Cultural Ethical Relativism: An action is wrong for a person, if and only if, that person’s society or cultural group condemns that action.

Individual Ethical Relativism: An action is wrong for a person, if and only if, that person believes that the action is wrong.[1]

In the final section of my talk I gave several arguments against relativism so defined. One argument went as follows:

[1] If Cultural Ethical Relativism is true then an action is wrong for a person, if and only if, that person’s society or cultural group condemns that action.

[2] Some societies or cultural groups do not condemn practices like wife beating, racism, religious persecution and rape.

Therefore,

[3] If Cultural Ethical Relativism is true, it is right for a person in those societies to beat their wife, be racist, engage in religious persecution and commit rape.

I gave a parallel argument against individual relativism:

[1]’ If Individual Ethical Relativism is true then an action is wrong for a person, if and only if, that person believes that that action is wrong.

[2]’ Some people do not believe it is wrong to rape women and chop them up.

Therefore,

[3]’ If Individual Ethical Relativism is true then it is not wrong for such people to rape women and chop them up.

Now I maintain that the contention that it is permissible for a person to beat their wife, be racist, engage in religious persecution, commit rape and chop people up is false. It is not morally permissible to do these things; hence, as both cultural ethical relativism individual and ethical relativism entail false conclusions they themselves are false.

Deane contends this argument is “confused” and constitutes a “tirade.” Of course merely describing an argument in pejorative rhetorical language does nothing to actually refute it. It is also worth noting that if Deane is correct, it does little to turn back the critique I offered because, as I noted, this is just one of several arguments I against relativism. Showing that one argument against a position fails does not show that all do.

That said, I do not accept that Dean has shown that my argument fails in this instance. His claim that this argument is obviously “confused” appears to be mere bluster; it remains unclear as to exactly which premise Deane rejects. My argument is formally valid; the conclusion follows from the premises. Moreover, premise [1] and [1]’ are true by virtue of the definitions of relativism, definitions widely accepted in the literature. Premise [2] and [2]’ are also clearly true. It is historically undisputable that there have been societies and people who accepted the practices outlined in both. Finally, [3] and [3’] follow from [1] [2] and [1]’ [2]’ respectively. So it seems then that the only remotely plausible way a person could escape this argument is by biting the bullet and contending that sadist nihilists who chop women up and rape them are not acting wrongly and that members of societies that persecute religious minorities, permit wife bashing, racism and rape are not doing anything wrong when they do these actions. I, myself, find this conclusion extremely implausible.

The first two arguments Deane offers actually avoid addressing this argument at all and instead attack my character and alleged motives. Deane’s first argument is the insinuation that I oppose relativism because it produces “equality for women, freedom of homosexuals from legal persecution.” Two things can be said in response to this. First, even if this claim were true, it would show only that my motives for offering the argument were dubious; it would not show the argument itself is dubious. To do that Deane would have to actually address the premises and offer some actual argument supporting his assertion that they are false. Second, the claim is false. In fact, the argument [1] [2] [3] above, opposes relativism precisely on the grounds that it entails that certain forms of oppression of women are not wrong. It is an undisputed fact that many societies permit and even enjoin the oppression of women, Deane himself claims that 50 years ago New Zealand society approved of wife bashing, but if is wrong for someone to engage in conduct, if and only if, their society does not approve of it, as cultural ethical relativism maintains, then it follows that there was in fact nothing wrong with wife bashing 50 years ago. The New Zealand male who beat his wife black and blue in the 1950′s was acting perfectly appropriately. I find this claim to be clearly absurd. Deane is welcome to support an ethical theory that entails this if he wishes but if he does I strongly suggest that it is him and not I that supports and justifies the oppression of women.

Deane’s second line of argument fares no better. Responding to the second of the arguments mentioned above, Deane insinuates that I fantasise about raping women and chopping them up,

When Matt fantasizes about some weird behavior (and his favourite suggestion, for some reason, is a person who rapes, tortures and ‘chops up’ women…)

Deane here appears to reason that because I mention an activity as an example of unjust conduct that I must fantasise about doing it. The problem is that Deane in both his blog posts mentioned the persecution of gays and women as unjust practices; by his own logic then Deane is a misogynist homophobe who fantasises about harming women and homosexuals. Clearly this is not a valid response to the arguments above on Deane’s part here but an example of him engaging in another fallacious ad hominen.

