What is Personal Ethical Relativism?
If morality is not relative to culture, as we discussed in yesterday’s post, might it be relative to a person’s beliefs, attitudes, emotions, opinions, desires, wants, etc.? Personal relativism is a theory that holds that moral judgments are relative to, conditioned by, or dependent upon, individuals. This theory has ancient roots, but it’s also popular today.2 These remarks capture the basic idea:
- You have your opinion, and I have mine.
- Truth is relative to my beliefs.
- Truth is subjective, truth depends on me.
- My belief is true for me, while your is true for you.
- You do your thing, and I’ll do mine.
Analogous to the cultural relativist, the personal relativist claims that there is no objective moral truth. Relativists say that while you may hate homosexuality whereas they don’t, there is no objective truth about whether homosexuality is right or wrong. Instead of moral statements merely report opinions, feelings, and attitudes; they just tell what people prefer. Thus, to say that x is right/good/moral, just means you like, favor, or approve of x. And to say that x is wrong/bad/immoral, simply means that you dislike, disfavor, or disapprove of x. In other words, moral truth is relative, it is subjective. (Personal moral relativism is also called ethical subjectivism.)
But notice that, according to personal relativism, there is a way that a moral judgment can be true or false. If we say homosexuality is moral and we’re telling the truth, then it’s true that we think homosexuality is moral. But if we’re lying, then it’s false that we think homosexuality is moral. Of course, moral judgments aren’t objectively true or false according to personal relativism, since there is no standard independent of a person’s feelings, but they are subjectively true or false if we report our beliefs truthfully.
Critique of Personal Relativism
Personal relativism is open to the same objections as was epistemological and cultural relativism, as the following questions suggest. What does it mean to say something is true for me? Is the claim that truth is relative to me, relatively or absolutely true? If the former, relativism is inconsistent, if the latter, it’s trivial. Is there as much individual disagreement as it appears, or is most moral disagreements on the surface only? Don’t most people share common moral beliefs? And don’t the consequences of taking this theory seriously conflict with our moral intuition? Aren’t some actions just plain wrong?
Given our previous critique, we should reject personal relativism at first glance. Why then is the theory so appealing? Maybe personal relativism attracts because it reminds us that not everything we believe is true. Perhaps it helps us be open to new ideas. Or possibly we tend to accept it because others do. Whatever the reason we find relativism compelling, let’s consider it in more detail.
Consider the following. If I enjoy torturing small children in the most painful way possible, do you think that’s ok? Do you believe that whether this is right or wrong depends on me? Or do you think it’s just plain wrong? Remember, if personal relativism is true then there is nothing wrong with torturing small children. But you don’t believe that. And you don’t believe that Gandhi and Hitler were moral equivalents because you think that good and bad are in some sense objective. That’s why you think there is something wrong with torturing children, and any moral theory that suggests otherwise must be flawed.
This critique of relativism relies on our intuition. To believe that torturing children is morally acceptable is counter-intuitive. Of course, it is true that our intuition is not always a good guide. For example, it seems intuitive that the earth is flat. But if a moral theory leads to consequences that contradict a strongly held moral intuition, then we are probably justified in questioning that moral theory. If a moral theory advocates torture, and nearly everyone thinks torture is immoral, we should probably reject such a theory unless there is other compelling reasons not to. So the claim that a theory is strongly counter-intuitive doesn’t prove it’s wrong, but it counts as a reason to reject that theory.
Consider another intuitive argument against moral relativism. Suppose I gave you an F on your ethics test, even though I admit that your answers were perfect. Puzzled, you ask why you received an F, and I tell you that I don’t like you. Furthermore, I tell you that your friend received an A because I really like her. What would you think about this? Wouldn’t you feel that this was unfair? If so, you’re assuming there is some objective standard of fairness. However, if you’re a relativist, consistency demands that you accept that your grade is relative to whether I like you or not. But you think your grade on the test shouldn’t be relative to me because that’s not fair. So you do think that there is an objective standard of fairness after all.
There is something else peculiar about personal relativism. It is easy to say that you are a relativist, but it is hard to actually be a relativist. If the beliefs of both child-torturers and child-lovers conflict, the relativist says that they’re both correct. And while you can say this, it’s hard to believe it. In fact, when confronted with moral disagreements, we make judgments and debate what we should believe and do. In practice, we act as if what we do matters as if some courses of action and some beliefs are morally preferable to others. In practice, it is virtually impossible to be a relativist. We do think there it is wrong for a samurai swordsmen to try out his new sword on an innocent passer-by.
Questioning the Connection Between Tolerance and Relativism
Tolerance is generally a good thing. I don’t want my neighbors to exterminate me because I philosophize too much; I’m sure they don’t want me to attack them because they watch too much TV. Tolerance is good, serving to remind us that we may be mistaken about our beliefs. But what is the relationship between moral relativism and tolerance? Are the two connected? Does the theory of moral relativism lead to tolerance?
In the first place, there is a contradiction between tolerance and moral relativism. If you’re a relativist, then you can’t consistently defend tolerance as a universal value. If you do, then you’re not a relativist, you’re an absolutist for whom tolerance is an objective value. So relativism and tolerance are logically incompatible.
Now suppose I am a moral relativist. As a relativist, I may be tolerant of your views, but I may also decide that I can do anything I want to you—say, torture and kill you because there is nothing wrong with that. After all, it’s just relative. On the one hand as a relativist I might be tolerant of you, but, on the other hand, I might not. My view that the truth depends on me doesn’t seem to be related to how I treat you. There doesn’t seem to be a necessary connection between relativism and tolerance.
