Moral relativism holds that there are no concrete conclusions of morality, so why would moral relativism ever try to 'anchor' one? Culture is not a scapegoat or 'rationale' (as he puts it) it is a reference point. One compares an act to the morality of something else. It might cultural morality, morality of a business, or whatever. One can then conclude 'this act was moral according to the morality of this culture/business etc'.That's all it is. I'll listen to the rest later, but from what I have heard it sounds like the same misunderstanding of moral relativism I described and debunked in the OP. Obviously they have moral presuppositions! Moral relativism can be used to judge these the moral conclusions people have derived from applied ethics based on these presuppositions, relative to some moral standard. Say: the standard of morality in the prevailing culture. See my comments regarding normative relativism and under the 'problems' section where I touch it not with a ten foot pole but address it using words. If you'd care to respond to that, please do. Moral relativity states that unlike math or logic, there is no way to determine the truth value of a statement such as 'Stealing cars is morally wrong'. We can only compare this to the morality of other things. See how this moral statement stands relative to the moral statement of a culture or society etc. Like the theory of relativity reminds us that we cannot state the speed of an object without first defining a frame of reference (what are we saying it is moving relative to?). And then you are stuck with another conundrum - how can we be sure there is meaning? To determine what is right or wrong, a relativist can use applied ethics from some other moral philosophy and he can then compare his conclusions with the conclusions of other moral philosophies. Without knowing which one is correct we cannot know which moral philosophy has arrived at the correct conclusion. We can make a judgement call (opinion) on which moral philosophies are better for making a decision on the moral course of action, but that is the best we can do.

If you are discussing the correct formulation of moral relativism you can only get a relative one. Is murder right or wrong relative to what standard of morality? The first snag we find is that what is defined as murder varies from culture to culture. The relativist appreciates that there are different definitions of murder and whether a given act is murder depends. If we define murder as 'an act of killing which the prevailing society considers immoral' then murder is always immoral since we are defining murder in a relative fashion. What would those same moral grounds be? Can you find a society wherein the rules of moral sexual behaviour would include bother bestiality and homosexuality? If you can, then we can say that relative to that society's standard, they are both moral. On the other hand, you might conclude that in all societies bestiality is considered immoral, but that some small groups consider it moral.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

The experiment is complete - see the OP where that is done

Except the people that do not believe there are multiple equally valid constructions of morality. Obviously those who are relativists do not think they are right and that the absolutists are also relativists and visa versa. One cannot declare that relativism is correct by fiat.

So because I answered a question about relative morality with regards to homosexuality and bestiality that determines that I am unable to discuss bestiality without thinking it has a legitimate connection to homosexuality? I don't think there is a legitimate connection to cheese making and abortion (replace the words in my reply to nemesis and see how it is just as valid), but I can discuss relative morality in those terms if somebody specifically brings it up.However, since I discussed bestiality in the OP without connecting it in any way to homosexuality, that falsifies your statement that I am unable to do so. All you have shown is that I am able discuss the two at the same time, hardly an interesting insight, is it? It has hardly the same as 'thinking homosexuality has a legitimate connection to bestiality'Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

That is how I feel, and that is essentially how some absolutists feel about relative morality. The purpose of this thread is to correct the thinking of absolutists with regard to relative morality.As I said - moral studies often about just defining the various ways morality can be looked at. There are people that think there is only one morally right course of action in any given situation and we call these people absolutists. You can state that you think they are wrong if you like, but that does not stop them from being absolutists. They become people that believe there is only one correct morality despite their being numerous. They are still absolutists though, even if their morality is actually relative. All relative moralists will inevitably say that absolutists actually use relative morality to make moral decisions and absolutists vice versa.This is self evident: The argument of absolutists vs relativists is about which is actually correct, both sides arguing that the other side is wrong. Relativists point to absolutists and show that their morality is relative. Absolutists point to relativists and show that their morality is absolute.It's kind of like saying that atheists are really Christians who pretend not to believe because they want to get away with immorality. It's a non-argument. Absolutists exist, whether they are right or not is not relevant to this thread. This thread is only about describing the reasoning behind relative morality (the moral philosophy that holds that morality can only be described relative to the moral standard of something else)- which is contrasted briefly with absolutist morality. In essence an absolutist believes a moral judgement statement is either true or it is false, but never both. "Killing an innocent is wrong' can be a moral judgement that is true, or it can be false. With a relativist the statement can be true or false depending on the standard we are comparing it to (in our society for example killing an innocent is sometimes wrong, and it is sometimes right - euthanasia for example is sometimes forgiven - but in another society we might find it considered always morally wrong).

Well - I listened to the whole thing and found nothing of value. Is it just me or was most of the sermon a collection of anecdotes and quotes? It's not that I disagree with him, but that his talk doesn't seem to have any foundation or reference point and it is incoherent.He blathers on about some anecdotal student (who sounds like one of Hovind's infamous 'fall-guys') who, it turns out, is leading some kind of life style that sends contradictory signals to the individual and how physiology has become theology. He never explains what that string of nonsense means - do you have any idea?What is his point, that morality and decisions are a lot more complicated and gray and difficult to assess when you don't choose to believe in the writings of biblical authors? That is all I can see coming from it - and I agree entirely with that. The point is - what is so bad about it being harder to make moral judgements when you have to think for yourself, and weigh your decisions based on the consequence and weigh it against the morality of those around you?Yes, it becomes more involved to reach moral decisions about things - but morality is not something I think we should be lazy about. It should be hard work and it should not be about accepting the absolute moral doctrines of an collection of old ideas for fear of impending social collapse should you decide to think for yourself. Arriving at moral conclusions should be a journey of hard thought, questioning, scepticism, and reasoning. It should not be a short journey to the morality feeding machine ready to serve the local brand of absolute morality which is not to be questioned, there is to be no scepticism about the morality and reasoning is permitted only if it never degrades into the prohibited thought processes mentioned previously.

