by Asher Nevins

Normative moral cultural relativism (referred to in this essay as ‘moral relativism’ or ‘cultural relativism’) raises many questions in terms of both definition and logic to anyone who studies it, and herein I will try to demonstrate just one problem with the claims of relativists, namely that their premises create a contradiction when it comes to the claim of non-universal moral rules. James Rachels correctly points out that moral relativists make an invalid logical jump, claiming that what is is what ought to be. He then goes on to talk about the effects of moral relativism even if we ignore this problem. My analysis will differ from his in that he focuses on consequences of moral relativism that go against our instinctual beliefs, or that simply don’t seem to sit well with people. I will try to show some logical contradictions that occur even if we ignore this is-ought problem.

One maxim of moral relativism which will form the basis of the following arguments is “There is no “universal truth” in ethics—that is, there are no moral truths that hold for all people at all times” (Rachels 1986, p. 421). I will compare this claim to others made by relativists and attempt to show that this central claim of relativism is violated by the others.

“The moral code of a society determines what is right within that society; that is, if the moral code of a society says that a certain action is right, then that action is right, at least within that society.” (Rachels 1986, p. 421) This is the central claim of moral relativism, the single claim that sums it up best. It is a very interesting claim though, because it states what is right, not within a single society, but within all societies. It is not immediately obvious that this is a contradiction because it does not make a moral judgement on a specific action across all cultures at all times, but it does in fact make an absolute moral judgement on a general principle that is universal across both culture and time. Restated, the central tenant of moral relativism is ‘It is morally good to obey the rules of the society you live in.’ This claim applies to all cultures and across all times, for if it did not then the statement itself would obviously be false. This is clearly a contradiction of the claim that there is no universal truth in ethics.

Tolerance is put forward as a result of the acceptance of moral relativism; “It is mere arrogance for us to try to judge the conduct of other peoples. We should adopt an attitude of tolerance toward the practices of other cultures.” (Rachels 1986, p. 421) This statement is also a moral statement, it is a should. This is clarified more acutely with “Cultural Relativism would not only forbid us from criticising the code of other societies; it would stop us from criticising our own.” (Rachels 1986, p. 423) This claim has a number of problems. The first is that it appears to also be put forward as a universal moral rule. A rule about what everyone should do. This is not said explicitly though, so it may be argued that it only applies to some people. If this is the case, then the claim runs into trouble when we look at the central principle of moral relativism: that you should do what your society says is good. Societies seem to fall into two very generalized groups; I will loosely characterise them in terms of political beliefs. I will call these progressive and conservative for the purposes of this point. The progressive cultures value change over time, which requires criticism of your own society to achieve ‘improvement’; this violates the above rule of moral relativism. The conservative approach to society seeks to remain static over time, which necessarily requires the criticism of other societies, of difference, to maintain the status quo. These general principles that are required for the continuation of these types of societies are all judged as forbidden, or morally wrong, in the cultural relativist perspective, while simultaneously being judged as right because it is what the society says is good.

James Rachels puts forward as an example of the moral relativist’s tolerance principle “suppose a society was violently anti-Semitic and its leaders set out to destroy the Jews. Cultural Relativism would preclude us from saying that either of these practises was wrong.” (Rachels 1986, p. 423) Rachels puts forward this example himself in order to appeal to our emotion, but I think this specific example here allows us to further explore the contradiction I outlined above. Implicit in this statement is that the society committing these acts is not our own, and that our society disagrees with anti-semitism. So, we (referred to as “us” in the quote) are against anti-semitism, and any society that disagrees with these practises on moral grounds will surely want us to speak out against them. This means that for “us”, it would be both morally right and morally wrong to call these practises morally wrong.

The final point I would like to briefly address is the form of these arguments themselves rather than the contradictions between arguments. These arguments for moral relativism say that what is morally good in a society is what the society says is good, yet puts forward these ideas in order to change what society says is good, meaning the ideas put forward are not moral. Moral relativism puts forward the universal claim that there are no universal moral rules. Criticising the moral systems of others is morally wrong according to moral relativism, although it implicitly criticises belief in universal morality.

Moral relativism contains many premises that lead to contradiction, and is also presented in a form that violates its own standards. In its presented form, moral relativism is not valid. Many of the premises of moral relativism violate the maxim of ‘no universal moral rules’, for if they were presented as just one custom that “cannot be said to be “correct” or “incorrect”, for that implies we have an independent standard of right and wrong which they may be judged” (Rachels 1986, p. 421) then these ideas would of, course, have no power to persuade and would hold no weight with anyone.

Asher Nevins is currently studying Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Western Australia.