Topics Ethics

Question I have often heard it argued that moral relativism prevents us from agreeing that our moral advances (e.g. civil rights, Gandhi, etc.) are conclusively good. I was of the belief, however, that moral relativism merely states that morality is a human construct and is defined by individual experience -- not that there is nothing that can be held to be fundamentally good. That is to say, I judge actions based on a utilitarian, distinctly non-theist ethic, but I do judge them. Does this argument refute moral relativism and, then, am I not a moral relativist?

Accepted:
June 27, 2013

Comments

It sounds to me as if you're not a moral relativist according to the usual definition of the term. I don't know any utilitarians who classify themselves as moral relativists. On the contrary, utilitarians regard the moral status of actions, institutions, etc., as objective rather than relative to individuals or cultures. For example, many utilitarians condemn the factory-farming of animals as objectively immoral because of the suffering it causes, even though the practice is widely accepted in at least the developed nations. By contrast, moral relativism says that any moral assertion, such as the assertion "Factory-farming is wrong," is true or false only relative to the culture (or maybe the individual beliefs) of whoever makes the assertion.