How can ethics being subjective and relative be justified?

Question

I have always believed that ethics belongs to the realm of reason and it is absolute. A rational human being should be able to arrive to a natural code of conduct. However, nowadays I see many people flirt with relativistic ethics.

If a code of ethics is relative, then there is no absolute right and wrong and everything can be justifiable inside the appropriate frame of reference.

But how can a non-universal ethics (not based on life/death/pleasure/pain) be justified? Could you give some examples or references?

Answer 1

While this is a broad question, I think the answer to your question is hidden in the question itself.

People who are fine with relativistic ethics either on a personal or cultural level think it is impossible, unnecessary, or undesirable to justify an ethical system.

In other words, such views take your seemingly rhetorical question:

If a code of ethics is relative, then there is no absolute right and wrong and everything is only justifiable inside the appropriate point of reference.

And then they go for the other horn of the dilemma -- they accept that this means everything is only justifiable inside the appropriate point of reference. Generally, they then assert that this what has always been going on in ethics. Often this is done by taking either a sociological or biological explanation as the correct understanding of ethics.

As such, they accept that the only justifications you can usually get are internal (rather than external).

A philosopher (or maybe by the end of his career he would have preferred not to be called one) who accepted this view was Richard Rorty. At one point, he was president of the APA. He believes that when we imagine we're hitting bedrock with our thinking that we are just fooling ourselves.

More recently, Gil Harman and David Wong have both defended species of moral relativism.

Several other prominent philosophers disagree. A classic attempt to rebut this in the modern era is offered by James Rachel in his chapter entitled "Moral Relativism."

A rather generic argument follows the same course as your question but potentially amends it with questions about what moral relativism cannot condemn. Rachels for instance points out that the moral relativism cannot condemn slavery in either the past of his own culture or the present of any culture -- nor is it clear that he can condemn murders or holocausts in any of these.

Parts of your answer hint at a natural law approach to ethics. On such views, moral relativism fails because there is a natural moral order in the universe, and we are the sort of creatures endowed with the reason to see it.

Answer 2

We do not respond to ethical dilemmas with binary switches and levers, but with complex and nuanced human behavior. Our ethical obligations in a scenario may or may not be relative to a lot of things, real or imagined, but it is undeniable that it will be relative to the capacity of the agent in the moment to make the ethical judgment.

That agent may seek to act according to objective, universal norms, but we can guarantee that another agent will see those norms differently.

Ethical relativism can be slammed as a means of avoiding ethical decision making altogether, and there is some credit to that criticism. However, ethical absolutism can fail to take into account the varied make up and judgment of the agents who must carry out ethically sound behavior.

Or the position of an ethical absolutist may be that all agents should surrender their independent agency to some supposedly objective judge. To my mind, such an idea is itself unethical, and would obviate the whole scheme of objective enforcement.

So I believe there is a position between the two extremes: If we posit a moral and social obligation for all persons to strive to act according to ethical norms, we must acknowledge the agency of those persons, which is to say the necessarily flawed humanity of those persons. We should understand they may disappoint and even anger us when they appear to fail in this obligation. They may disappoint and anger us even as they strive with undeniable integrity to act according to objective ethical norms that we may profess to share.

Answer 3

Ethics are inherently subjective, because there is no universal "end goal" to which all humans subscribe.

Where we able to all decide upon a specific optimal state for humanity, then it would be possible to logically determine an action to be objectively "right." Actions which bring humanity closer to this desired state would be ethically correct, and those actions could be rated based on efficiency, cost, and risk to determine the most objectively correct action.

Unfortunately, since we can't all agree that slavery is bad or that rising income inequity negatively impacts the poor, we are stuck in the land of subjectivity ethics.

Answer 4

You just have a fine example in the comments here. Slavery used to be considered an indispensable part of human civilization. We now see it as an abominable evil. Now, either you claim that ALL pre-modern people were inherently evil, or you admit that something happened to Morality itself.

Note that we have here a refutation to a convenient confusion: it is easy to conflate moral relativism with criticism of the idea of "progress". But the very idea of progress is a form of moral relativism. You cannot judge middle-age men by modern standards. It's anachronistic.

If Morals were absolute, then, in all probability, by some future high standard, we are all evil. Morality collapses in a reduction-ad-absurdum.

Or take this example: In ancient societies, Women were considered inferior in every way. The Hebrew word for whore, for example is translated as "she who brings food". Just being in a position where you need to provide for your children without the support of a Man means that as a woman you're on your own, outcast and denigrated. This seems evil in our eyes. But the modern permissive view that women are individuals worthy of respect is an affront to many even today. Yes, I think we're more "right" than the chauvinists of yore. But they are certain that I'm a complete and utter fool. This is a fact of life: we have very different views on what is "good" and what is "evil". So, what now?

Moral relativism is (sometimes) an attempt at solving the conflict by going up a level. Instead of asking "who's right", ask "what are the conditions in which is type of moral rises"?