Many Hollywood movies, superhero comics and fantasy novels talk about good and evil as if they were two clearly differentiated things that exist in all parts of the world. In this article we will provide you the infomration about the moral relativism.
However, the reality is much more complex than that: the boundaries between what is right and what is not are often blurred . How to know, then, what are the criteria for knowing what is right? Giving an answer to this question is complicated enough in itself, but it’s even more so when something called moral relativism comes into play.
What is moral relativism?
What we call moral relativism is an ethical theory that there is no universal way of knowing what is right and what is not . This means that, from the perspective of moral relativism, there are different equivalent moral systems, that is, equally valid or invalid.
A moral system cannot be judged from an external point of view, because there is no universal morality (that is, it is valid regardless of situation, place, or time).
Examples in the history of philosophy
Moral relativism has been expressed in many different ways throughout history. These are some examples.
the sophists
One of the best-known cases of moral relativism is found in the sophists of Ancient Greece. This group of philosophers understood that no objective truth can be known and that a universally valid ethical code cannot be found either .
With that in mind, it is not surprising that they use their discursive ability and ease of reasoning to defend one idea or another, depending on who paid for them. Philosophy was understood as a rhetorical game, a set of strategies to convince others.
This philosophical attitude and stance led the Sophists to despise great thinkers like Socrates or Plato, who considered the Sophists’ relativism a kind of mercenary profession of the intelligentsia.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche was not characterized by defending moral relativism, but he denied 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 workings of the cosmos, that is, if faith disappears, morality will also disappear, because there is no vector that indicates the direction our actions should take.
Later, many other modern philosophers questioned the ontological status of good and evil, considering that they are just social conventions.
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 in both the description of reality and the description of reality. Establish a moral code. This is why they argue that each conception of good and evil is simply as valid a paradigm as any other , which is a sign of moral relativism.
This fits well with the type of ideas defended by postmodern ways of understanding the world, according to which there is no universal narrative more valid than the others, which is also reflected in the concepts of good and evil.
The aspects of moral relativism
This kin-based belief system is expressed through three aspects.
Product description
Moral relativism can limit itself to pointing out a situation: that there are several groups with moral systems that contradict and clash head-on. In this way, one or another ethical system is not justified, but neither is it assumed that they all have the same value.
metaethical position
From moral relativism, it is possible to affirm something that goes beyond the description of these opposing moral systems: that above them there is nothing and that, for this reason, no moral position can be objective.
normative position
This position is characterized by the establishment of a norm: all moral systems must be tolerated. Ironically, a rule is used to try to prevent behavior from being regulated; therefore, it is often criticized that there are many contradictions in this system.
