A User's Guide to Moral Relativism

On the very first day of my very first ethics class, I discovered that my professor was a moral relativist. I will tell you a story about one of our exchanges, a story that may seem too fanciful to believe, but I assure you – it’s true. And not just true for me, but true for everybody involved.

It began when my professor instructed the class on the basics of personal relativism or what is sometimes called subjectivism. According to personal relativism, moral claims – claims like you ought not steal money from the poor – amount to no more than statements of opinion, or as Hume called it, sentiment. In other words, while you may think that something is wrong, like battering a bunny rabbit with a baseball bat for sport, that is just to say that you disapprove of it. But somebody else may not disapprove of it, they might consider it a venerable pastime, and so what is true for you is not true for them, morally speaking.

I should mention at the outset that there is another prominent form of relativism, namely, social or cultural relativism, where morality, instead of being a matter of personal opinion, is a matter of societal opinion. Most of what we’ll discuss today applies to both.

Anyway, because moral statements amount to nothing more than opinion for the relativist, the relativist wants to promote a principle of tolerance, that is, the freedom for each person to speak and live according to whatever moral opinion he or she likes. And that is just what my professor said: That we should not impose our values onto other people (or cultures, as the case may be). Nor should we ever praise, blame, or try to correct the behavior of other people, since that itself would be an imposition of sorts.

I offered the usual objections to this brand of relativism – some of which we’ll rehearse shortly. The first, of course, is that it just seems preposterous to say at least certain actions, like murder or rape – and probably battering a bunny rabbit with a baseball bat (assuming the rabbit didn’t “start it first”) – are not wrong in themselves but are only wrong in relation to our attitudes about them.

Sometimes, the best first move that one can make in philosophical conversation is to make obvious the costs that must be borne in adopting a certain position. If those costs are high enough, the person may change their mind – or at least others may resist adopting such a view if the costs are clear ahead of time. So, start there: Is the relativist really OK with biting the bullet in saying there is nothing inherently wrong about bigotry or racism or sexual assault or anything along these lines?

If that person were my professor, surprisingly, they would be OK saying this, because that is just what she said. Whether they believe it is another question, but we can only go off what people say.

After a bit of back and forth, my professor asked if I wanted to let somebody else have a turn in the conversation, and I said not really.

“It is not one of my values to let other people speak; as you can tell, I quite like the sound of my own voice. You aren’t trying to impose your values on me, are you, professor?”

“Well, perhaps,” she responded, “If you thought about it, you would see you value contributions from other classmates.”

“I have thought about that, professor, and I can’t help but prefer the quality of my own opinion.”

My professor, now annoyed, could see what I was getting at, as could the other students. At about this point, the inconsistency of my professor had been adequately exposed – frankly, she looked silly – so I left off there and so, too, shall we. My hope in sharing this story is to make it clear that there are some bizarre consequences of adopting a relativistic attitude toward morality, and that is where we will begin in our critique of moral relativism.

Now I’ve been using certain terms and I would like to clarify them. This will be helpful as we proceed.

Objective means mind-independent, that is, not dependent upon our thinking about it. For example, the rabbit Thumper outside my window is an objective reality (though his name is my invention): he would exist even if I thought about or looked at something else. Further, Thumper is the original cause of my thinking about him and not the other way around.

Conversely, if we say something is subjective, we mean it is rooted in the person (subject) only, like a personal preference. For example, I, Pat Flynn, prefer unsweetened iced tea on hot summer days to diet cola, though I would not say anybody who does not share this preference is wrong in the sense that somebody who denies the rabbit outside my window is wrong.

Moral value refers to something’s metaphysical goodness or worth (like when we say every human life is infinitely valuable), whereas moral obligation relates to prohibitions or prescriptions regarding behaviors pertaining to rational agents that can set themselves on courses of action that promote, or frustrate, their attainment of the objectively good life.

