Author:
Henry Hattemer

Date Written:
10/15/2003

Works Cited:

Barry, Vincent E. Practical Logic. Harcourt Brace, Orlando, Florida: 1998

Hornstein, Alison. The Question that We Should be Asking. Newsweek, 12/17/2001.

Sommers and Sommers. Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life. Thomson Wadsworth, Belmont, Canada: 2004 (Pojman and Ladd are cited within this work.)

A Rejection of Ethical Relativism: Ethical Lead Climbing and Other Dangerous Relativist Pursuits

Ethical relativism casts a wide net of acceptance and tolerance. Draw the net in and you will find every manner of generous ideals and rich culture. You will also find “heinous principle(s)” and “genocidal actions.” (Pojman, p. 185) What is wrong with the net? The net is afflicted with ill standards, standards based on notions such as acceptance and tolerance, which have no intrinsic value, only ostensible appeal. The criterion of tolerance creates an ethical loophole through which one could fly American Airlines Flight 11. I agree with Pojman and Hornstein and reject ethical relativism because it relies on the standard of cultural acceptance, which has no inherent value and plenty of tragic history.

To make the essay more readable, I will first establish some common ground from which to work by outlining the ethical relativist position and distinguishing it from other forms of relativism. Then I will launch a two-pronged refutation of ethical relativism by first proving a premise to be questionable, and then by demonstrating that even if the premise is conceded, the conclusion of ethical relativism is unacceptable. In my rebuttal of the premise I will discuss the danger of using the past to justify the present. In my rebuttal of the conclusion I will focus on what I call ‘ethical lead-climbing’ and show how it can be effective, but how it is not effective in the case of ethical relativism.

Ethical relativism, as outlined by Pojman, who draws upon the writings of Ladd, takes the following form as an argument:

Premise: What is considered morally right and wrong varies from society to society, so that there are no moral principles accepted by all societies.
Premise: All moral principles derive their validity from cultural acceptance.
Conclusion: Therefore, there are no universally valid moral principles, objective standards which apply to all people everywhere and at all times.

To be fair to Ladd and critical of Pojman, this argument does not appear to be directly gathered from Ladd’s text. Pojman makes two errors. He fails to properly distinguish what is accepted as right and wrong from what ought to be moral principles. In fact, he faintly equates the two in the first premise, rendering that first premise nearly identical to the conclusion. Pojman’s second and no less egregious error is to confuse Ladd’s premises and conclusion. Ladd’s conclusion is clearly signaled (“Accordingly, it holds that whether or not it is right for an individual to act in a certain way depends on … the society…”) (Ladd, p. 181) yet Pojman treats this proposition as a premise. Ladd presents a valid categorical syllogism in his text. I propose the following interpretation of Ladd’s characterization of ethical relativism, presented as a standard form syllogism (AAA-1 if you wish to look at it closely):

Major Premise: That which is culturally accepted depends on the society.
Minor Premise: Moral principles are derived from that which is culturally accepted.
Conclusion: Moral principles depend on the society.

While this argument would not stand up to extreme logical scrutiny (the verbs ‘depend’ and ‘derive’ are problematic) it is valid enough to examine further in philosophical discourse: If one accepted both premises, one would be inclined to accept the conclusion. (Note: I have deemed the argument valid in form, but its cogency has yet to be addressed.) Notice that I have distinguished ‘that which is culturally accepted’ and ‘moral principles’. I want to illustrate the difference between what Pojman calls the “diversity thesis,” (Pojman, p. 181) and ethical relativism. Most reasonable thinkers can accept that different societies have different concepts of right and wrong (cultural relativism). Ethical relativists take this a step further and claim that those concepts are the source of moral principles, and in fact, those concepts are legitimate moral principles. This extra step is the heart of ethical relativism, so I deliberately highlighted it in the syllogism. Ethical relativists can further be divided into subjective ethical relativists, who view the individual as the smallest unit of moral consequence, and conventional ethical relativists, who recognize social groups as the smallest unit of moral consequence (Pojman, p.183-5).

The minor premise is a “questionable premise” (Barry, p. 116) because it has not yet been proved truthful. The proposition that moral principles are derived from what is culturally accepted commits the “fallacy of traditional wisdom” because it uses the “past to justify claims made in the present.” (Barry, p. 69) Consider culturally accepted acts as acts which have been performed consistently in a society without significant reproach from within that society. If moral principles are derived from these actions, any group that has acted consistently without internal controversy must be morally infallible. This seems to hold time as a test of morality. The longevity of a custom, however, clearly has no bearing whatsoever on its intrinsic value or morality. How can an act be deemed moral without a discussion of the act itself? The simple fact that an ethical relativist purports to know the morality of an action without even knowing what the action is, but only knowing the duration and circumstances of its common practice, is troubling. The fact that, for a certain time period, a nation condoned slavery does not automatically elevate slavery to the status of moral principle. When I was a child, I may have asked my mother why she looked both ways before crossing the street. She may have replied, “because that is how I have always done it,” but she has said nothing about the value or the rightness and wrongness of looking both ways until she has discussed the merits of the actions, such as increased safety.

There is no inherent moral value in tradition, no intrinsic morality in that what is culturally accepted. To suggest otherwise is to force yourself to accept a plethora of unsavory and downright detestable acts, practices, and regimes. I will discuss exactly what you must accept in my refutation of the conclusion.

