Relativism and Absolutism Overview

Moral Relativism, Subjectivism, and Absolutism

If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.

--Abraham Lincoln

Cultural relativism is the position that:

Each person makes judgments reflecting his or her enculturation. (This assumes that different cultures present differences in enculturation, and these differences appear in different patterns of judgment that are typical or “normal” for persons in each culture.) In other words, human nature is compatible with many different cultural patterns, and most people conform to the prevailing social pressures.

We move beyond cultural relativism and adopt ethical relativism or moral relativism when we add another idea:

There are no absolute values to guide moral judgments, and every culture's value system is equally valid. Ethical relativism is the proposal that each of these different standards is equally valid.

(Cultural relativism merely says that different groups apply different standards, without commenting on the validity of those different standards.)

Relativism is sometimes defended for more practical reasons, such as that it is an antidote to ethnocentrism. (Relativism is supposed to be more tolerant and open-minded than the alternatives. Moral absolutism is often rejected by people who regard absolutism as intolerant and narrow.)

For more about relativism, click here.

Moral subjectivism is the view that each individual person's value system is equally valid. It is parallel to relativism (which focuses on a culturally established system of values), but does not think that the culture's system should take precedence over the individual's values. In other words, moral differences among individuals are taken as evidence that each individual's preferences are moral justification for the behavior of that individual. ("I don't' like anchovies on my pizza, so I should not have them on my pizza" is taken to be equivalent in force to "I don't feel like giving to charity, so I should not have to give to charity.")

Moral absolutism rejects both relativism and subjectivism. Absolutism is the doctrine that some normative moral claims are true apart from their being endorsed by any individual or group.

If we are not tempted by subjectivism, then showing relativism to be mistaken is good reason to adopt absolutism. (But notice that this does not tell us which type of absolutism to endorse.)

For Francis J. Beckwith's critique of relativism, click here.

For W. H. Shaw's critique of relativism, click here.