Nether of Deane’s first or second arguments then actually call any of the above into question. Nothing he says gives us the slightest reason for thinking that people who bash their spouse or persecute religious or ethnic minorities with cultural approval are acting justly when they do. Nothing he says leads us to dispute that there are societies which do approve of these things, and these facts jointly entail that cultural ethical relativism is false. If he is to actually rebut this argument as opposed to simply vent his disgust for me, Deane needs to address these claims.

Later in the post Deanne does attempt to offer some arguments against the inference [1] [2] [3] above. However, these arguments quite evidently fail. At one point Deane argues,

Moreover, there is no absurdity in the fact that a person or sector of society with very unusual morals might consider their behaviour to be morally good. To the contrary, if morality depends on cultural norms, the examples he provides are exactly as we would expect. Only a few people would openly claim moral rectitude for really weird or kinky behaviour. For if everybody openly claimed it was morally good, then – culturally – it wouldn’t be considered weird or kinky in the first place!

Deanne here points out that it is not absurd to suggest “that a person or sector of society with very unusual morals might consider their behaviour to be morally good.” I agree entirely, the problem is that nowhere in my arguments above is this denied. I did not deny that some societies will claim that certain actions they engage in are morally permissible. In fact [2] explicitly affirms that some societies will claim that wife beating, religious persecution, rape and racism are permissible; hence, far from denying this claim I explicitly affirmed it. What I maintain as absurd is the contention that these societies’ assessments of their own norms are correct, that a person whom, with cultural approval, persecutes another or beats his wife actually is acting rightly and justly. Deane’s criticism here then attacks a point I did not make and fails to address the one that I did.

There is a hint at a criticism of [2] in the latter part of this paragraph where Deane suggests that societies that approve of abhorrent behaviour are rare. Unfortunately, this response is inadequate. First, even if it is true, it fails to address my argument. In [2] I maintained that some societies or cultural groups do not condemn practices like wife beating, racism, religious persecution and rape, not that many societies do. Second, with regards to the explicit examples I gave, it is untrue that only a few cultures and societies would support these things, a large number of societies have supported certain forms of rape, such as marital rape or raping women in war. Further, more than a few societies have supported religious persecution. Think, for example, of the execution of Socrates for heresy in ancient Athens, the persecution of Christians by the Romans, the inquisitions and the religious wars of Europe and the religious persecution in many Muslim countries today. Many have supported racist policies such as South Africa and the American South, not to mention the colonial and social Darwinist policies of the 19^th century as well as the documented acceptance of racism in many ancient cultures such as ancient Greece and Egypt. Premise [2] is very clearly true. Further [2], when conjoined with the definition of cultural ethical relativism spelled out in [1], entails that these policies were justified and that those who carried them out and advocated them were correct.

It is this latter claim that I think is evidentially mistaken. Instead of evading the issue Deane owes us an answer. Does he believe, for example, that Inquisitors who burned heretics to death at the stake were right to do so given that their society approved of this practice? Does he believe that when wife bashing was accepted that men who smashed in their wives faces acted rightly? If he does not then he cannot consistently maintain that an action is wrong for a person, if and only if, their society or culture does not condemn it.

Deane’s fourth line of criticism is to state,

Matt adds, “If you accept cultural relativism, essentially the norms of your society become infallible. They can’t be wrong. Because right and wrong is just what your society says it is.” As Matt concludes that is it implausible that societies can be morally infallible in their judgments, he concludes that moral relativism is not true.

Here, again, Deane does not actually address the argument [1] [2] [3] above but instead addresses a different argument that I made elsewhere in the same talk. This was the argument that cultural ethical relativism entails that a society can never be mistaken in its moral judgements. So, once again, even if Deane’s criticisms of this argument are correct they do not actually address [1] [2] [3] above. However, once again, even in response to this line of argument Deane fails to be cogent. He notes,

Matt’s reference to ‘infalliblity’ here is interesting. For infallibility is a normal trait of divine commands. Once again, it seems that Matt is assuming that moral relativism must have the characteristics of moral objectivism. He just cannot appreciate how moral relativism works. For moral relativism is not some monolithic system across society, but a variety of different views, some coalescing together, some in conflict to some degree or another. Moral relativism is not some stationary edifice, as Matt pretends, but is always developing, always reacting to material circumstances and prior ideologies. Once one removes the imaginary characteristics of divine command theory – infallibility, immutability, universality, etc – from the description of moral relativism, then Matt’s conclusions are exposed as unsound.

