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Essential terminology
Absolute
Consequentialism
Cultural relativism
Descriptive relativism
Moral absolutism
Moral objectivism
Moral relativism
Subjectivism
Key scholars
Protagoras (c. 480 – c. 411 BCE)
Socrates (c. 470 – c. 399 BCE)
Plato (428–347 BCE)
Aristotle (384–322 BCE)
Joseph Fletcher (1905–1991)
This chapter introduces some of the main ethical theories that are looked at in more detail in later chapters. You should read this chapter again once you have studied them. Although there is not a particular section on absolutism and relativism in the specification, you will need this information to help you understand the ethical theories you will be studying in this course.
We all make ethical judgements about what we consider to be right and wrong, and we often have different views about ethical issues. We make judgements about actions or behaviour as being absolutely wrong in all circumstances – this is absolute ethics, which takes a deontological approach. An ethical relativist, on the other hand, believes that there are circumstances and situations in which actions or behaviour that are usually considered to be ‘wrong’ can be considered to be ‘right’.
Moral relativism
There are no universally valid moral principles and so there is no one true morality.
Subjectivism
Each person’s values are relative to that person and so cannot be judged objectively.
There are basically two sorts of ethical relativism: cultural relativism, which says that right and wrong, good and evil are relative to a culture, to a way of life that is practised by a whole group of people; and individual relativism, which says that right and wrong, good and evil are relative to the preferences of an individual. Both cultural and individual relativism hold that there are no universally valid moral principles. All principles and values are relative to a particular culture or age. Ethical relativism means that there is no such thing as good ‘in itself’, but if an action seems good to you and bad to me, that is it, and there is no objective basis for us to discover the truth.
The problem today is that relativism tends to lead people into thinking that truth depends on who holds it, or that there is only one truth – their own. We often hear people say, ‘Well, that’s your point of view, but it’s not mine,’ and this can actually be a way of stopping thinking. Truth then no longer matters, as everything depends on the community to which one belongs, or one’s own perspective. Where there is no agreed set of values, relativism can seem very attractive.
Each person’s values are relative to that person and so cannot be judged objectively.
This was a name originally applied by the ancient Greeks to learned men. In the fifth century, the Sophists were travelling teachers. They concluded that truth and morality were matters of opinion and emphasised skills, such as rhetoric.
We can trace the origins of Western ethical thinking to the city states of ancient Greece. At the time of Homer (c. eighth century BCE), being good meant being a heroic warrior, and the type of person you were – noble, courageous, strong – was the most important thing. This became further developed in the ethical theories of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, who looked at the ideas of character and virtue.
However, everything began to change, and by the sixth century BCE there was no longer any moral certainty. Alasdair MacIntyre in his book A Short History of Ethics (1985) says this was due to the discovery of other civilisations with different ideas of what it meant to be good and changes within Greek society itself. The discovery of these different cultures led the Greeks to question the absoluteness of their own moral ideas; also, as the city states expanded, it became less clear what a person’s role in society was and so more difficult to know how to live a virtuous life.
Eventually a series of wise men, known as Sophists, appeared and argued that all morality was relative – right and wrong varied from place to place, from time to time and from person to person. Protagoras famously said, ‘Man is the measure of all things.’ All they saw as important was getting on in life, taking part in political life and fitting in – ‘truth’ was a variable concept. Socrates and later Plato and Aristotle worked on proving this view to be wrong.
Protagoras was a Greek philosopher, born in Thrace. He taught in Athens for money. He said that nothing is absolutely good or bad and that each individual is his or her own final authority when making decisions. Like Socrates, he was charged with impiety and fled to Sicily, but drowned on the journey.
It is difficult to distinguish between the views of Socrates and Plato, as Socrates left no writings and everything we know about him we know through his pupil Plato. However, Plato’s dialogues have Socrates as the main protagonist, who argues that all humans share a common, innate understanding of what is morally good.
Plato explained how this moral knowledge was acquired with his theory of the Forms – moral knowledge came from the highest of the forms: the Form of the Good. According to Plato, there are objective and universal moral truths – the complete opposite of the view of the Sophists.
