Kevin Vandergriff
DTF I / Modular
Objective Morality and Moral Relativism
What is Ethical Objectivism, and what is Ethical Relativism?
The status of moral claims as objectively true is argued against by proponents of an ethical system known as moral relativism. Moral relativists come in two varieties: 1) Cultural relativism and, 2) individual relativism. The former kind of relativism claims that the correct moral standards are relative to cultures, or societies; whereas the latter kind of relativism claims the correct moral standards are those endorsed by each individual. Both kinds of relativists agree that people are the authors of morality, such that if our species ever went extinct, morality would also go extinct. The dividing line between these two kinds of relativism is whether the individual, or each society, gets to have the final say in ethics.
By contrast, ethical objectivists hold the position that there are objective moral standards.
Objective moral standards are those that apply to everyone, even if people don’t believe that they do, even if people are indifferent to them, and even if obeying them fails to satisfy anyone’s desires. Moral claims are judged to be objectively true whenever they accurately tell us what these objective moral standards are, or what they require of us. But are there any objective moral standards, or truths? The standard position taken by professional ethicists today, is that in moral experience, we apprehend an objective realm of moral standards (i.e. values, and duties) in a properly basic manner, which we are rational in accepting, unless some defeater, or defeaters, can be brought against our moral experience, “There might be no objective moral standards…But this would be a revisionary conclusion, to be accepted only as the result of extended and compelling argument that the commitments of ethical objectivity are

unsustainable.” 1
In this paper, we will examine the objections defended by moral relativists against the position of ethical objectivism. Secondly, I will offer two positive defeaters against ethical relativism itself. The aim of this examination is show that there are no successful defeaters offered by relativists against our apprehension of objective moral standards, and that there are positive reasons to reject moral relativism. If successful, then we will have shown the rationality of maintaining the belief in objective moral standards that most, if not all people, experience in a properly basic fashion. As Michael Ruse has said, “The man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says, 2+2=5.” 2
Top 3 arguments against ethical objectivism:
1)
Countless moral disputes end in the following way: “Since everyone has a right to their own moral opinion, and you have your view, and I have mine, maybe we’re both right.”
The mistaken assumption of this statement is following hidden premise: If everyone has an equal right to an opinion, then all opinions are equally plausible. While it is true that everyone has a right to their opinion, it doesn’t follow from that that all opinions have the same merit, and that none are mistaken. For example, if a layman disagreed with the general consensus of the community of experts in astrophysics that the universe began to exist, then it would be true that each person in that case would be entitled to their opinion, but not every opinion would be equally plausible in that case.
2) A classic argument against moral objectivity comes from the observation of stubborn and widespread moral disagreement on certain ethical topics:
A) If well-informed, open-minded, rational people persistently disagree about some claim, then that claim cannot be objectively true.
1 David O. Brink, “The Autonomy of Ethics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. Michael Martin,
Cambridge Companions to Philosophy
2 Michael Ruse, Darwinism Defended (London: Addison-Wesley, 1982), 275.

B) Well-informed, open-minded, rational people persistently disagree about many moral claims.
C) Therefore, no moral claim can be objectively true.
The flaw in this argument lies in premise A. For example, well-informed, open-minded, rational people disagree on whether or not God exists, but that doesn’t entail that there is no objective fact of the matter. Second, premise 1 is self-defeating because the same kind of people mentioned in premise A disagree on whether or not it is true.
3) Many people claim that if objective moral standards exist, then there couldn’t be exceptions to them. The problem of course, is that there are exceptions to at least some, if not all, objective moral standards (i.e. Trolley Car Dilemma, Lying to Save a Life Dilemma, etc.).
The argument could be summarized as follows:
A) If moral claims are objectively true, then moral rules are absolute.
B) No moral rule is absolute.
C) Therefore, moral claims are not objectively true.
Even if premise B is true, premise A is not, and so this argument collapses. The objectivity of moral rules has to do with their status: with whether or not they are ever true, and if so, with whether or not they are true independently of human beliefs and desires. The absoluteness of moral standards has to do with their stringency: with whether or not it is ever alright to break them. Fortunately, there isn’t a truth connection between status and stringency.
For example, in science, there are objective laws of nature, but they aren’t regarded so stringent as to in principle, never admit of exceptions. This is because they have implicit in them certain certeris paribus, or “all things being equal” assumptions. According to ethicist Russ Shafer-
Landau, various biological and psychological laws admit of exceptions, but that doesn’t undermine their objectivity. Likewise, various moral standards, such as lying (i.e. in order to

save a life), may be broken if “all things aren’t equal,” but that doesn’t mean lying isn’t objectively wrong, “all things being equal.”
3 Positive Defeaters of Ethical Relativism:
1) The Problem of Moral Equivalence
Recall that on both forms of relativism, it is up to the person, or a society of person’s to determine what is right and wrong. This means that an individual like Hitler, or a whole society of Hitler’s, would have moral outlooks on par with that of an individual like Mother Theresa, or a whole society of Mother Theresa’s. Surely, such a consequence is a fatal feature of any moral system.
2) The Problem of No Moral Progress
Another unsavory consequence of relativism is that neither the individual, nor the society can make anything like objective moral progress because in order to improve morally, there has to be some objective standard toward which a person or society is moving toward. Since there is no such standard on relativism, it follows that a society, or person who practices slavery, racism, genocide, rape, and the like, is no better morally speaking than those people, or societies of people, who don’t.
Conclusion:
We have considered three relativistic arguments against ethical objectivism: 1) Equal
Rights entails Equally Plausible Opinions, 2) Moral Disagreement Entails No Fact of The
Matter, 3) No Absoluteness Entails No Objectivity, and found all three arguments to be fallacious in some regard. We then offered two positive defeaters against ethical relativism: 1)
The Problem of Moral Equivalence, and 2) The Problem of No Moral Progress, and found these to be enough to reject ethical relativism as a plausible moral system.

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