Moral Relativism Explained
نویسنده
چکیده
Moral relativism, as I understand it, is the claim that there is not a single objectively true morality but only many different moralities, just as there is not a single true language but only many different languages. Different people may have different moralities as reflected in the way they act and the ways they react to the actions of others and there is no objective way to show that one of these moralities is the only correct one. An account of what a morality is and what it is to have a particular morality might resemble David Lewis’ account of what a language is and what it is to have a language. Moral theory might emulate current linguistic theory in various ways. However, moral relativism is not a semantic claim about how to understand moral judgments. For example, it is not the view that a moral judgments is implicitly relational with a hidden parameter representing the morality in relation to which the judgment is made. To repeat: moral relativism is the claim that that there is not a single objectively true morality but only many different moralities. In this paper, I explain my understanding of moral relativism and indicate why I reject certain objections to it. I mention considerations that I take to support it, but I do not suppose that these considerations will be persuasive to all of those who do not already accept it. 1 What Is Moral Relativism? According to moral relativism, there is not a single true morality. There are a variety of possible moralities or moral frames of reference, and whether something is morally right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust, etc. is a relative matter—relative to one or another morality or moral frame of reference. Something can be morally right relative to one moral frame of reference and morally wrong relative to another.
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