Now, Moral objectivism or (better, probably) absolutism – opposite of moral relativism – is the position most people at least implicitly affirm, which says that there are indeed moral facts and are represented by true moral claims such as “It is never OK to torture children for fun or profit.” And that these moral facts are valid for everyone, wholly irrespective of our opinion or attitudes about them. And the most immediate line of support for moral objectivism is simply what we might call “common sense” (or intuition, depending on what philosopher you ask). In short, it just really seems (philosophers sometimes call this a “seeming”) that certain things are objectively good and bad (concerning value), right and wrong (concerning obligation).¹And such strong seemings, absent defeater, confer justification.

With the groundwork set, I want to present a cumulative case, or a collection of arguments against moral relativism, since positions in philosophy are often best established through converging arguments.

So, what else should be said against moral relativism?

Relativism is theoretically unstable.

Upon analysis, relativism ultimately either slides back into absolutism or into nihilism. We can illustrate this by asking whether the relativist is committed to the principle of tolerance articulated earlier, namely, that we ought not to coerce others to believe what you believe. If they are so committed, then they have admitted to at least one objective or absolute moral truth, something that is universal and binding on everyone, wholly irrespective of any one person’s opinion or attitude. At that point, moral relativism is false insofar as not all moral claims reduce to mere opinion. There is minimally one moral claim that does not. But if there is at least one moral claim that does not reduce to mere opinion, why couldn’t there be more? Once the door to moral objectivity is open, why only set one foot in, especially when it certainly seems like there are quite a lot more objective moral truths that not only could be known, but already are known.

On the other hand, if the relativist bites the bullet and accepts that even their principle of tolerance is just a matter of opinion, then relativism descends into nihilism. Really, “anything goes.”

But most relativists would probably not want to say they are nihilists, they generally do not want to say anything goes. Nevertheless, if they refuse to accept at least one objectively true moral claim, nihilism appears inevitable. Relativism is thus inherently unstable, since moral claims are not something that can be effectively relativized – either they are declared objective and absolute, or they are resigned to the realm of expressions of emotion, and if so resigned, this is equivalent to saying there are no moral facts in the way we commonly think there are. Either the relativist must move toward moral objectivity or embrace nihilism.

Aside: Moreover, it seems relativism faces a semantic issue. For the relativist typically wants to analyze the claim “Pat thinks x is wrong” by way of saying “Pat disapproves of X.” However, if we ask what it means to say Pat disapproves of x the relativist will typically say “it means that Pat thinks x is wrong.” Clearly no (non-circular) analysis has been given at this point. And if the relativist just wants to assert a form of brute disapproval, then relativism appears to be nothing but disguised emotivism. And then we’re back to nihilism.

No Moral Progress, Only Moral Change

Moral relativism would appear to render all moral progress impossible, either for the individual or culture. After all, if it is just the individual or society that determines what is morally right or wrong, then if some individual or culture changes their attitudes about such matter, that is all we have: moral change, not moral progress (or degradation). But of course, this flies against everything we think we know about people and societies that morally reform and improve themselves or fall into horrendous evil. Does the relativist really want to say America is no better now than when it allowed chattel slavery? That Germany is no better now than during WWII?

Again, costs.

Next point:

Performance Contradiction.

Virtually nobody who espouses a relativistic ethic can live consistently with it. We all make strong moral claims, pretty much every day, especially when it comes to politics. That’s not fair, that person is evil, etc.

Somewhat recently, in fact, I received an agitated email (this happens occasionally) from somebody who in their opening explained to me that all moral claims are nothing but projections fashioned by evolutionary pressures for the purpose of getting us to make love and avoid bears, and then, in their closing, relayed how thankful they are that we are no longer collectively burdened by Catholic morality since our ethical systems these days are far better and more moral than whatever the cobwebbed Magisterium has to offer. So, in one breath, all talk of anything being objectively better (or worse) is meaningless babble, corresponding to nothing beyond our personal or collective fantasies, and in another breath, something is objectively better, morally speaking. Well… Which is it?

Granted, a contradiction in performance is not necessarily a contradiction in logic. But this brings me to my next point, which is that relativism about morality may in fact generate more absurdities than may at first be obvious.

