Relativism, Objectivism, and Pluralism

One of the primary aims of most ethical systems is to minimize harm, however that harm may be understood. Both moral objectivism and moral relativism purport to do just this, but as we will see, both of these systems in fact justify harm, whether through direct infliction or the permission granted by passive acceptance. The objectivist, so convinced of his own right, may imprudently inflict moral tyrrany. The relativist, unconditionally tolerant of all practices, may remain idle in the face of atrocity. An evaluation of objectivist and relativist positions will demonstrate that their synthesis in the form of value pluralism is the ethical system best equipped to reduce injury in the context of cultural heterogeneity and individual rights.

To establish certain first principles of this argument and to provide a context for its claims, it is necessary first to understand the meaning and purpose of moral discourse itself. I will then introduce the positions of objectivism and relativism through their implicit ontologies and epistemologies as a framework for evaluating their construction. A consideration of descriptive relativism will explore its anthropological foundation as a base for its normative claims. These claims will then be evaluated within the context of human and international rights.

Moral discourse

To enter into moral discourse, we need not endorse supervening values or an objective standard by which all moral propositions can be evaluated, but we must assume that morality is not separate from and resistant to the methods of logic, reason, and argumentation.We must assume that the perspectives of objective and relative morality do not represent two incommensurable paradigms, with different definitions of terms and no premises in common, thus resisting any comparison or evaluation.

In this comparison and evaluation, we will accept certain metaethical constructions of the nature and function of ethics and morality. Let us understand ethics to mean the normative principles embodying the values and standards that we may employ as guides to conduct, behavioral regulation, the making of decisions, and the discernment of right and wrong action. This definition will allow us to differentiate the codes for conduct embodied by morals.

The ontology and epistemology of objectivism and relativism

Ethical judgments are, at their most fundamental level, an outgrowth of implicit ontological assumptions regarding the nature of reality and epistemological assumptions regarding the nature and extent of knowledge. The epistemological truth of a theory, though, does not directly imply its moral and ethical truth.

The ontological assumption of moral absolutism involves a single, true representation of reality that informs absolute moral laws independent of contextual factors, remaining fixed and permitting no exceptions. Truth is thus seen as enduring, constant, and unchanging. Reality exists independent of any interpretation of it. Moral laws are objective, embodying a truth that endures independent of interpretation.

Ontological relativism regards reality as holding no intrinsic properties but rather existing relative to our conception and perception of it. In simplest terms, “relativity” expresses a relationship of dependency such that one element (our knowledge of reality) depends upon another element (the perspective from which reality is viewed). Thus, we do not passively and neutrally apprehend objective truth, but rather actively construct any truth through the perspective paradigms of our culture (cultural relativism) or our individual biographies (individual relativism). All knowledge of reality is thus indirect, mediated through the structures of the mind which are themselves structured by cultural and individual factors. And so reality retains no independent existence and can be known only through our representation of it, known only as it is mediated by various conceptual schemes that structure perception. Thus, we do not see but rather we interpret. As truth is relative, it is thus variable.

This relativist construction of reality carries implications regarding what it is possible to know or hold as true. Epistemological relativism considers no truth to be objective and absolute. Rather, the truth value of any given proposition can only be evaluated through its own terms and definitions. Truth is context-dependent, with no particular context holding a privileged position. This is not equivalent to the skeptic’s doubt of the existence of truth. Truth exists, but only in relation to other truths such as that of one’s vantage point. The external world indeed exists, but can be known only as it appears.

To the relativist, all evaluations, even moral ones, are inextricably bound to and dependent upon the perspective of the evaluator’s frame of reference (whether we use culture or individual consciousness) such that statements of truth value must be qualified: something is true not in itself, but rather true within a particular framework, within whatever conceptual scheme that is employed in the classification of reality.

Objectivism

The objectivist position regards values as existing independent of the human mind. There exist certain moral facts which can be known and evaluated through faculties of human reasoning. Views regarding the source and nature of these fixed and stable moral facts vary by theory. Various objectivist theories have identified the source of these moral facts in human reasoning, nature itself, or in God. Through discerning the laws of reasoning, nature, or the divine, one may determine proper action in the form of moral propositions, the truth value of which can be objectively evaluated irrespective of person or context.