Deane here states that I “assume” that a society’s norms are infallible. This, however, is false. In the quote he cites, I argued for this conclusion. I stated explicitly that the norms of a society “can’t be wrong because right and wrong is just what your society says it is.” The ‘because’ here notes an inference. If the property of ‘being right’ is the property of ‘being approved by society’ then it is impossible for society to approve of an action and for that action to be wrong. Deane is welcome to address this inference but ignoring it and then stating that I merely assumed the conclusion does not address my argument.

Deane does go on to offer some arguments to the effect that societal norms are not monolithlic and static, rather they are rather fluid; the societal norms change, develop, evolve, etc. However, nowhere did I deny any of these things. What I argued for was that relativism entails that these norms are infallible. No matter how fluid or changing cultural norms are, the fact remains that, according to cultural ethical relativism, at any given time T, if a society approves of an action then that action is right for any member of the society who performs it at T. At no point in time can a society be mistaken about what right and wrong is if right and wrong are identified with the norms of a society. Of course at T+1 the societal norm may change but if this is the case then this simply means that society has changed from one correct assessment of right and wrong to another. For the reasons I stated, which Deane ignored, Deane’s position commits him to the view that societies’ norms are never mistaken, and this, I maintain, is absurd. Clearly throughout history societies have made mistakes in their moral judgements and this fact shows us that societal norms and moral norms are not the same thing.

[1] Frances Howard-Snyder “Christianity and Ethics” in Reason for the Hope Within, ed Michael J. Murray (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans Publishing co, 1999) 376-377.

RELATED POSTS:
A Response to The Dunedin School’s “Thinking in Tatters: Moral Relativism and Hidden Objectivist Assumptions”
Video of Matthew Flannagan Speaking on Moral Relativism
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism I
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism II
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism III

The original blog post, “Thinking in Tatters: Moral Relativism and So-called ‘Counter-examples’”, by Deane Galbraith of The Dunedin School is below

Thinking in Tatters: Moral Relativism and So-called ‘Counter-examples’

by Deane Galbraith
10 November 2009

Back to Matt Flannagan’s tirade against moral relativism – that producer of such moral outrages as equality for women, freedom of homosexuals from legal persecution, and all those other things that cause your average member of a conservative think-tank to worry about all night in bed.

Later on in his presentation, Matt announces that he is going to produce ‘counterexamples’ to moral relativism. Now, usually a ‘counterexample’ would demonstrate the illogical or absurd nature of moral relativism. So does Matt produce this type of ’counterexample’? Does any one of his examples demonstrate the illogical or absurd nature of moral relativism? In fact… none of them do.

Matt makes the following confused suggestions about moral relativism:

- If a society considered wife-bashing to be morally acceptable, it would not be ‘right’ for a feminist or a moral relativist to object to it;

- In an Islamic society which believed that conversion to another religion was a capital offense, it would be morally required to execute converts;

- In countries in which racism is widely practiced, then racism is acceptable;

- An individual who thinks it is right to rape, torture, kill or ‘chop up’ women would be morally right under individual relativism, and nobody could impose their views on them.

Matt adds, “If you accept cultural relativism, essentially the norms of your society become infallible. They can’t be wrong. Because right and wrong just is what your society says it is.” As Matt concludes that is it implausible that societies can be morally infallible in their judgments, he concludes that moral relativism is not true.

Matt’s reference to ‘infalliblity’ here is interesting. For infallibility is a normal trait of divine commands. Once again, it seems that Matt is assuming that moral relativism must have the characteristics of moral objectivism. He just cannot appreciate how moral relativism works. For moral relativism is not some monolithic system across society, but a variety of different views, some coalescing together, some in conflict to some degree or another. Moral relativism is not some stationary edifice, as Matt pretends, but is always developing, always reacting to material circumstances and prior ideologies. Once one removes the imaginary characteristics of divine command theory – infallibility, immutability, universality, etc – from the description of moral relativism, then Matt’s conclusions are exposed as unsound.

