Ethical Relativism

There are several types of ethical relativism (the view that there isn't and cannot be a universal ethics), often incompatible with each other, and in addition different authors use the same phrases with different meanings. It's useful to ask oneself what is relativized to what.
 

•  Cultural Relativism proposes the reduction of morality to custom . Morality is nothing but well entrenched custom. Hence, since a custom is always relative to a culture and at most contingently universal, morality should renounce any pretence of essential universalism.

Argument for cultural relativism:
 
1. different cultures have different ethical habits, e.g. Northwestern peoples and the disposal of one's old father.
2. hence, "morals" are merely "socially approved habits."
3. hence, morality is but custom.

Problems with the argument:
1. Not clear there is disagreement about fundamental values because disagreement is often only about facts (not values) which are ethically relevant, and moral principles are fact sensitive. If you believe that deformed babies belong to the hippopotamus, the god of the river, then you might be justified in throwing them into the river, as a tribe in Sudan is said to have been doing.
2. Even if there is fundamental disagreement, nothing follows about what one ought to believe; it's fallacious to argue from people's beliefs to how things are or ought to be.
Reply: If there were universal values, all (most) cultures would know them. But they don't. Hence, there are no universal values.
Duplication:
1. Truth is not evident, as the persistence of beliefs in a flat Earth, heliocentrism, the rightness of slavery show. Hence, the premise of the reply is false or at least highly debatable.
2. moral scepticism (there are essentially universal and objective moral values but we don't now them) would be as justified a conclusion as cultural relativism (morality is just custom).

NOTE: moral scepticism is incompatible with cultural relativism.
 
 
• Normative Relativism denies that morality is but custom: there is a sphere of morality which is separate from habits. After all, at times customs are changed by moral criticism. However, it proposes one or both of the following:
1. the relativization of the truth conditions of moral statements to cultures.  For example, the truth of "one ought to turn the other cheek" or "infanticide is wrong" could only be assessed within a culture's moral framework. Any attempt to claim that one's justification is universal (i.e., it should be accepted by reasonable and unprejudiced members of other cultures) is nonsense.
2. the relativization of the propositional content of moral statements to cultures. The analogy here is to weather statements: "it's cold" is shorthand for "it's cold" + spatio- temporal qualifiers, e.g., "it's cold in LA." So, morality should have spatio-temporal qualifiers: "infanticide is wrong" is shorthand for, e.g., "infanticide is wrong for Christians."

NOTE:
Hence in this view there's no real moral disagreement among cultures. If Joe says "it's cold" and Jims "it's hot," they don't really disagree if Joe's statement is shorthand for "it's cold in NY" and Jim's "it's hot in LA." So, "infanticide is not permissible for Christians" and "infanticide is permissible for the Greeks" are both true.

Problem:
People from different cultures really seem to disagree both with respect to the content and the justification of moral statements.
Reply: One might reply that they think they disagree because they are confused: they believe that they are entitled to holding moral truths that are universal both with respect to content and justification.

Relativism, in its various forms, is appealing to many because it seems to foster:

1. tolerance of different cultures and viewpoints.

However,
a. tolerance does not follow unless one lives in a tolerant culture.  Notice, moreover, that a culture which adopts a universalist view of ethics may be tolerant of practices, within itself or in other cultures, it considers morally wrong.
b. historically many cultures are intolerant and xenofobic.
c. in the case of Cultural Relativism, since morals are mere customs, why should I not crush them if it's to my advantage to do so?
2. Open-mindedness, i.e., being disposed to admit one might be wrong, to listen to objections and engage in discussion.
   However, relativism is neither necessary nor sufficient for such a stance. Even if I believe that X is objectively true, I should be prepared to give a fair hearing to opposing views. (Note that this is exatcly what usually happens in an open and democratic university). In short believing in universal values need not make one intolerant. Conversely, being a relativist does not make one tolerant: if I'm a relativist and my culture tells me not to be open-minded (woe to the infidels!), why should I be? 

The case against moral relativism could be strengthened by presenting a good case for moral objectivism. The issue is complex, and many theories appealing to God, reason, emphaty, etc., have been put forth. All have problems. Even apparently reasonable and down to earth accounts face difficulties. For example, one could argue on observational, theological, or Darwinian grounds, that human beings have a common set of needs and interests and the objectively valid moral principles are those that satisfy and promote them optimally. Still, this account

• leaves open the possibility that more than one set of principles leading to different outcomes may satisfy and promote human needs and interetsts optimally. Still, one could reply that this is just a possibility.
• commits the naturalistsic fallacy (if it is a fallacy) of deriving "ought" from "is". Even if a set of principles leads to human flourishing, why should it be moral?

However, many do adopt some form of moral objectivism. (See, for example, Blackburn on the UN chart of human rights). That some groups like Nazis, with their racist views, or Islamic theocrats, with their sexist views, may oppose them should not move us one bit and only incite us to fight such ethical aberrations.