Thus, within objectivism, there exists an inherent and intrinsic morality or immorality within acts independent of who is acting, the context in which the act occurs, and the consequences of those actions. There exists a morality sovereign, autonomous, unfettered by, and detached from human opinion and estimation by which we can judge our actions. This morality, as objectively true, transcends any cultural or individual bias.

Ethical relativism

Ethical relativism is the study of moral variations over time and across conditions, viewing morality as contextually dependent rather than universal in nature, assessing ethical propositions by cultural or individual standards. Moral truth is an outgrowth of cultural and individual perspectives, true within the context within which it originates, in connection to and constructed by the conventions of a culture (cultural relativism) or the perspective of an individual (individual relativism). Ethical conduct is not simply true or false, reflective of objective moral facts akin to scientific facts, but is instead relative to individual or culture.

Problems in defining culture

If we are to claim that morality is dependent upon cultural context, it would serve us to understand what constitutes a culture. We cannot simply describe culture as a worldview, since cultural relativists, in saying that culture shapes our worldview, would then say nothing more than that our worldview shapes our worldview.

Culture is a means of conceptualizing the patterned activity of individuals living in groups as they symbolically interact through sets of beliefs and behavioral norms that are expressed through rituals, social structures, manners, dress, art, language, religion, politics and morality. Embedded within culture, expressed both explicitly and implicitly, we find belief systems regarding the nature of reality, what constitutes right and wrong conduct, and which values are to be maximized.

Defining “culture,” though, becomes increasingly problematic when we attend to how a single individual may identify with many groups according to differences of race, ethnicity, class, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation, and the other differences that contribute to ideological heterogeneity within any culture. To reduce our understanding of culture to any one of these factors is to fragment identity. With increasing diversity, cultural designations blur.

Mary Midgley describes blurring cultural designations as she challenges the concept of culture as a homogeneous, monolithic entity void of diversity among the individuals that comprise it. She depicts “American culture” as one comprised of many immigrant influences and demands that we attribute to other cultures the same diversity which we attribute to ourselves.[1]




Relativism’s roots in anthropology

Cultural relativism arose as a theoretical reaction to the destructive legacy of cultural imperialism. It was conceived of as an antidote to ethnocentrism, the judging of a group against one’s own standards, and represented an effort to transcend the limits that cultural paradigms impose upon perception. The methodological application of this perspective is the ethnography in which the observer immerses himself in another culture for an extended time, essentially replicating the process of acculturation. Ethnographies have created vivid portraits detailing dramatic cultural variation and diversity. When confronted with such differences, one might be inclined to call into question the existence of any universal (objective) standards common to all human culture. It is necessary to note, though, that anthropology asks different questions than does philosophy.

Descriptive cultural relativism

Descriptive relativism is perhaps a truism. Even the objectivist does not contend that cultures and individuals do not disagree as to what is morally right. But moral philosophy, as the systematic study and rational justification of morality, must move beyond the level of description to reveal underlying principles.

Moving from the descriptive to the normative

From this descriptive account of moral variation, anthropologists and some philosophers draw normative and evaluative conclusions that are not self-evidently true. We cannot automatically move from describing the existence of cultural difference to concluding that we cannot disagree. Although when evaluated through its own cultural context and framework, each system can be understood as functional and cultrally valid, it need not necessarily be morally valid.

Normative cultural relativism

The mere fact that we disagree as to what is right does not prove that there exists no right course of action. The belief that we cannot transcend our own cultural or personal perspective does not prove that there exists no transcendent, objective means of evaluation. That truth may be difficult to apprehend does not prove that truth does not exist. Truth may exist even if it remains inaccessible to human consciousness. Thus, descriptive relativity does not necessitate normative relativity. Even if we are inclined to endorse the descriptive truth expressed by relativist positions, we need not accept its normative truth, its consequences.

Normative cultural relativism involves evaluative claims that the validity of morality is relative to (dependent upon) the culturally-bound framework through which it was apprehended. Since all truth is necessarily apprehended through a framework, there exists no unmediated access to truth.

The claims of cultural relativism extend beyond the description of extant cultural differences, and into the normative contention that, when understood within its own context, any cultural practice is not only understandable but justifiable. Ethical relativism involves the normative contention that such disagreement is all that exists. Morality is not anchored in, reflective of, or existing in reference to any objective and thus universal standards. Moral propositions are expressions not of absolute truth, but rather of cultural or individual attitudes which cannot be separated from the circumstance of their origin. Morality, as culturally-defined, is thus culturally bound.

