For Ethics online Chapter 2

1. Ethics: Discovering
Right and Wrong
Louis P. Pojman and James Fieser
8th edition

2. Chapter Two: Ethical Relativism
 In the nineteenth century, Christian missionaries used
coercion to change the customs of pagan tribal people.
 Since the nineteenth century, we’ve made progress in
understanding cultural diversity.
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3. Ethical Relativism: Key Terms
 Ethnocentrism: The prejudicial view that interprets all
of reality through the eyes of one’s own cultural beliefs
and values.
 Moral objectivism: The view that there are universal
and objective moral principles valid for all people and
social environments.
 Ethical nihilism: The doctrine that no valid moral
principles exist, that morality is a complete fiction.
 Ethical relativism: The view that there are no objective
moral principles, but that such principles are human
inventions.
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4. Two Main Forms of
Ethical Relativism
 Subjective ethical relativism (Subjectivism)
 All moral principles are justified by virtue of their
acceptance by an individual agent him- or herself.
 Conventional ethical relativism (Conventionalism)
 All moral principles are justified by virtue of their cultural
acceptance.
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5. Subjective Ethical Relativism
 Morality depends directly on the individual, not on one’s
culture or an objective value.
 Morality is like taste or aesthetic judgment; it is in the
eye of the beholder.
 In this view, Adolf Hitler and Ted Bundy could be
considered as moral as Gandhi, as long as each lived by
his own standards.
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6. Consequences of Subjectivism
 Little or no interpersonal argument, criticism, or
judgment is possible.
 In this view, morality does not help the minimal moral
aim of preventing a Hobbesian state of nature.
 It implicitly assumes moral solipsism, a view that
isolated individuals make up separate universes.
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7. Conventional Ethical
Relativism
 This view states that there are no objective moral
principles, but that all valid principles are justified by
virtue of their cultural acceptance.
 It recognizes the social nature of morality.
 It also treats the principle of tolerance as an absolute
moral principle.
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8. The Diversity Thesis
 What is considered morally right and wrong varies from
society to society, so there are no universal moral
standards held by all societies.
 It is an anthropological theory that acknowledges that
moral rules differ from society to society.
 Sometimes referred to as cultural relativism.
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9. The Dependency Thesis
 All moral principles derive their validity from cultural
acceptance.
 It asserts individual acts are right or wrong depending
on the nature of the society in which they occur.
 Morality may be seen in a context that depends on the
goals, wants, beliefs, history, and environment of the
society in question.
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10. Criticisms of Conventional
Ethical Relativism
 It undermines important values.
 It leads to subjectivism and moral solipsism.
 Moral diversity is exaggerated.
 Weak dependency does not imply relativism.
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11. The Indeterminacy of Language
 The indeterminacy of translation argument holds that
languages are often so fundamentally different from
each other that we cannot accurately translate
concepts from one to another.
 This viewpoint holds that language is the essence of a
culture and fundamentally shapes its reality.
 This seems to imply that each society’s moral principles
depend on its unique linguistically grounded culture.
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12. Conclusion
 Subjective ethical relativism seems to boil down to
anarchistic individualism.
 Conventional ethical relativism fails to deal adequately
with the problem of the reformer, the question of
defining a culture, and the whole enterprise of moral
criticism.
 However, unless moral objectivism can make a positive
case, relativism may survive criticisms as the default
position.
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