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Some non-moral examples of what’s objective, subjectively relative, and culturally relative: Objective: the law of gravity, the laws of genetic inheritance Subjectively (individually) relative: your sense of humor, your taste in music Culturally relative: what legal/illegal, what’s polite/impolite.

What about the following truths: “it’s wrong for professors to grade unfairly,” and “its wrong to steal from your children.” Are these objectively true, or true relative to an individual or culture?

Objectivism says that moral truths are part of reality itself, much like the law of gravity and the laws of genetic inheritance. They apply to everyone whether they know it or not, and people can be right or wrong about them. Three problems for objectivism:

1. “Where” are the moral truths? The laws of science are built into matter and energy, real things we can see and feel and study, but the moral truths are not part of matter or energy. Some philosophers think that the world is just matter and energy – that’s all there is. So what are the moral truths “made out of?”

2. The laws of science have an effect on the world. Its because of gravity that you go down instead of up when you jump out of a plane. Its because of genetics that you look sort of like your mom and sort of like your dad. But the “laws” of morality don’t seem to have an effect on the world. Nothing happens to you if you break a moral rule (unless a human punishes you) – the world itself does not force you to be moral like it forces you to obey gravity. So if there are moral rules they aren’t exactly like the laws of science.

3. There is widespread agreement about morality on the “easy” topics (murder is bad, charity is good), but there is also plenty of disagreement about the more difficult topics (euthanasia, drugs, animal rights, affirmative action…). Were morality objective, we’d probably expect there to be more agreement, like there is in science.

Nevertheless, many philosophers endorse objectivism about ethics, and your author writes most of your textbook in an objective framework. Different objective theories of ethics will be the topic of module 2.

Subjective Relativism says that the only moral principles that determine what is right or wrong for a person to do are the principles that make up that person’s personal moral code.

 This does not necessarily mean that you can just choose what’s right or wrong, because you might not have total control over your personal moral code (just like you can’t just choose what to want or not want). It also doesn’t mean that doing the right thing will always be easy, because your moral code might demand that you sacrifice a lot of your own happiness.

 But it does mean that the only place you need to look to differentiate right from wrong is inside yourself. It also means that what’s morally right or wrong for one person to do can be radically different from what’s right or wrong for someone else, if their personal moral codes are different.

 Before we evaluate subjective relativism, we need a preview from next week’s chapter. How should we evaluate moral theories? What makes a moral theory strong or weak? All theories, moral or scientific, are sets of ideas that are meant to 1) describe what’s true, and 2) help us solve problems. Newton’s theory of motion, for example, was his attempt

to describe how physical objects move, and it was very helpful in designing trajectories to get us to the moon. Likewise, a moral theory is only good if it 1) fits with common sense (mostly), and 2) helps us resolve moral disputes. I don’t think subjective relativism passes either of these tests. According to subjective relativism, if someone’s personal code approved of being a car thief, then its fine, for that person, to steal cars. This violates the common sense that we should respect people’s personal property. Also, it makes it impossible to explain to the car thief why stealing cars is wrong. Since they can always say “well, I approve of myself stealing cars,” they will never change their mind. In other words, if subjective relativism is true, then no one is ever wrong about morality. But this violates common sense too.

 Remember, a moral theory is supposed to help us sort actions into two categories: morally good actions and morally bad actions. But subjective relativism isn’t much help here since, according to subjective relativism, ANYTHING can be good or bad, so long as that’s what a person’s moral code says.

 Here’s another issue. When people say that something is wrong or right (“genocide is morally monstrous”) they typically speak in an objectivist voice, but if subjective relativism is true, what they really mean is “genocide is morally monstrous according to my personal moral code.” So if person A says “genocide is immoral” and person B says “genocide is good,” they aren’t really disagreeing. To disagree means to contradict one another, which means that if what one person says is true, what the other person says must be false. If person A says “My moral code disapproves of genocide” and person B says “My moral code approves of genocide” then they aren’t contradicting each other, since both statements could be true. A contradiction would be if person B said to person A “No, your personal moral code does not disprove of genocide.”

Cultural Relativism says that what’s right or wrong for you depends on the moral code of the culture you belong to. Since American culture respects private property, it would be wrong (for Americans) to steal a car. But in a culture where car stealing is acceptable, it wouldn’t be wrong. For example, it used to be culturally acceptable for American cowboys to steal from Mexican cowboys, and vice versa (but you’d be hanged for stealing from your fellow countryman).

 This theory might seem like it fits common sense at first. First of all, isn’t it important to be tolerant of cultural difference? Also, don’t different cultures have different moral codes? This actually may or may not be true (anthropologists disagree over how different different cultures really are), but this is not what cultural relativism says. Cultural relativism as a moral theory is about what is right or wrong to do, not what your culture says is right or wrong. Some cultures accept absolutely horrendous practices. Slavery was legal and widely accepted in America for hundreds of years. Does that mean that slavery was morally acceptable? According to cultural relativism, yes, it does! But this violates common sense.

 Cultural relativism suffers from the same problem as subjective relativism, in that, in principle, anything can be good or bad, so long as that’s what a person’s culture approves or disapproves of.

 Some have argued that cultures have a built-in bias for justice and fairness. After all, cultures are made up of a lot of people living together, so a culture can only survive if its

moral code promotes social cohesion. If cultures were too unfair, or too chaotic, the culture would fall apart and be replaced by a more stable culture. This suggests that no culture’s moral code can get too unfair, since too much unfairness is fatal to the very existence of any culture. Unfortunately, I think this is just historically wrong. Many cultures have had very unfair moral codes, and yet they survived for a long time. The Aztec’s would raid the surrounding tribes for prisoners to sacrifice to their Gods, America had slavery, and for hundreds (if not thousands) of years, most European cultures denied women a formal education. And yet, these cultures persisted. Fairness isn’t that necessary to culture.

 Here’s another problem for cultural relativism: if what’s right and wrong is defined by your culture, then cultural reformers who say they are trying to improve their culture are always wrong to do so. After all, whatever they’re trying to change is, according to their culture, actually a good thing. America used to be shockingly racist, and Martin Luther King Jr. and others tried to change that. But according to Cultural Relativism, racism was acceptable, maybe even good, since it was part of America’s heritage! So MLK was the one who was doing something wrong!

 And a final problem. Many people are multicultural. Which culture’s code should they follow? It’s not clear that there’s an answer to this question, in which case cultural relativism doesn’t help us solve moral disputes.

According to emotivism there are no moral truths at all, not even relative ones. Moral statements are the same as expressions of your feelings, attitudes, and emotions, and nothing more.

 When you cheer after your team scores, or when you go “mmmm” after tasting ice cream, you are not saying anything that can be true or false (not even relatively); you are not saying a sentence at all. What are you doing? You are expressing your feelings.

 According to emotivism, when you say that its morally good to volunteer at a charity, this is equivalent to saying “hooray volunteering!” and when you say its morally wrong to cheat on a test, this is equivalent to saying “boooo cheating!”

 Emotivism is not a form of subjective relativism. According to subjective relativism, different moral statements are true or false for different people, but they are still true or false in a personal way; if your personal moral code says stealing is wrong, then you’re doing something wrong if you steal. But according to emotivism, there are no moral facts, not even personal ones. You might feel bad about stealing, but this doesn’t make it wrong. The meaning of a moral statement is just how you feel about certain actions, similar to how you feel about vanilla ice cream, or your favorite team losing.

 Children may think that their favorite ice cream flavor really is the objectively “best” flavor. Maybe when it comes to ethics, adults are like children are to ice cream.