Many Hollywood films, superhero comics and fantasy novels talk about good and evil as if they were two distinct things that exist as they do in all parts of the world.

However, reality is much more complex than that: the boundaries between what is right and what is wrong are often blurred So how do we know what the criteria are for knowing what is right? Giving an answer to this question is already complicated in itself, but it is even more so when something known as moral relativism comes into play.

What is moral relativism?

What we call moral relativism is an ethical theory according to which there is no universal way of knowing what is right and what is wrong . That means that from the perspective of moral relativism there exist different moral systems that are equivalent, that is to say, equally valid or not valid.

A moral system cannot be judged from a point of view external to it because there is no universal morality (that is, valid regardless of the situation, place or time).

Examples in the history of philosophy

Moral relativism has been expressed in many different ways throughout history. Here are some examples.

The Sophists

One of the best known cases of moral relativism can be found in the sophists of Ancient Greece. This group of philosophers understood that no objective truth can be known and that neither can a universally valid ethical code be found .

With that in mind, it is not surprising that they used their discursive skills and ease of thought to defend one or another idea depending on who was paying them. Philosophy was thus understood as a game of rhetoric, a set of strategies to convince others.

This attitude and philosophical position earned the Sophists the contempt of great thinkers such as Socrates or Plato, who considered the relativism of the Sophists to be a kind of mercenary trade of the intelligentsia.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche was not characterized by his defense of moral relativism, but he did deny the existence of a universal moral system valid for all .

In fact, he pointed out that the origin of morality is in religion, that is, in a collective invention to imagine something that is above nature. If it is ruled out that there is something above the functioning of the cosmos, that is, if faith disappears, morality disappears as well, because there is no vector to indicate the direction that our acts should take.

Later, many other philosophers of modernity questioned the ontological status of good and evil, considering that they are only social conventions.

The Postmodernists

Postmodern philosophers point out that there is no separation between what we would call “objective facts” and the way we interpret them, which means that they reject the idea of an objective order both when describing reality and when establishing a moral code. That is why they defend that each conception of good and evil is simply a paradigm as valid as any other , which is a sample of moral relativism.

This fits in well with the kind of ideas advocated from the postmodern ways of understanding the world, according to which there is no single universal narrative that is more valid than the rest, which would also be reflected in the concepts of good and bad.

The facets of moral relativism

This system of beliefs based on the relative are expressed through three aspects.

Description

Moral relativism can limit itself to pointing out a situation: that there are several groups with contradictory and clashing moral systems. In this way, one does not enter into justifying one or another ethical system, but neither does it assume that all have the same value.

Target position

Starting from moral relativism, it is possible to affirm something that goes beyond the description of these opposing systems of morality: that above them there is nothing, and that therefore no moral position can be objective.

Normative position

This position is characterized by the establishment of a rule: all moral systems must be tolerated. Ironically, a norm is used to try to prevent behaviour from being regulated, for which reason it is often criticised that there are many contradictions in this system.

Bibliographic references:

  • Beebe, J.R., (2010), Moral Relativism in Context, Noûs, 44(4): 691-724.
  • Brogaard, B., (2007), Moral Contextualism and Moral Relativism, The Philosophical Quarterly, 58(232): 385-409.
  • Capps, D., M.P. Lynch, and D. Massey, (2009), A Coherent Moral Relativism, Synthese, 166(2): 413-430.
  • Margolis, J., (1991). The Truth About Relativism, Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Storig, H. J. (1995). Universal History of Philosophy. Madrid: TECNOS.
  • Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2004). Moral Relativism.