Ethics: Relativism, Nihilism, and Realism

Announcements

  • One recorded lecture this week.
  • James Rachels reading and discussion post due.
  • Study guide for unit one is on Canvas; test due Monday at midnight.

James Rachels

  • Important figure in ethics, along with Peter Singer.
  • Wrote introductory papers in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

Three Broad Positions in Ethics (Meta Ethics)

  • Focus on high-level questions about whether ethics is possible.

Relativism

  • There are truths in ethics, but they are relative.
    • Cultural Relativism: What a culture thinks is right.
    • Individual Relativism: What an individual thinks is right.

Moral Nihilism

  • There is no such thing as right and wrong.
    • Ethical Subjectivism: A type of nihilism where moral claims can't be true or false; expressing personal dislike (e.g., "Murder, gross").
    • Differs from nihilism about the meaning of life.

Moral Realism (Ethical Objectivism)

  • There are moral facts independent of what people or societies believe.
  • Objective, though not necessarily in the same way as scientific facts.
  • Example: Murder is wrong regardless of belief.

Individual Relativism

  • Ethical theory stating an action is right if and only if a person believes it to be right.
  • An action is wrong if and only if a person believes it to be wrong.
  • Almost no philosophers or average people accept this view.
  • Example: Angel Resendez (railroad killer) believed he was ridding the world of people God disapproved of; Individual relativism would have to say his actions were morally righteous for him, which is problematic.

Argument against Individual Relativism

  • Analogy: Four-sidedism claims something is a square if and only if it has four sides. But rectangles have four sides, so according to four-sidedism, all rectangles are squares. This is false, therefore, four-sidedism is false.
  • Argument:
    1. Individual Relativism (IR) says an action is right for a person if they believe it to be right.
    2. Joe believes sexual assault is right.
    3. Sexual assault is wrong.
    4. Therefore, Individual Relativism is false.

Objections to Individual Relativism

  • People could never be mistaken about their own moral beliefs because thinking something is wrong makes it wrong.
  • People change their minds about ethics all the time, which contradicts Individual Relativism.
  • Disagreeing with other people makes no sense because everyone is right.
  • This theory can't explain moral practice.

Cultural Relativism

  • An action is right if and only if that person's culture says it's right.
  • An action is wrong if and only if that person's culture says it's wrong.
  • More popular than individual relativism but still not widely accepted by philosophers.
  • Commonly espoused by anthropologists and sociologists observing varying moral views across cultures (e.g., cannibalism, infanticide).
  • If cultural relativism were true, ethics would turn into sociology, which is not the purpose of this class.
  • There are truths in ethics, but no objective truths.

Problematic Implications of Cultural Relativism

  • Critiquing other cultures' practices becomes impossible.
  • Example: Female genital mutilation; a cultural relativist would have to say it is okay for tribes that practice it, even with the pain, subjugation of women, and harmful side effects involved.