Why is relativism self defeating

Clarendon Press. William Ferraiolo - - Sorites Gordon C. Bearn - - Dissertation, Yale University. Indexical Relativism Versus Genuine Relativism. Epistemic Contextualism, Epistemic Relativism and Disagreement. Robin McKenna - - Philosophical Writings. Added to PP index Total views 32 , of 2,, Recent downloads 6 months 4 , of 2,, How can I increase my downloads?

Sign in to use this feature. About us. Editorial team. Contemporary Philosophy General Interest. No categories specified categorize this paper. Applied ethics. History of Western Philosophy. Normative ethics. Philosophy of biology. Philosophy of language. Philosophy of mind. It is also worth noting that, interpreted in this trivial way, moral relativism could not be supported by the argument from disagreement. The gist of that argument was that moral relativism is a good explanation of the moral disagreements we observe.

Yet the claim that some moral statements seem true to some people and false to others merely restates the fact of moral disagreement that is supposedly explained by relativism, it cannot explain that fact.

Perhaps some things are self-explanatory, but not moral disagreement! The relativist needs a third kind of truth, midway between the familiar and the bogus: not just an appearance of truth, but not a truth that depends on objective reality. But there is no such thing. At least, I am unable to imagine what this special kind of truth would be, and relativists are strangely silent on this core issue.

Remember that moral relativism has two ingredients: there is the denial of any objective moral truth, and the assertion of some other kind of moral truth. Suppose that moral disagreement does raise doubts about the objective truth of any moral code. Does it follow that moral codes are true in some other sense? No, for perhaps it means that no moral statements are true in any sense.

Perhaps people disagree here because they have been acculturated in different moral cultures, but all the moral beliefs or standards of all cultures are simply false. So the argument from disagreement might be an argument for moral nihilism rather than for moral relativism.

How do relativists hope to establish their positive thesis, that moral statements are sometimes true without being objectively true? I am not aware of any compelling arguments for that idea. On the contrary, relativists tend instead to argue in great detail for the negative thesis, that morality is not objectively true, as if that alone were sufficient for their relativistic conclusion. Let us grant all of this, and grant for the sake of argument that it does raise a real doubt about the objective truth of moral beliefs.

In the absence of any account of the special kind of truth that is supposed to lie somewhere between mere belief and accurate representation of objective reality, why then should we think of moral judgments as truths of any kind?

Why not simply say that all moral codes are false? It would seem reasonable for a philosopher who thinks of moral reasoning in this way to view moral beliefs in the same way that atheists view religious ones — as false.

I suspect the reason few philosophers have been willing to draw this nihilistic conclusion is simply that, like most people, they have some strongly-held moral beliefs of their own. They think that it is morally wrong to rape children, for example, and so they do not want to say that that belief is false. For how could they continue to believe it, while also believing that what they believe is not true?

This unhappy compromise is not tenable. There are a couple of other ways the self-proclaimed relativist may try to backpedal. Certainly it does not entail that there is no absolute truth. For the proponent of [this argument] is not merely making the trivial assertion that he happens to have this belief floating around in his mind. To summarize, relativism is a philosophically incoherent position through and through.

If its influence is increasing in Western society, it can only be a signal of a corresponding decrease in critical thinking. Dan is a former Senior Fellow at Intellectual Takeout. He received his B. Thomas MN , and his M. You can find his academic work at Academia.