Ethical Relativism
Situational Ethics Actions often cannot be evaluated in a vacuum. Suppose someone moves their hand rapidly forward, is that action right or wrong? The answer seems to depend on other factors in the situation. If the person is holding a knife and the movement stabs an innocent victim, then the action is morally wrong. If the person was knocking a football loose as part of a game, then the action seems to have no moral worth good or bad. If the person was stopping someone from falling over a balcony, then the action is morally good. As should be obvious, one and the same action can be good or bad depending on the context in which it is performed.
Relativism In addition to these considerations (what the action accomplished, what was intended, etc.) some people think that whether or not an action was wrong depends on one other factor. Cultural Relativism says that an action is good if and only if one s culture says it is good (and likewise for bad) There is no standard of right and wrong independent of one s culture. The idea is that we are all raised with various cultural norms and customs, these are what we treat as normal and good. However, other cultures have different norms, so other cultures have different standards of what is good.
Examples In America it is right to drive on the right side and wrong to drive on the left, but in the U.K. the opposite is true. It is good in some cultures to burn the dead and wrong to eat them, while in other cultures it is good to eat them and bad to burn them). We should not think that our customs are better than others, so we should not think that our sense of good and bad is better than other cultures; they are merely how we do things. Thus, we should only evaluate whether or not something is good or bad relative to the values of the culture of the person acting.
Objectivism Relativism contrasts with Objectivism Objectivism says that there is one standard of right and wrong for every person in every culture at every time. Objectivism says that there is a standard of ethics that transcends cultural values.
Relativism I see two main drives to relativism. First, there is the fact that we notice all these different standards in different cultures. The more we see people doing things other ways, the more we think that maybe our way isn t the only right way. Second, relativism seems tolerant it celebrates differences as being good and right, rather than judging people for being different from us. There is a deep seeded view in our generation that everyone has their own perspective. Because we cannot relate to how other people were raised, we shouldn t judge them. At most we should only judge those we are closest with and understand best.
The Case Against Cultural Relativism While there are different customs in different cultures, it is not clear that these represent an ethical difference. If one culture eats the dead to pay their respects, and another culture burns the body to pay there respects, there seems to be a sense in which the underlying ethics of respecting the dead is the same, even if the way they respect the dead is different. Likewise, one could reasonably say that there is nothing ethical about driving on the right or left side of the road. It is ethical not to endanger yourself and others, so it is ethical to follow the local driving customs, but what those customs are is a completely non-ethical issue. Other differences in custom may well have no moral worth whatsoever These are meant to be responses to the argument for relativism; there are also massive problems with relativism.
Problem 1 Cultural relativism implies that we cannot say any other societies values and norms are better or worse than our own. This is precisely what defenders of the view like about it. However, this is really difficult to maintain in the face of really terrible cultures (e.g. Nazis) Are we really prepared to say that ISIS raping, crucifying, and beheading people (including children) for not converting to Islam is a perfectly acceptable and wonderful part of their culture which we should celebrate?
Problem 2 Cultural relativism implies there is no such thing as moral progress or regress within a culture. Consider, is the U.S. better for having gotten rid of slavery? In order to say that, you have to be able to say that one culture (our contemporary one) is better than another culture (that of our ancestors), but this is precisely what cultural relativism denies. If we could judge one culture as better than another, that would mean that there was some independent standard by which we could judge how good a culture is based on how close it fits that standard, but that is the definition of Objectivism.
Problem 2 Some people try to get around this problem by saying that from the perspective of our culture, of course slavery is wrong! We are completely correct (qua relativism) to criticize our ancestors, because our culture condemns slavery! However, while it is correct for us to say that slavery was wrong, it was also equally correct for American s 200 years ago to say that abolition was wrong. This doesn t just apply to the slave-owners either; since the slaves were part of a society that condemned abolition, they would have been correct in saying that abolition is wrong and slavery is good. We don t yet know what way our culture will proceed, so for all we know, it will be good in the future to torture, bully, or otherwise harm people. Given cultural relativism, moral judgments may be correct or incorrect, but this will in no way help us progress as a society. In fact, many progressive movements will be wrong because they will go against what our culture currently accepts.
Problem 3 Cultural relativism says that what is good and bad depends on one s culture, but culture is a incredibly vague concept. Consider: you are a part of American culture, so for you, abortion is ok. But, you may also be a part of Catholic culture, so for your, abortion is wrong. Other cultures you could belong to would be a political party, a Notre Dame culture, an academic culture, a global culture, a football culture, etc. There are so many cultures of so many different sizes; given how many disagree with each other, how is the individual to figure out what is right or wrong for them based on their culture. What it seems to come down to is what culture you want to identify with more. Subjectivism says that what is right or wrong depends on what the individual acting believes to be right or wrong Subjectivism is another form of relativism, which avoids the third problem, but it is even worse when it comes to the first