For moral rules are always sites of dispute. A society that approves of wife-bashing, like most of New Zealand did only about 50-or-so years ago, can certainly renegotiate the moral rightness or wrongness of such behaviour. And such disputes need not only occur within a society. Our learned (not objective) disgust at certain behaviour might prompt us to attempt to alter the behaviour of other societies (and it often has, for better or for worse, relatively speaking). So there is no illogic in the system, once relativism is properly viewed as a fluid process, rather than as the artificial imaginary associated with Matt’s divine command theory.

Moreover, there is no absurdity in the fact that a person or sector of society with very unusual morals might consider their behaviour to be morally good. To the contrary, if morality depends on cultural norms, the examples he provides are exactly as we would expect. Only a few people would openly claim moral rectitude for really weird or kinky behaviour. For if everybody openly claimed it was morally good, then – culturally – it wouldn’t be considered weird or kinky in the first place! When Matt fantasizes about some weird behaviour (and his favourite suggestion, for some reason, is a person who rapes, tortures and ‘chops up’ women…), the very fact that this behaviour is culturally abnormal is consistent with the claims of moral relativism. Moral relativism in fact claims that morally weird behaviour will usually correspond to culturally abnormal behaviour. Morality follows cultural norms. Just as we would expect from moral relativism.

So Matt’s so-called ‘counterexamples’ are nothing of the sort. Instead, these examples have all backfired on him. Matt’s examples are entirely consistent with the truth of moral relativism.

Deane’s critique appears to consist of three lines of argument. The first is a string of assertions about my alleged motives combined with pejorative terms to describe my conclusions. Deane insinuates that I am a “frustrated atavistic reactionists who want to take away rights from women, homosexuals, and other minorities and restore power to the patriarchy” and smugly contends that my arguments are “a mish-mash of illogical nonsense and rhetorical scaremongering.”

Unfortunately one does not refute a person’s arguments by simply asserting that their arguments are illogical. Even if Deane’s assertions about my motives were correct, and he offers no evidence to suggest that that they are, this would show only that I have terrible motives in making the arguments in question, not that the arguments themselves were problematic. Hence, this first line of argument can be dismissed as mere rhetoric.

The second line of argument is only marginally more substantial. Deane suggests that I spent more than half my talk “presenting obviously unsound arguments for relativism and then (marvelously!) disproving them to [my] captive evangelical audience”. Deane describes this as a “sleight of hand” on my part. Now exactly what this objection amounts to is unclear. Deane clearly dislikes the idea that my audience were evangelicals (which not all were) but the fact that my audience may hold to a particular religion does not show the arguments I presented to this audience were mistaken; in fact, Deane in conceding that the arguments I criticised were “obviously unsound” seems to agree with my conclusions about the merits of these arguments. Given this, it is hard to know what the problem is. Of course Deane describes my criticisms in a sarcastic tone but simply describing something sarcastically does not constitute an argument against it nor does deeming it “sleight of hand” show that it is mistaken.

What I think Deane is driving at is something more substantial. Some of what he says suggests he is accusing me of attacking a straw-man; he seems to be suggesting that I chose some really bad arguments, which anyone familiar with the discussions on relativism will know are not actually made by proponents of relativism and I criticised these arguments. I got away with it only because my audience are evangelicals, and hence, unaware that a straw-man has been presented.

Now apart from the suggestion that all evangelicals are ignorant, gullible people with no background in ethics and the assumption that the audience was made up of evangelicals (I suspect that the atheists present probably would not describe themselves as “evangelical”) the obvious problem with this claim is that it is false. The arguments I put forward come from the literature on relativism (as anyone familiar with the discussions on relativism can attest to).

In the talk I cite two arguments, an argument from tolerance and an argument from diversity. These arguments are often cited in secular ethics text books. Alan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind, for example, notes that the appeal to tolerance is one of the most common reasons proposed for relativism. The arguments I mentioned are also cited by Harry Gensler in his book Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction,  Louis Pojman notes these arguments in Ethics Discovering Right and Wrong and James Rachels raises them in The Elements of Moral Philosophy. Hence, far from being a straw-man that only an ignoramus would cite in the context of relativism, these are arguments for relativism cited in leading mainstream ethics textbooks.

