@philosophyminis: Moral relativism is the idea that right and wrong depend upon who I am and where I live. So if one culture says it is okay for a man to have lots of wives, that is fine. It is just our culture does things differently. But according to the philosopher James Rachels, this will almost always involve a self-contradiction. Moral relativism involves two claims. The first says that moral values depend upon culture. So, my upbringing and my childhood and my society will tell me what is right or wrong. And so, second, we have no right to tell other people how they ought to behave. If one culture thinks it is okay to have child labour, then that is up to them. We do not do it, but we do a lot of things differently. Rachels argues that the moment you push back upon this, it falls apart, because is it okay, then, to stone an adulterer to a slow, painful, and humiliating death? Is it okay to torture an innocent person for the joy and pleasure of a coliseum full of cheering people? The moral relativist has to say that those things are wrong according to me, but on what grounds can they then say we should stop what they are doing? We should tell them to change their values. One way out seems to be a kind of moral imperialism, and this is where we say that ethics is relative, but we will still impose our values upon you anyway, in a kind of might equals right. But most moral relativists do not like this idea. So are ethics relative, or is there some absolute moral code? And if so, where does it come from? How do we know it, and should we impose that code on other people who are not obeying it?

Jonny Thomson

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Tuesday 28 April 2026 13:20:45 GMT