If Moral Facts Go, Epistemic Facts Go

Consider, for example, the case philosopher Terrence Cuneo makes concerning the “package deal” of moral and epistemic facts. Namely, that moral and epistemic facts appear to be “companions in guilt”, where if you reject one and you must reject the other. For those unfamiliar to this line of argument, let me briefly explain. Moral facts are what we’ve been talking about: that is, moral facts represented by true moral claims, such as, “It is wrong to kill everybody on earth even if you wanted to.” Epistemic facts are represented by true epistemic claims, such as, “Sam’s belief in UFOs is irrational.” As Cuneo points out, if facts of either of these sorts exist, they provide categorical reason (independent of an agent’s desires or attitudes) to act a certain way: that is, to not kill everybody on earth (even if you wanted to) and that Sam ought not to believe in UFOs. 

While I cannot fully defend the case Cuneo makes, the simple summary point is this. The moral and epistemic (rational) domains are tightly interwoven and deeply interpenetrating, and, in some cases, norms are even hybrid in nature (such as intellectual honesty, intellectual humility, fairness in evaluating another person’s views, etc.) such that there is not enough conceptual space to divide them. If one goes down, then so does the other. However, we cannot possibly relinquish epistemic or rational norms to nihilism, for then we lose all ability to evaluate argument and rational discourse. The anti-realist position concerning epistemic facts is self-defeating, absurd. But if that is the ultimate consequence of being a moral anti-realist, as Cuneo argues, then being a moral-anti realist is ultimately self-defeating, absurd.

Another Point of Self Defeat

We are not done yet. There is another self-defeat issue for the moral skeptic, since to say that nothing has any objective value applies to statements and opinions as well. But if a statement or opinion—including the statement that nothing has any objective value—has no value, then why adopt it? Naturally, the reason anybody would adopt that statement or opinion is because 1) he believes that it is true and 2) he believes that it is objectively better (for whatever reason) to believe true and not false things. But if there are no objective moral facts, then why should anybody accept such a statement if it is true, particularly if they prefer otherwise? Again, what response could be forthcoming except that we ought to believe true and not false things, regardless of how we feel about them?

The Motivations for Relativism Are Weak.

Two of the primary motivations for relativism, from moral disagreement or evolution are both quite weak. Quickly: just because people or societies disagree does not entail relativism; people and societies disagree on many different matters – so what? Perhaps some people or societies are just wrong. Moreover, that our sense of morality evolved is no more reason to think it does not link us up with moral elements of reality, than any other sense. We take it that our senses evolved and are generally reliable. Why present such an abrupt exception with our moral sense? Evolution is not the problem here, rather the problem is a background metaphysical assumption (like physicalism or naturalism); so, evolution cannot be used as an argument for relativism without begging bigger metaphysical questions.

Aside: That said, if one is already a committed naturalist, probably they should be a moral anti-realist, since I do not think any naturalistic account of moral objectivity is plausible, insofar as those accounts can be reasonably situated within the naturalistic “grand narrative.” But that’s for another post, some other time.

Summary

As a theory, relativism is inherently unstable, either slipping into objectivism or into nihilism. There is also the not insignificant issue of self-defeat knocking frequently at the relativist’s door. Atop of all that, the actual relativist out in the field is frequently living in contradiction with himself or herself, and frequently applies their relativism inconsistently; that is, as an attempt to undermine social or political positions that they disagree with. Once their views are under examination, suddenly a strong flavor of absolutism sets in. Once their political positions are up for grabs, the mask begins to slip.

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1. For the proponent of common sense, it’s important to know that it isn’t just seemings that confer justification; other factors are at play as well, including properly functioning faculties and the level of a person’s prudence, as Brian Besong argues with his Prudent Conscience View. These other factors help to avoid difficulties concerning level of maturity (young person thinks its permissible to get drunk, older person does not), disagreement among peers (including philosophers about realism), and people who may seem to have powerful seemings but also have a high level of enthusiasm/lack of temperance (thus every new moral idea – like, say, vegetarianism – seems exciting and right).