The third of Deane’s arguments is more substantive. He suggests that one point I make in my talk is circular. Now the first thing to note is that this claim is, to some extent, fairly irrelevant. In the section in question I noted two arguments commonly put forward in favor of relativism and offered several lines of criticism against them, one of them Deane claims is circular. Now even if Deane were correct, pointing out that one line of criticism is fallacious does nothing to address the overall case I made. If one of several arguments are mistaken it does not follow that the rest are.

That said, Deane’s attribution of circularity to me is mistaken. In my talk I noted that one argument for relativism implicitly appeals to the following premise:

[2] All people have a duty to not be intolerant

At one point I made the following comment about this premise, “And notice too that the second premise is making a what? An objective moral statement. It is saying that all people have a duty to be tolerant. But according to relativism there are no objective moral statements”

It is here Deane thinks I have argued in a circle. He states,

Now, indulging Matt for a while, let’s ask this question: if a moral relativist did happen to hold to this premise, what would be the nature of the ‘duty’? Too obvious, you say? Well yes, the answer would seem to be too obvious. The  ’duty’ would clearly be relative for a moral relativist… Matt falsely attributes moral objectivism to a moral relativist, because he just cannot grasp the concept of moral relativism. However, in moral relativism, a duty, even if applicable to everybody in a particular society, would by definition be morally relative. A prevalent problem with moral objectivists such as Matt is that they haven’t ever grasped what a purely subjective morality looks like, how it operates. They keep trying to sneak back in assumptions of moral objectivity – the very thing that moral relativists deny. And so their attempt to raise an argument against it – by assuming the objectivity of morality - is revealed as a piece of illogical and circular nonsense.

Several things can be said about this. First, even if I did (as Deane contends) assume the objectivity of morality in my criticism here, this would not make my argument circular. A circular argument is one where the conclusion is assumed in the premises. To be circular then I would have to be making an argument for the conclusion that moral relativism is correct. But I was not. At this point in the talk I was criticising one argument for moral relativism. But criticising one argument for moral relativism is not the same thing as offering an argument for objectivism. Hence, even if one grants Deane’s substantive point, my argument is not circular.

Second, and more importantly, Deane is wrong to claim that I was, at this point, assuming the objectivity of morality and sneaking this assumption into my interpretation of [2]. If Deane had bothered to listen to the passage he cited in its context he would see that I immediately went on to argue that [2] should be interpreted as affirming an objective principle. What I said was:

if relativism were true [2] would actually be wrong. You would only have a duty to be tolerant if you yourself believed in tolerance. If you were a bigot you’d be perfectly entitled to be intolerant. And if your society was a bigoted society it would be perfectly appropriate for you to be intolerant. So the person who makes this claim actually shows that they believe in objective morality, they believe there is an objective value of tolerance.

Hence it is simply not the case that I assumed moral objectivism and sneaked this assumption into my reading of [2]. What I did was offer an argument that [2] had to be interpreted this way because unless one interpreted [2] in an objectivist manner, [2] would be false.

Now if Deane thinks that [2] can be interpreted in a relativist manner then the burden is on him to show that my argument is mistaken. To ignore the argument and simply state that I assumed the position I argued for and then assert that the position is wrong establishes nothing at all (well, it establishes nothing about my argument).

Ironically, if we accept Deane’s contention that [2] should be interpreted as asserting a relative duty and not an objective duty then, in fact, it is the relativist that is engaging in circular reasoning. Remember, at this point in the talk I was criticising an argument for relativism, [2] was a premise of this particular argument for relativism. If [2], therefore, expresses or presupposes that moral claims are to be interpreted in a relativist fashion then the relativist is presupposing the truth of relativism in the premises of one argument for relativism, and this clearly would be circular.

For the relativist to offer a non-question begging argument for his position he must appeal to premises that non-relativists are likely to accept and hence the premises of his argument cannot be interpreted in a relativist fashion.

There is a final point to make here, Deane makes heavy weather out of the contention that I cannot conceive of what a relativist morality would look like. He states,

Matt’s criticism reveals that he has failed to appreciate what a thoroughgoing moral relativism would look like. He just doesn’t get it. He cannot conceive of moral duties that are not objective. I suspect that this is an all-too-frequent barrier for moral objectivists. Their commitment to moral objectivism is such that they fail to properly conceive of a world in which every moral duty is simply the result of cultural norms.