Moral relativism: There is no way to assess if it is wrong to stone this person to death. It is one way of structuring a society. We can decide whether it is wrong relative to a certain standard of morality. Let us say that it is right, relative to their standards and wrong relative to mine.

As described in the OP. We have to act absolutely, we cannot act relatively (we either do an act or we don't). However we can think relatively.Yesterday I saw a light railway trolley moving down a track and was moving towards five kids who were playing on the track. I have laryngitis and could not warn the children. I realized that the trolley would come to a stop in time, if an adult body was thrown in front of it. If an adult body was not placed in front of the trolley in the next 5 seconds the trolley would be unstoppable and all the children would surely die.I decided to sacrifice my life, but to my horror my coat was caught on a nail and I had no time to remove it. I pushed a nearby gentleman into the track in front of the train, saving five children's lives but killing one innocent man.Was my action moral?Obviously I acted as though I was acting on an absolute morality, but had I been a witness to the event rather than a participant I would conclude that killing the man was both moral and immoral depending on the moral standard in use. Moral relativists can have their own personal moral outlook with which judge 'goodness' or 'evil', but they appreciate that it is only 'evil to them' or 'evil relative to the morality of our culture'.

This is Divine Command Theory, not relative morality. We can certainly compare the moral conclusions derived using the Divine Command Theory with say utilitarianism. As I said, other moral systems need to be used if one wishes to engage in applied ethics to reach one single answer. Relative morality cannot do that, by definition. Moral realtivism is the view that there is no objective absolute moral truth or if there is - it cannot be known so it cannot enter into human discourse. It goes on to say that there are multiple and valid moral actions for any given scenario. As such the best we can do is say something is 'wrong' relative to the standards of ancient Greece or perhaps 'right' relative to the standards of modern Canada.It is not a label for all moral systems since many moral systems attempt to discover a single and definite moral action.

Who is the dictator of this? I can make moral judgements on the action and I can compare the action relative to the morality of western Europe. Anybody can judge, moral relativism simply says that we cannot know that any given moral judgement is 'true'. Hitler was no doubt being moral by purging Europe of the disgusting blood of the jews - according to the presuppositions he held and the moral structure he adhered to (presuppositions came from the environment which includes the culture).He was of course, almost morally right (but not nearly close enough) by the German people (getting rid of the jews was one thing - but most of them did not find murdering 6million of them a moral course of action). It was morally wrong by the British people.Plenty of people who would be classified as relativists have not studied morality in any detail whatsoever and so when they try to formally describe their views they sound muddled and confused. The same goes for absolutists. This thread was designed to explain the principles of relative morality to both relativists who did not know the details of relativism and those absolutists who don't know the details of it.Let us not fall into the trap of saying 'It's the relativists who don't understand that this is their philosophy.' without also referring to the those absolutists who are not aware the details and problems associated with their philosophy.

No worries - what's the point on being here if we are going to give 'the other side' a fair hearing, eh? I wouldn't disagree entirely. I don't agree with your wording - nature isn't an idol for example, it is not something that cares about being worshipped. However, if we think about it, theists suffer the same problem - for them their catch-all answer is 'supernature' and their 'idol' is supernature. If they don't understand something, supernature can be trusted to fill the gap. Well, in fairness this applies equally to theists. Theists obviously walk to the beat of their own drum. Not only are here different forms of theism, but different schools within those forms and even within a church or synagogue or temple there are disagreements and differing opinions on things.Just about anybody, atheist or theist, relativist or absolutist, should appreciate the value of getting everybody on the same moral page (in the same book!) - that is why we see people of many philosophies attempting to convince some other party that their outlook is 'fairer' or leads to a better world with less suffering or is 'holier' or more 'moral' or preferred by God, or whatever.The biggest issue is that different philosophies value different things. I want a world that is free from suffering above all else. A lot of theists would rather the world pleases God first, and we look to suffering after this. There is overlap, I appreciate, but where the two might conflict - God wins.To the atheist, this is often anathema! Yes - but deciding on the nature of that schematic should be part of the long process, one should not simply adopt the prevailing schematic. The difference between an absolutist and a relativist is that the latter believes that there can be multiple schematics which lead to different but equally valid conclusions. A relativist should be able to use one moral schematic for one situation, but realize that same schematic is useless or at least critically flawed in other situations. In the end they'll end up with a complex and not easily described schematic in their head. Right - now there should never be a moral decision that seems capricious. Of course this seems like a good excuse to point to the capricious nature of certain gods. However, more importantly let's look to the homosexual marriage issue.The reason they shouldn't marry has been at times capricious, whimsical or perhaps aesthetic in nature. There is no moral reasoning behind God's decree against homosexuality - it just is. A lot of theists stop right there - what pleases God is the moral course of action, even if it increases suffering. No - but I imagine there were multiple valid ways of setting up his foundation and not one set concrete (pun intended) way of doing it. That belief that there is more than one way to skin a cat/construct a valid moral philosophy is relativism.

I beg to differ:

There is an existing thread on this that I totally forgot about. Moral Absolutism v Relativism (and laws)