Now suppose I am a moral absolutist. As an absolutist, I may be intolerant of your views, but I may also be tolerant of them. So it’s hard to see any connection between moral objectivism or relativism and tolerance. Moral relativism may lead to tolerance or intolerance, as may moral absolutism. In the end, neither moral relativism nor moral objectivism recommends any specific action at all.
In the end, we just don’t know the relationship between moral theory and practice, which is probably obvious from your experience. Ethics professors may espouse moral theories, but they may also be horrific people. The religious may espouse charity but steal the Sunday collection. Theories about how we should act, often don’t translate into action. So even if there should be a connection between moral relativism and tolerance, it doesn’t follow that there is one.
On closer examination tolerance doesn’t appear affected by the content of your belief; rather, tolerance is affected by how certain you are of what you believe. If you’re certain that you know the truth about something, then you will likely be intolerant; if you’re less certain you know the truth about something, you will likely be more tolerant. If we value tolerance, we should be humble.
Conclusion
Some things are relative—whether carrots taste good to you; and some things aren’t relative—throw this book out the classroom window and it will fall. Some elements of morality may be relative, but surely not all of them—you shouldn’t kill your good friend because he owes you a dollar. Tolerance is a generally a good thing, but there is no special connection between it and relativism. Killing an innocent person could possibly be justified, but are you ever justified in torturing someone for your own pleasure when there is no good reason to do so? As long as you answer no to this question, you aren’t a personal relativist. And few ethicists believe that personal relativism is a sound theory.
I cannot resist the observation that, while economists are reputed to have three hands (“…on the other hand…”), you appear to have just one:
“As an absolutist, I may be intolerant of your views, but I may also be intolerant of them.”
😉
Here’s another odd angle from which to view the problem you tackle here: the physicist’s notion of “hidden variables”. This was a hot topic in the middle 20th century. The concept was that the apparently random (arbitrary) behavior of some systems was actually being determined by “hidden variables” — mysterious physical forces that we could not identify that nevertheless operated in a logical fashion. (This is a much-simplified characterization of a rather complex debate.) The crucial point I wish to make is that the resolution of the debate was to simply deny the *relevance* of hidden variables, regardless of the truth or falsity of the notion. In other words, we don’t need to argue about what is forever hidden behind a veil — we need only concern ourselves with what actually happens in the real world.
Perhaps we can approach moral systems in the same way. Instead of constructing some complex logical structure called a ‘moral system’, we simply deny its significance and concentrate instead on behavioral causality. We thereby reduce the logical connections, like this:
1. Joe tortures small children.
2. Torturing small children is wrong.
3. Therefore, society punishes Joe
reduces to:
1. Joe tortures small children.
2. Therefore, society punishes Joe.
Of course, this conflates law with ethics, and we know that law is but a poor approximation of our moral systems. So let’s limit it to a single observer, like so:
1. Joe tortures small children.
2. I believe that torturing small children is unethical.
3. Therefore, I conclude that Joe is unethical.
4. Therefore, I don’t like Joe.
but why can’t I cut out the two intermediate steps (hidden variables):
1. Joe tortures small children.
2. Therefore, I don’t like Joe.
The idea here is that we remove the internal mental machinations from consideration and simply jump from input to output. This, of course, removes those mental machinations from rational consideration. What’s the point of having a moral system if you can’t argue about it? 😉
Here I come to another odd point. As an atheist, I am sometimes challenged by pious people who imagine that I must be amoral if I do not have a theology to tell me what’s right and what’s wrong. My answer is “Your morality comes from a translation of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a translation of a copy of a copy of a book. My morality comes from my heart. People interpret your book in different ways to come to all sorts of contradictory conclusions about ethics. Your book has been used to justify many acts that we now consider to have been unethical. How can you possibly be as certain of and sincere in your moral beliefs as I am?”
My approach is vaguely Eastern in that I consider ethics to be an utterly personal system that each person establishes as part of their own sense of worth. “De ethicibus non est disputandem”. If you and I dispute some ethical point, there is no rational basis for us to resolve our dispute. This, of course, would throw all ethicists out of a job, something I’m not sure I’d like to see. I think it’s good to have a few specialists sweating out the details of the tricky ethical problems that technology sometimes poses. Still, if those ethicists come to a conclusion I don’t like, I’ll look at their reasoning, but I’m unlikely to be swayed.
Enough of the late-night divagations!
just so much to say but here’s a few points – i don’t think your syllogisms would convince most ethicists; law and ethics are connected but not the same as discussed in my book; i agree with your religion/ethics points and those issues are covered in detail on the site; and again u r an anti-realist like many philosophers.
Well, I am certainly wobbly about these issues. If most ethicists would not accept my corner-cutting, then my reaction is to abandon the idea. I retain a great deal of respect for people who’ve spent more time working on a problem than I have.
I’ll add this caveat. First, philosophers disagree among themselves about almost everything, and second I may not have given some of your ideas the careful consideration they deserve for lack of time. You don’t make as good a moves as you would otherwise when you’re playing speed chess.
Well, to me you did a good job, which if anyone is a relativist they must agree that I’m right, right? 😉
I’ve been doing a little study about this, and your article is very helpful. Thanks!