Different cultures have different moral standards, none of which is any better than the other, or any more true since there exists no objective morality against which it can be compared or otherwise evaluated. That which is good is in essence that which is approved of by the majority of people in one’s culture, the ideology of the dominant group; something is true when enough people believe it to be so. Thus, the truth and validity of any ethical proposition carries no independent truth value, only truth within a particular framework (epistemic claims)

Moving from cultural relativism to individual relativism

In accounting for ideological diversity and the many manners of affiliation, one might argue that whatsoever an individual preference may be, one can find a culture that condones associated practices and beliefs. A pedophile, for instance, may find moral support for his views in the culture of NAMBLA.

In considering the many manners of affiliation and dimensions of identity, a “culture” fragments in endless divisions and subdivisions until we are reduced to individual biography. Cultural relativism thus becomes individual relativism.

Individual relativism

Cultural relativism thus becomes individual relativism as each individual belongs to many subcultures and integrates the normative values of each to construct a personal morality. Morality then becomes a manifestation and expression of the confluence of factors that combine to constitute an individual identity and consciousness, with each individual constructing an idiosyncratic interpretation of reality such that morality can be understood as an outgrowth of individual histories.

If morality is understood as an expression of individual subjectivity, a manifestation of biography, does it retain any import above matters of taste and preference?

To regard morality as individually constructed is to disregard the impact of socialization upon the development of morality. Even if we are to conclude that through the confluence of infinite factors each individual is differentially socialized, we must still acknowledge the social construction of experience, the inherently public nature of perception, and the shared symbol system through which experience is sensed, structured, and expressed.

If, as Protagoras wrote, “man is the measure of all things,” how is man to adjudicate conflict within him when the proper course of action appears obscure? Morality functions in part to counsel action, constituting an authoritative guide of supervening values to which one may appeal when an individual’s conscience does not suffice to guide him.

To Midgley, cultural relativism devolves into “moral isolationism” (25), an untenable position.

Evaluating ethical relativism

Ethical relativism embodies a moral humility in its acceptance of diverse, or even divergent, values as it acknowledges the limitations of any ethical system. Its values reside in its promotion of tolerance and respect for cultural or individual self-determination.

The strongest challenge to relativism regards its internal inconsistencies. The relativist states: “all truth is relative.” Is the relative nature of truth to be understood as an absolute truth, or itself a relative truth? If absolute, then by definition there exists an absolute truth. If relative, it permits absolutes. Either way, relativism yields absolutism.

In qualifying all truth as relative, indisputably valid within the context of its origin, relativism seemingly resists argumentation and analysis, refusing to enter into moral debate by relieving us of the burden of explicating reasons or otherwise justifying our views.

The very act of communication is itself predicated upon shared definitions within a common paradigm. Relativism, though, in endorsing the inherent validity of diverse and even conflicting understandings of first principles, engenders an axiomatic isolation that in fact precludes communication through its circularity.

To Midgley, not only does relativism preclude communication, it prevents moral reasoning, giving us no reason to grapple with moral questions. In forbidding the adoption of a critical position, whether one of praise or blame, we lose the valuable information that knowledge of another culture, another way of life, can provide us about our own way of life, the insight we derive through the process of comparison.

The principles of relativity, once so optimistically endorsed by anthropologists, function to undermine our capacity to progress in degrees of truth. Philosophical inquiry does not require a belief that absolute certainty is possible, but it does entail a belief that there exist different degrees and approximations of truth, an ideal which we may approach but never reach. Thus, within relativism there is no moral “progress,” only moral variation and change; there is no social “reform,” only social alteration.

Since, to the relativist, standards of morality themselves change as culture changes, what was right yesterday (such as racial segregation) can be wrong today (in the climate of racial equality). But cultural values change because forces from within or without pose challenges to prevailing systems. The cultural relativist, in equating morality with dominant cultural views, in effect stigmatizes minority views as immoral. These vilified “immoralists” are often later lauded as agents of social change.