Socrates did not leave any writings of his own but, as a Greek philosopher, he shaped Western philosophy. His pupil Plato wrote dialogues which claim to describe Socrates’ views. He is also mentioned in the works of Xenophon and others. At the age of 70 he was tried for impiety and sentenced to death by poisoning (probably hemlock).
Aristotle approached ethics from a completely different angle, and although he thought universal truths could be discovered, he rejected Plato’s idea of the world of the Forms as he thought that understanding of goodness and wisdom could be found in this world. According to Aristotle, we can find out how to be virtuous by looking at virtuous people and by discovering how we can better develop our character.
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle all oppose complete relativism from different angles and ask people not to just blindly follow what everyone else is thinking and doing, to consider what they believe and why they believe it, to dialogue with others and to look for truths that are not limited by their own time and culture.
It cannot be assumed that relativism means the same thing to everyone and this chapter will explore some of the different approaches.
Plato is one of the most famous philosophers in history. His writings influenced the development of philosophy throughout the Western world and a large number of his books survive. Plato was taught by the first great Western philosopher, Socrates. Most of the books he wrote have Socrates as the leading character. His early books are about Socrates’ philosophy, but the later ones present arguments from Plato’s own thinking. Plato wrote about many issues, ranging from the existence of the soul and the nature of beauty to who should run a government. Plato founded his own school of philosophy, like a university, called the Academia, from which we get the word ‘academy’ in English. He died in 347 bce, aged 81.
You do not need to be an anthropologist to know that throughout the world there are many different ideas about how to behave and there always seem to be clashes of moral codes between one culture and another. To many people it seems obscene to chop off a person’s hand as punishment for theft or to stone somebody for adultery, yet to many Muslims this is simply the required punishment, and they on their part may condemn what they see as the excessive liberalism and immorality of Western societies.
This is what is known as the diversity thesis – because of the diversity across and within cultures there can be no one true morality.
Many other examples of this clash of cultures may be found. Some societies practise polygamy, others monogamy; some have arranged marriages and others are free to make their own choice of spouse; we put our elderly in homes, whereas in other cultures they are valued for their wisdom and have an important place in the family home. For the relativist such differences present no problems – different tribes, different customs. Rules of conduct differ from place to place, as was noted by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who recounts an episode in which the king of Persia induced horror on the part of both the Greeks and the Callatians by asking them to adopt each other’s funeral practices. What the Greeks took to be right and proper (e.g. burning their dead), the Callatians saw as absolutely abhorrent – Herodotus implied that since fire burned just as well in Greece as in Persia, moral practices are relative to cultural contexts. By implication there is nothing right or wrong universally. This is what is known as the dependency thesis – what is right or wrong depends upon the nature of the society. No one can judge the morality of other cultures, as different cultures create different values, and we cannot be objective about another culture since we are all the product of our own culture.
However, for the absolutist these different forms of behaviour cause a major dilemma. Absolutism implies that forms of behaviour are universally right or wrong – an example of this is that when the nineteenth-century British missionaries went to Africa and Asia they imposed their Western absolutes as being more right than local customs. Thus, for example, female converts to Christianity were made to cover their breasts – surely more a sign of Victorian prudery (and the cold British climate) than any universal moral code.
Historically we can also find support for the relativist position – forms of behaviour that were condemned in the past are now considered acceptable and vice versa. We no longer allow acts of cruelty for public entertainment as in the Roman games; homosexuals can enter into same-sex marriages or civil partnerships; unmarried mothers are no longer put in mental institutions; slavery is no longer legal and so on. The attitudes of society have changed on many issues.
Morality then does not exist in a vacuum, what is considered right or wrong must be considered in context, and morality is seen as just a set of common rules and customs that over time have become socially approved and differ from culture to culture. If all morality is rooted in culture, there can be no universal moral principles valid for everyone at all times.
Aristotle was born in Macedonia. At the age of 17 he moved to Athens, where he joined Plato’s Academy. In 347 BCE he moved to Turkey due to the growing political tensions between Macedonia and Athens. He spent his time there investigating science and particularly biology. In 341 BCE he moved with his family back to Macedonia to become tutor to King Philip II of Macedonia’s son, Alexander (who would later become Alexander the Great). After Alexander became king, Aristotle returned to Athens and founded a school called the Lyceum. He remained in Athens, teaching until 323, when Alexander the Great died. After Alexander’s death, it became difficult for Aristotle to stay in Athens as he was a Macedonian. Worried that he might die like Socrates, Aristotle and his family moved to Chalcis, where he died a year later.
