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Chapter 2: Ethical Relativism
What is Ethical Relativism?
- No objective right or wrong
- Compared to objectivism
 Two Forms of Ethical Relativism

◦ Individual Ethical Relativism
◦ Cultural Ethical Relativism
Chapter 2 continued

Reasons Supporting Ethical
Relativism
◦ The diversity of moral views
◦ Moral Uncertainty
◦ Situational differences
Chapter 2 continued

Are These Reasons Convincing?
◦ The Diversity of Moral Views
 How widespread and deep is the
disagreement?
 What does such disagreement prove?
◦ Moral Uncertainty – the complexity
and difficulty
- The view of skepticism
- The form of subjectivism
Chapter 2 continued

Situational differences
◦ Absolutism – rules with no exceptions
◦ The expression of relativism

Challenges for relativism and
nonrelativism
◦ The reflection of society’s views
◦ The view of personal experience
◦ The implied beliefs about tolerance
Chapter 2 continued

Moral Realism
◦ Realism – the view of the relation
between science and nature
◦ Are moral properties supervenient?

Moral Pluralism
◦ Is there one good moral principle or a
variety of equally moral principles?
Chapter 2 continued

Reading: Trying Out One’s New
Sword
◦ Moral isolationism in practice
◦ The symbolism of the Samurai sword
◦ The liability of the isolating barriers
between cultures
◦ The effect of moral isolationism on moral
reasoning
Chapter 2 continued

Reading: Master and Slave Moralities
◦ Master moralities
- Description of “good” and “bad”
- The noble type of person feels himself as
a determining value
◦ Slave moralities
- Description of “good” and “evil”
- The longing for freedom