Transcript Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong

Chapter Two:
Ethical Relativism
Ethical Relativism holds that there are
no objective moral principles, but
that such principles are human
inventions.
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 holds that there are no
valid moral principles that exist.
 Morality is a complete fiction.
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
Subjective Ethical Relativism
 Morality depends not on society, but rather
on the individual.
 Morality is like taste or aesthetic judgment.
 Morality is in the eye of the beholder.
 Does not help the minimal moral aim of
preventing a Hobbesian state of nature
 Implicitly assumes moral solipsism, a view
that isolated individuals make up separate
universes
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
 An Anthropological theory that
acknowledges that moral rules differ from
society to society
 Sometimes referred to as cultural relativism
Dependency Thesis
 All moral principles derive their validity from
cultural acceptance
 Asserts individual acts are right or wrong
depending on the nature of the society in
which the occur
 Morality must be seen in a context that
depends on the goals, wants, beliefs,
history, and environment of the society in
question
Conventional Ethical Relativism
 This view states that there are no objective
moral principles, but that all valid moral
principles are justified by virtue of their
cultural acceptance.
 This view recognizes the social nature of
morality.
 Treats the principle of tolerance as an
absolute moral principle
Criticisms of Conventional
Ethical Relativism




Undermines important values
Leads to subjectivism
Moral diversity is exaggerated
Weak dependency does not imply relativism
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
 Holds that language is the essence of a
culture and fundamentally shapes its reality
 Seems to imply that each society's moral
principles depend on its unique linguistically
grounded culture
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
 Unless moral objectivism can make a
positive case, relativism may survive
criticisms