Aristotle was a remarkable person. He tutored students on most traditional subjects that are taught at universities today. He was fascinated with understanding the physical world around him and the universe. His biology books were not superseded by anything better until 2,000 years later. Aristotle also wrote about other areas of study, including drama, rhetoric (public speaking), meteorology, sport and physics.
Descriptive relativism
Different cultures and societies have differing ethical systems and so morality is relative.
Cultural relativism
What is right or wrong depends on the culture.
Note: Relativists do not reject moral principles. They say that all the different moral principles in the world are valid relative to the culture. Believing that moral values are relative does not mean that a person does not have any moral values.
Absolute
A principle that is universally binding.
Moral objectivism
Truth is objectively real regardless of culture.
Consequentialism
The rightness or wrongness of an act is deter-mined by its consequences.
Normative ethics is where actions are assessed according to ethical theories – it is about what is actually right or good and not simply about cultural diversity and cultural dependency. A relativist will normally hold at least one absolute principle: that it is wrong to impose absolute moral rules.
Both utilitarianism and situation ethics are thought of as examples of normative theories, but they are different in the way they understand this. However, it is important to note that neither theory is completely relativist as they have one absolute each – love for situation ethics and the greatest happiness principle for utilitarianism. Utilitarians recognise ‘happiness’, ‘pleasure’ or ‘well-being’ as the result of good actions, but accept that this may differ from culture to culture. Situationists, like Fletcher, reject the use of words like ‘never’, ‘always’ and ‘absolute’ and adopt a pragmatic approach to decision making. The only exception is that love should be seen as the absolute. ‘Love relativises the absolute.’ Fletcher described his theory as relativistic.
Normative relativists reject the principle of objectivity or absolutism and see morality as something that evolves and changes.
An ethical absolute is a command that is true for all time, in all places and in all situations. Certain things are right or wrong from an objective point of view and cannot change according to culture. Certain actions are intrinsically right or wrong, which means they are right or wrong in themselves.
According to moral absolutism, there are eternal moral values applicable everywhere. Absolutism gives people clear guidelines for behaviour and accepts a universal set of absolutes. This is a popular position for those who believe in a God who establishes moral order in the universe. This approach is deontological. The consequences of an action are not taken into consideration.
Central Criminal Court
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Moral absolutism
There is only one correct answer to every moral problem.
This ethical system is easy and simple to apply – a crime is a crime, regardless of circumstances. If we take murder as an example – is it all right to kill someone for no reason? Both the ethical relativist and the ethical absolutist would say no. Now if we assume the murderer is a doctor who could kill one patient to save another – again both the ethical relativist and the ethical absolutist would still say this was not right. However, if we consider killing one person to save many lives, the ethical relativist will feel it is all right to kill, but for the ethical absolutist it is still wrong.
Absolute ethics allows judgements to be made about the actions of others – we can say the Holocaust was absolutely wrong. Absolute ethics allows courts of law to exist and order to be maintained.
Where do these absolute laws come from? For a theist the answer is simple – they come from God. For the agnostic or atheist the answer is more complicated – they just seem a priori in nature. They fit into Plato’s world of the Forms, as there are some things we just seem to know are wrong without being taught: do you remember your parents ever telling you not to sleep with your sister? So to some extent moral absolutes can be seen as inherent: the nature of man.
The absolutist theory that is dealt with elsewhere in this book is Kantian ethics, which is based on reason. Natural law has a strong absolutist element in the primary precepts but it is also goal-oriented and so teleological. Thus Kantian ethics can be considered to be completely deontological, whereas natural law has a teleological element in the sense that it understands everything as being oriented towards a final purpose, but this does not simply mean that the consequences or results of an action are considered as in situation ethics or utilitarianism. However, even theories that are relativist in practice contain an absolute core – the greatest good for the greatest number in utilitarianism and agape in situation ethics.
Look back over the chapter and check that you can answer the following questions:
Try to explain the following ideas without looking at your books and notes: