The truth in vulgar relativism

Philosophical Studies

Volumn 96, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 269-300

  Bennigson, Thomas ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO   (United States)

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EID: 53149131321     PISSN: 00318116     EISSN: 15730883     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/a:1004235222885     Document Type: Article

References (71)

1. Melville Herskovits, Cultural Relativism (New York: Random House, 1972), p. 31,
2. quoted in Jack Meiland and Michael Krausz, eds., Relativism: Cognitive and Moral (Notre Dame, IN: U. of Notre Dame, 1982), p. 226.
3. Even one of the few authors who defends the inference from relativism to the thesis that one ought to be tolerant of actions of which one disapproves, concedes that the inference would involve pragmatic self-contradiction if the relevant 'ought' were understood as a moral injunction, proposing that it be understood instead as some sort of more general prescription of rationality (Craig Ihara, "Moral Skepticism and Tolerance," Teaching Philosophy 1 (1984): 193-198).
4. Bernard Williams, Morality: An Introduction to Ethics (New York: Harper, 1972), p. 20.
5. For a particularly thoughtful criticism of the inference from relativism to tolerance, see Geoffrey Harrison, "Relativism and Tolerance," Ethics 86 (1976): 122-135; reprinted in Meiland and Krausz, eds., pp. 229-243; all page references are to latter publication.
6. Moral Relativity (Berkeley, CA: U. of California, 1984), pp. 180ff.
7. For purposes of this paper, tolerance will generally be understood as non-interference with behavior of which one disapproves on moral grounds. Near the end of the paper I say a few words about tolerance understood as non-condemnation. Of course, not all non-interference can be classified as tolerant: e.g., non-interference where one lacks inclination to interfere, or non-interference on the ground that the prospects for success seem too unlikely, are not instances of tolerance - see Harrison, pp. 234f.
8. I will generally speak interchangeably of the judgment that an action is right being made true by a set of norms, or of the action being made right by a set of norms, though different relativist positions seem more naturally captured by one or the other of these formulations.
9. On this characterization, positions which deny that moral claims have any truth-value do not count as relativist. I take this characterization to accord with the most common usage, though some philosophers have suggested characterizing relativism more broadly to include those non-cognitivist positions which countenance conflicting prescriptions or what have you (see T. M. Scanion, "Fear of Relativism" in Rosalind Hursthouse, Gavin Lawrence and Warren Quinn, eds. Virtues and Reasons: Philippa Foot and Moral Theory (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), pp. 219-245). What is sometimes called 'descriptive relativism,' the empirical claim that different groups adhere to different moral standards, does not by itself count as a relativist thesis on either my or Scanlon's definition.
10. The term 'cultural relativism' has also sometimes been used for descriptive claims about diversity in moral beliefs among cultures. My usage is different.
11. That is, the account of moral truth will be something like the neo-pragmatist account once proposed for all truth by Putnam (notably, in Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge U., 1981), ch. 3), minus the expectation that different communities would converge in their judgments even under suitably idealized conditions.
12. Such a characterization would need considerable refinement in light of the facts that discrete cultures cannot be neatly individuated, and that membership in a culture is consequently not always clearly defined. Such refinements may push the relativist to a position according to which moral truth is relative to what an individual would accept at the limit of inquiry, with the addendum that individuals from similar cultural backgrounds will be likely to overlap considerably in the moral beliefs they would accept at the limit of inquiry (as well as in those they actually accept).
13. "Ethical Relativism and the Problem of Incoherence," Ethics 86 (1976): 107-121; reprinted in Meiland and Krausz, eds., 209-225. In Lyons's original formulation the distinction is between 'agents-group relativism' and 'appraiser'sgroup relativism' (my emphases), but the distinction is readily transferable to doctrines according to which moral truth is relative to individuals.
14. Similar distinctions are drawn elsewhere in different terms, e.g., by Gilbert Harman ("What is Moral Relativism?" in Alvin Goldman and Jaegwon Kim, eds. Values and Morals (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1978), pp. 143-161) between 'normative moral relativism' and 'moral judgment relativism.' (Harman also distinguishes a third thesis, 'meta-ethical relativism, which I take to be subsumed under Lyons' 'appraiser-relativism' as well.)
15. For simplicity I am ignoring the possibility of error about either or own moral standards or those of the Ilongots.
16. I will throughout speak of the 'moral system' of an individual or group to designate the ordered totality of standards for moral judgment which apply to her/it, whether because she/it would accept those standards at the limit of inquiry, or for whatever reasons are taken by the relativist thesis in question to determine which standards apply to whom.
17. Man and His Works: The Science of Cultural Anthropology (New York: Knopf, 1952), p. 76, my emphasis.
18. Williams, p. 20. Williams' presentation of the argument includes as a second premise that 'right for a given society' is to be understood as functionally valuable for that society. This (not entirely unfair) specification of the relativism advanced by many anthropologists does render Williams' criticisms more on target, but this specification is not essential to the relativist position, and objections like Williams' are widely held to be applicable quite generally to inferences from relativism to tolerance.
19. Man and His Works: The Science of Cultural Anthropology, Ibid., p. 21, author's emph.
20. In fairness to Williams, his criticism does, as already noted, have greater force against the functionalist version of cultural relativism he is targeting. On this version, Williams is right to retort, "The most the theory can allow is the claim that it is right for (i.e., functionally valuable for) our society not to interfere with [for example] Ashanti society, and, first, this is certainly not all that was meant, and, second, is very dubiously true" (Man and His Works: the Science of Cultural Anthropology, ibid., p. 21). But if we discard the gloss on "right" as "functionally valuable," then it is clear neither that the relativist interpretation of the conclusion says less than the relativist intends, nor that it is false. My target here is not the particulars of Williams' argument, but a general received wisdom in contemporary philosophy, of which Williams' discussion may be taken as representative.
21. Man and His Works: The Science of Cultural Anthropology , Ibid., pp. 25-26.
22. As noted earlier, a similar response is offered by Wong. However, I will argue later, Wong's response does not work in the context in which he introduces it - in connection with his own brand of relativism, which is a version of ap-rel.
23. On the other hand, the principles relevant to determining when interference is permissible may also be reformulated in terms which do not speak of Tightness or wrongness at all; given interference principles reformulated in such ways, age-rel may fail to provide reasons for increased tolerance. I return to this issue below.
24. This abbreviation stands for 'Only with Wrong Actions' Permissible Interference Principle.
25. To make sure that this judgment will seem uncontroversial, let us construe the practice of cannibalism to include the killing of a victim for that purpose. In any event, I suggest later that age-rel is likely to provide stronger support for noninterference than even strong degrees of fallibilism about whether cannibalism is really wrong.
26. I return later to the worry that accepting age-rel might actually undermine the relevant principles concerning permissible/obligatory interference.
27. This will not be so if we subscribe to OWA-PIP, which holds that it is necessary that an action be wrong, for interference with that action to be justified. But the interference principles we actually subscribe to are probably more complex ones which imply that the wrongness of an action is relevant, but neither necessary nor sufficient, for justifying interference.
28. This might seem problematic, given that most actions are likely to affect many people, with differing standards, requiring the agent considering an action to weigh the harms to one person as measured by one set of standards against the benefits to another measured by different standards. But it is not clear that the difficulties here are greater than, or even different in kind from, classic problems concerning inter-personal comparisons of utility.
29. It would not be identical to preference-utilitarianism at least in that an individual's preferences need not accord with what she would recognize as benefits at the limit of inquiry, but this difference does not make the resulting theory any more relativist. Would it matter, on such a theory; if the person to be affected rejects consequentialism? This underlying consequentialism could itself be held to be true absolutely, or just relative to a given agent or appraiser.
30. To the contrary, it is more likely that if we recognize a duty to prevent canni-balism, then accepting a general deontological framework would make us likely to reinterpret this duty as derivative of something like a duty to prevent wrong actions.
31. Scanlon, p. 24.
32. Man and His Works: The Science of Cultural Anthropology, Ibid., pp. 25-26.
33. "Anthropology and the Abnormal," Journal of General Psychology 10 (1934): 73. Despite this formulation, Benedict does not in fact intend her position to be debunking; her aim is clearly to increase our respect for other moral systems, not to diminish our respect for our own.
34. Such an account is proposed in a similar context in David Phillips, "How to Be a Moral Relativist," Unpubl. MS.
35. A related account is suggested by Gilbert Harman in "Moral Relativism Defended," Philosophical Review 84 (1975): 3-22, reprinted in Meiland and Krausz, eds., pp. 189-204
36. and in "Relativistic Ethics: Morality as Politics," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 3 (1978): 109-121.
