I was going to write something snarky about how the fact that a post is trending is not an indication of quality of content or of the intelligence of the author, but I think @yallapapi has done a better job of stating this. So, I thought I'd keep going down my list of philosophical bugbears.
“It’s all relative” – the catchphrase of moral commitment-phobes and 1st-year university students everywhere, these three words strike fear and existential dread into the hearts of philosophy lecturers causing them to don further layers of protective tweed and develop a deep fear of human contact.
What is wrong with this idea though? Maybe questions of ethical import are simply relative to the situation in which they occur. How we deal with this piece of mental laziness will depend on how we philosophically ‘unpack’ it. There are two ways this can be interpreted, and the responses vary accordingly.
- Claims that ethical/moral truths are ‘relative’ are a subset of the larger claim that all propositions are true relative to the situation in which they are made.
If all truths are relative, then so is the truth of the claim that “all truths are relative”. Thus, the claim that “it’s all relative”, if true, will only be true in some (but not all) situations, rendering it paradoxically untrue.
- Ethical truths are relative in a way that non-ethical truths are not. So, while claims such as: “all actions should be voluntary” are true relative to their context, meta-ethical claims about the truth of relativism are not.
This view is more coherent, but still causes problems. If meta-ethical claims (i.e.: claims about ethics) are not relative, then, by this account, they have no ethical or moral weight. Why does this matter? I guess it depends on how you want to use the “all relative” idea.
If it’s purely descriptive, then fine. But if you want to use it as a piece of moral guidance, you are in trouble, because that’s exactly what you can’t do. As soon as you tell someone that they should respect other moral codes that sanction actions they don’t approve of, because “it’s all relative”, you’ve broken your own rule and are back wallowing in the paradoxical territory described earlier.
My advice: In my considered opinion, the easiest way for ethical and moral claims to be equally correct and valuable is if they are all equally nonsensical and that none of them are true. There’s plenty of precedent for this view – but it’s hard to maintain as an action-guiding principle when you are trying to decide what to do, or have been on the receiving end of violence, coercion or anything else that seems manifestly unfair or unjust. Ethical nihilism, like ethical relativism, is hard to maintain when you are being robbed or punched in the face.
Thanks for reading. Upvotes, resteems etc. are deeply appreciated.
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