And so, as popular opinion changes, does a “just war” become “unjust”? Or does the view of the war as unjust reflect the accumulation of more factual information and thus a more reflective and accurate view? What may appear to be a moral disagreement may actually reflect a factual disagreement that results in different moral conclusions. As views change, as a practice is determined no longer to be just, we cannot say that our views have developed as that implies a greater approximation of truth; the relativist neither regresses nor progresses, only changes. This leaves no room for moral growth and development, the character growth that extends from questioning and searching for truth

Human and international rights

Are there some acts and practices which would be condemned by most people as indisputably immoral? Is there any shared humanity, any common standard, any fundamental human rights that must be defended when violated?

Midgley tells us that if we believe a given proposition to be a moral truth, it is incumbent upon us to apply it to all people. Not doing so is in fact demeaning, denying others the rights we demand for ourselves, implying that they are not worth the same moral consideration that we are worth since “morally as well as physically, there is only one world, and we all have to live in it” (28).

Cultural relativism prohibits humanitarian intervention because such involvement would entail an imposition of culturally-specific morality.

Cultural relativists seemingly regard cultural affiliation and membership as a matter of individual choice, but what the relativist regards as a culture’s ideology may in fact be the ideology expressed through political systems of domination, whose rule the relativist endorses by ascribing to them the power to define reality for those they subordinate. Lest relativism be employed to support tyranny, it must account for social asymmetry and the dynamics of oppression and exploitation by asking, “whose culture”? That of the assailant or that of the victim? Not all people choose to live as they do, as they are forced to, and we must be careful not to impute upon them beliefs and values which they may not hold. The beliefs and values of self-appointed political figures and repressive regimes may not represent the population they lead.

Are liberties conditional, and thus somewhat arbitrary, dependent upon whether one happens to live in a culture that supports freedom rather than a culture of oppression or fascism? Is my right to live as a Jew conditional upon having been born in contemporary America rather than in Nazi Germany?

Do there exist any universal rights? International human rights activists claim that human rights are by definition collective, common to all humanity, necessarily universal in nature if they are to be considered to be rights, not privileges. These rights exist independent of particular nationality, religion, and culture. This concept of common, collective humanity informs the concept of an “international community.”

Out of experiences with World War II, the United Nations formulated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, declaring that by virtue of being human, we each have dignity, worth, and value and are thus entitled to certain fundamental and inalienable rights irrespective of nation, race, religion or culture. This internationally-endorsed conception of fundamental rights is based on a common morality that transcends cultural differences, and informs matters of international relations such as when we are justified in intervening in the dealings of a sovereign state.

Most relativist oppositions to international interventions contest military involvement, but not all interventions need be coercive in nature. International organizations such as Amnesty International whose activities include talking to victims, observing trials, monitoring the media, and publicizing their concerns apply moral, not military pressure.

Whereas moral absolutism has been employed to justify inflicting harm, moral relativism has been employed to justify passivity in the face of harm. Relativism has been used to justify non-interventionist policies even when a state fails to protect its own citizens from harm, or is itself the agent of harm.

It is of great importance that we develop a moral system that minimizes harm. This system is neither absolutism nor relativism, but rather a synthesis of pluralism.

Value pluralism

Some theorists consider many cultural variations to be superficially dissimilar manifestations of common underlying values, certain cross-cultural commonalities representative of evolutionarily-based imperatives without which no group could survive. These values include concern for the common welfare of the group, reciprocity, care for the young, an expectation that under most circumstances the truth ought be told, and a prohibition against stealing and murder under most circumstances. Thus, for example, culturally divergent funereal practices can be understood as different manifestations of what the group considered to display a respect for the dead.

The same value may be manifested in different choices based upon our assessment as to which course of action will best realize these values.

But perhaps it appears overly reductionistic to condense all cultural diversity and dissimilar customs to manifestations of the same values, assuming the unanimous and universal adherence to a set of general principles, for this universalist moral condensation is hard pressed to account for how, if equality is a general principle, slavery exists in some cultures.

Value Pluralism is not itself a set of values, but rather a metaethical theory that recognizes the worth, significance, and usefulness of multiple, equally valid values out of which we may construct a rational (though perhaps not objective) framework within which these values may be ordered when we are weighing alternatives. We may value justice, honesty, and the sanctity of life. Although the particular value to be maximized may vary by circumstance, the values themselves persist. A moral truth need not be an objective truth, but it must be a guide to conduct. We may thus respect many different ideas while condemning the violation of basic human rights

[1] Mary Midgley, “Trying Out One’s New Sword,” Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, Barbara MacKinnon, ed. Fifth Edition (Belmont; Thomson, 2007) 25-28.