It is evident that an unjustified leap is being made here. Suppose, contrary to fact, I did err in one criticism I made of one argument for relativism. It hardly follows from this that I cannot conceive of what a thorough-going relativism would look like. All it would show is that on one point I made a mistake. But more importantly, even if it did establish what Deane claims, that I failed to appreciate what a thoroughgoing moral relativism would look like, it is not clear how this would constitute a criticism of my position. After all there are many things which I cannot conceive of that are perfectly rational for me to reject. I cannot conceive of what a square triangle would look like, it does not follow from this that I cannot defensibly claim that anyone who affirms that square triangles exist is mistaken and is uttering a nonsense. So once again Deane’s criticism amounts to nothing at all.

Of course Deane makes his points in a rhetorical, sarcastic, snarky manner and I am sure that for those who dislike evangelical Christianity, such writing is highly entertaining. Entertaining rhetoric, however, is never a substitute for substantive content; notwithstanding the entertaining rhetoric in this instance, the arguments Deane offers fail.

RELATED POSTS:
A Response to The Dunedin School’s “Thinking in Tatters: Moral Relativism and So-Called ‘Counter-Examples’”
Video of Matthew Flannagan Speaking on Moral Relativism
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism I
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism II
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism III

The original blog post, “Thinking in Tatters: Moral Relativism and Hidden Objectivist Assumptions”, by Deane Galbraith of The Dunedin School is below Thinking in Tatters: Moral Relativism and Hidden Objectivist Assumptions

by Deane Galbraith
10 November 2009

Matt Flannagan, who blogs with his wife Madeleine at MandM, contributes to a New Zealand-based conservative think-tank called Thinking Matters. These ‘conservative think-tanks’ crop up from place to place and the term is usually a euphemism for frustrated and atavistic reactionists who want to take away rights from women, homosexuals, and other minorities and restore power to the patriarchy. Some of the members of Thinking Matters don’t appear to be noticeably different in this regard.

In a talk available on YouTube, Matt Flannagan attempts to argue against that phantom nemesis of all conservative think-tanks, what they term ’moral relativism’. (Everybody together now: ‘Oooooh, yucky!’) His arguments are a mish-mash of illogical nonsense and rhetorical scaremongering. There is much to take issue with in his presentation, so there is no need to dwell on his sleight of hand in presenting obviously unsound arguments for relativism and then (marvelously!) disproving them to his captive evangelical audience - which he does for more than half of his talk.

One thing which is worth thinking about is that, at one point in his talk (Part 4; 5:00ff), Matt’s criticism reveals that he has failed to appreciate what a thoroughgoing moral relativism would look like. He just doesn’t get it. He cannot conceive of moral duties that are not objective. I suspect that this is an all-too-frequent barrier for moral objectivists. Their commitment to moral objectivism is such that they fail to properly conceive of a world in which every moral duty is simply the result of cultural norms. They can’t do it. And as a result, their protests already – circularly – assume moral objectivism.

Matt makes his circular argument when he adduces the following as a premise which he claims is held by some moral relativists:

Now, indulging Matt for a while, let’s ask this question: if a moral relativist did happen to hold to this premise, what would be the nature of the ‘duty’? Too obvious, you say? Well yes, the answer would seem to be too obvious. The  ’duty’ would clearly be relative for a moral relativist.

But Matt doesn’t get it:

“And notice too that the second premise is making a what? An objective moral statement. It’s saying that all people have a duty to be tolerant. But according to relativism there are no objective moral statements.”

Matt falsely attributes moral objectivism to a moral relativist, because he just cannot grasp the concept of moral relativism. However, in moral relativism, a duty, even if applicable to everybody in a particular society, would by definition be morally relative. A prevalent problem with moral objectivists such as Matt is that they haven’t ever grasped what a purely subjective morality looks like, how it operates. They keep trying to sneak back in assumptions of moral objectivity – the very thing that moral relativists deny. And so their attempt to raise an argument against it – by assuming the objectivity of morality - is revealed as a piece of illogical and circular nonsense.