37. The analogy is borrowed from Phillips, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, op. cit.
38. Age-rel might, however, speak against OWA-PIP, which holds that whether an agent is acting wrongly is the only relevant consideration for whether interference is permissible.
39. As with other versions, this version of relativism will support tolerance, only given the right auxiliary moral principles. But, as before, it seems plausible that our moral system includes principles which will do the job, e.g., the principle that we should try to promote human flourishing in general.
40. From the standpoint of such a theory, it might even be charged that it is moral realists who take the claims of morality too lightly, in regarding them as revisable opinions about matters of fact.
41. Harrison, p. 236.
42. Even a duty to help others do right would speak as much in favor of resisting C's efforts to impose cannibalism as it would speak against resisting C, since resisting C would protect the ability of other members of V besides oneself to do what is right for them.
43. This is not to deny that a moral system is conceivable according to which the duty to convert others to cannibalism is an irreducible primitive, taking precedence over all else, but only to point out how far-fetched such a possibility is. (A moral system according to which the duty to help others do right takes precedence over all else may not be stable enough even to be a possibility.)
44. This is apparent, e.g., in the following passage: "A moral principle ...can apply to all moral agents in the sense of directing them to perform certain moral actions; and it may be true of all agents given a certain set of truth conditions that a group or society assigns to the principle; but... there may be more than one set of truth conditions for the principle ..." (Wong, p. 189, author's emphasis).
45. Phillips, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Ibid., p. 181. As with OWA-PIP, I would suggest that a weakened version of this principle is more plausible, e.g., one which holds that being able in principle to justify the interference to those interfered with is relevant, but not necessary, for the permissibility of interference.
46. Phillips, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Ibid., p. 181.
47. Phillips, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Ibid. pp. 183-184.
48. The cannibalism example may be a poor one, from the standpoint of Wong's theory, in that Wong, like many ap-relativists, is prepared to allow that not just any moral system is equally adequate; rather, he holds only that there can be more than one equally adequate moral system, such that the systems yield conflicting consequences. Wong himself may well hold that a system which endorses killing other people for the purpose of eating them is probably not adequate; if so, his relativism would not provide reason to tolerate such a practice. But the example could easily be changed to one which falls within the scope of Wong's relativism, without affecting the argument.
49. But if we accept the (more plausible) weakened version of the justification principle, this reason need not always override all other considerations.
50. I defend an inference from rationally irresolvable disagreement about fundamental moral questions to a denial of objective moral facts in "Irresolvable Disagreement and the Case Against Moral Realism," Southern Journal of Philosophy 34 (1996).
51. I defend the claim that many of our fundamental moral disagreements with other cultures probably are rationally irresolvable in "Can We Establish That It is Wrong for Men to Shoot Their Wives When Dinner is Late?" (presented at 1997 APA Pacific Div. meetings).
52. Of course, in order to maintain a distinctly relativist position, the ap-relativist must hold that rationally irresolvable (in the strong sense) disagreement is at least possible for many, if not for all, significant moral questions. But even holding that strongly irresolvable disagreement is possible for all moral questions is fully consistent with the possibility that any given disagreement between actual disputants is resolvable.
53. I myself have argued ("Irresolvable Disagreement") that the latter possibility may not make sense after all, and that consequently, rational irresolvability concerning very basic moral questions provides reason to reject the view that there are objective facts concerning those questions. But that is a contested pointSusan Hurley ("Objectivity and Disagreement" in Ted Honderich, ed. Morality and Objectivity (London: Routledge, 1985), pp. 54-97)
54. and Christopher Dustin ("The Untruth in Relativism." International Journal of Philosophical Studies 3 (1995): 17-53), among others, have argued that the objectivity of moral principles is compatible with allowing that the correct principles could never be made rationally compelling to members of cultures subscribing to rival principles.
55. I defend the latter inference in "Irresolvable Disagreement," and, as a claim about rationally irresolvable cross-cultural disagreement about any question, not just moral questions, in "Scientists, Witch-Doctors, and the Epistemic Challenge of Cross-Cultural Disagreement." Unpubl. MS.
56. Even here there is room for fallibilism, in that a sophisticated age-rel will allow that members of C generally may be mistaken in some of their beliefs; perhaps further reflection would lead them to accept that cannibalism really is wrong by their own standards. Still, it should be significantly easier to establish a strong presumption that cannibalism is not wrong according to the standards of C than to establish a similarly strong presumption that cannibalism is not wrong simpliciter.