Ladd’s conclusion, “whether or not it is right for an individual to act in a certain way depends on … the society…,” (Ladd, p. 181) uses vague language, primarily the word ‘society’. For a good reason, philosophers refrain from populating theories with specific definitions or words with precise meanings. Specificity is the inherent enemy of the inclusive quality which lends weight to an ethical doctrine. This ambiguity ought not to be condemned outright- sometimes a vague word within a theory provides a launching pad for new philosophical innovation. Utilitarianism, for example, flexes around some version of the word ‘good’, which allows a wider base of thinkers to concede the overarching theory in order to grapple with the intricacies suggested by the spectrum of ‘good’. I will call this effect “ethical lead-climbing,” and judge the vague statement to be acceptable as long as the spectrum of possibilities provided by the ambiguity encompasses at least one reasonable possibility.

Ethical relativists are engaged in the aforementioned practice of ethical lead-climbing, and the fulcrum (the vague language) seems to be the relationship between moral principles and societies or cultures or contexts. I will show that the ambiguity within the terms societies, cultures, and contexts does not provide cover for the overarching theory of ethical relativism because the spectra suggested by the ambiguity do not contain a single reasonable position. To examine the spectrum suggested by society/culture/group I will present three distinct interpretations of the notion of society, culture, or group: a nation, a university, and a pair of friends. I believe these three interpretations to be extracted from the spectrum, one from each end, and one from the middle.

Imagine a pair of friends as a group with their own customs, culture, and practices. The implications of this application of conventional ethical relativism are only minutely different from the implications of subjective ethical relativism, which Pojman calls “absurd” and “incoherent.” (Pojman, p. 184) This pair of friends could do absolutely whatever they wanted, no matter how heinous and despicable, and be invincible from the judgment of ethical relativists, as long as they condoned each other’s actions. Perhaps both friends are serial killers. Perhaps their names were Hitler and Rommel. “Adolf Hitler’s genocidal actions, so long as they are culturally accepted, are as morally legitimate as Mother Teresa’s works of mercy.” (Pojman, p. 185) Can you live with deeming the actions of a pair moral as long as the pair agrees? If not, you must reject the narrowest ethical relativism. The smaller the group gets, the more radical are the actions you must consider moral.

Imagine a nation with a defined culture and a people with customs and practices. This nation moves to the tune of a majority, but there are peaceful dissenters in its midst. The dissenters are reformers, they want to enact changes, they want to progress. The majority is skeptical and does not immediately accept the claims of the reformers. Under ethical relativism, these dissenters are automatically preaching immoral ideas. The nation could be doing anything from curing cancer to lynching children, but the dissenters are immoral. Maybe the reformer’s name is Lincoln. Can you live with condemning anything that grates against what is culturally accepted and affirming everything that is culturally accepted? If not, you must reject the broadest ethical relativism. The larger the group gets, the more stifling the majority becomes.

Imagine a university with a tightly knit population of students and professors and administrators. The people of the university are not as few as the friends or as populous as the nation, but the effects of ethical relativism are just as scary. This university could combine the radical nature of the small group with the stifling nature of the nation, and the two could offset. Or it could create an extremely radical sect that muffles any moderation in its path. Can you accept these consequences?

Ethical relativists, like Utilitarians, have secured themselves on a vague basic theory from which to proceed, but as I have just shown, ethical relativists have nowhere to go. The wide continuum provided by the concept of society or culture or group includes a variety of interpretations, all of which lead to dangerous ends. Both the weak version of ethical relativism, “the application of principles depends on the particular [culture]” (Pojman, p. 186) and strong version, “the principles themselves depend on [the] predicament,” (Pojman, p. 186) are afflicted with this dead end because both contain the vague concept of society.

Ethical relativism is still appealing to some because it seems to embody progressive and liberal ideas of acceptance and tolerance. Everyone grows up in difference environments and circumstances, and some are radically different from each other. Can we really judge an action without realizing the context and culture surrounding it? Can we possibly extract ourselves from our own frame of reference in order to concoct impartial moral judgments? Can we be so arrogant as to judge others without experiencing the same situation? The temptations of ethical relativism can hypnotize you unless you realize two important facts. First, acceptance and tolerance are not inherently valuable, they take on the value of what exactly is being accepted or tolerated. Tolerating a different way of praying and tolerating genocide are not equivalent. Accepting blacks as equals and accepting cannibalism as your neighbor’s way of life are not equivalent. Hornstein writes, “Being taught to think within a framework of moral and cultural relativity without learning its boundaries has seemingly created a deficiency in the ability to make moral judgments.” (Hornstein) Allow me to clearly illustrate the consequences of this deficiency. If you decide to accept and tolerate blindly, the religious diversity will come with a cannibal attached. If you “recognize that some actions are objectively bad, despite differences in cultural standards and values,” (Hornstein) you can pick and choose.

I have examined the argument for ethical relativism carefully, even going as far as to restructure Pojman’s model in order to make the logic valid. I have shown that a criterion of tradition does not adequately measure morality. I have then shown that to accept ethical relativism you must face a theory anchored in vague text that encompasses many absurd ends and no reasonable ends. The leap from cultural relativism to ethical relativism is in my opinion too long for a logical person to make. I will look for a system of ethics with meaningful standards.

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