57. This is not to say that the ap-relativist should consider herself infallible about what is true in her own moral system, nor that she should be immune to influence by the moral ideas of other societies. The point is that the accuracy of one's perceptions of objective facts can be called into question by disagreement, whereas the accuracy of one's beliefs about what is true relative to one's own standards is not similarly called into question by the fact that others subscribe to different standards.
58. I take no sides on whether paternalistic considerations ever really justify interference, but I take them to represent an important class of considerations which might be taken to justify some degree of interference in some circumstances.
59. Nor do I take sides on whether it is wrong for an agent to act against her own interests or goals. It will, regardless, be useful here to distinguish paternalistic grounds for interference from other grounds.
60. It might be worried that if reason and full information are as little able to settle questions of what ought to be done as ap-rel suggests, then perhaps there is not even a determinate fact as to whether A would accept the legitimacy of the interference if fully rational and informed, in which case the test proposed by the justification principle would be inapplicable. But ap-rel denies only that all rational, informed appraisers must reach the same conclusion, not that there is a fact as to what conclusion a given appraiser would reach if rational and informed. Indeed, we need to assume that there are determinate facts of the latter sort to make sense of typical arguments for ap-rel, which hold that different appraisers would reach different conclusions if fully rational and informed.
61. In cases in which A agrees that the prospective action would be wrong, but intends to do it anyway, accepting ap-rel would make no difference as to whether interference is justified.
62. "Moral Disagreement and Moral Relativism," in Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred Miller, Jr., and Jeffrey Paul, eds. Cultural Pluralism and Moral Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge U., 1994), p. 84; see also pp. 94-95.
63. Harman's brand of moral relativism has been defended and elaborated in a series of papers. In his earliest presentation ("Moral Relativism Defended"), Harman defends a version of relativism something like age-rel, which applies only to what he calls 'inner judgments' (judgments concerning what a given agent ought to do, or what it would be right or wrong for her to do). This theory is different from the position I have characterized as age-rel in that, on Harman's view, the judgments in question presuppose moral standards shared among agent, appraiser, and the appraiser's audience. Where there is no such congruence, inner judgments will be out of place. Consequently, the question of deferring to the agent's standards in cases of conflicting standards does not even arise. Some of Harman's subsequent developments of his theory (in "What is Moral Relativism?" and "Relativistic Ethics: Morality as Politics") are more straightforwardly agent-relativist, at least with respect to 'inner judgments.' More importantly, Harman's relativism differs from the agent-relativism so far discussed also in that, in terms introduced later in the text, it is most plausibly construed as a semantic, rather than a metaphysical, agent-relativism.
64. One of the principal considerations advanced by Harman is that it makes sense to hold that a given moral principle applies to a given agent only if the agent recognizes (or under some appropriate circumstances would recognize?) that principle as motivating. Of course, this argument too depends on the assumption that there is actual moral diversity to the extent that different agents are motivated by different principles, an assumption Harman defends with anthropological evidence in "What is Moral Relativism?" 155. However, there and elsewhere Harman seems to take imagined examples of professional hitmen to be sufficient to defend this assumption. It is internalism, rather than anthropological diversity, which is at the crux of Harman's argument.
65. One might argue that the best explanation of apparently intractable ethical disagreement between cultures is not that the disagreement is rationally irresolvable, but that members of each culture are so used to (correctly) applying their own standards that they fail to recognize that these standards are not legitimately exportable to other cultures. But for this to be a plausible, let alone the best, explanation, the thesis that different standards apply to different agents needs independent motivation. While it seems true that, because of our ignorance of relevant aspects of their cultural context, it will often be more difficult to judge what agents of other societies should do than to judge what our neighbors should do, such a caution will be readily acceptable to the moral realist as well; it does not support the thesis that different moral principles apply to different groups.
66. If one finds convincing this type of strategy for arguing from cultural diversity to a relativist semantics for ethics, then one might be led to a mixed version of relativism. In Harman's more recent work (Gilbert Harman and Judith Jarvis Thomson, Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996), pp. 62-63), he suggests that age-rel may be right for certain kinds of moral judgments and ap-rel for others.
67. David Phillips (Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity, op. cit.) suggest that whether it makes better sense to understand a given moral judgment as relative to appraiser's or agent's standards may vary with context.
68. For example, perhaps the explanandum which motivates relativism is not so much conflicting appraisals as the fact that members of different societies obey different norms. This could be explained by the hypothesis that different norms apply to members of different societies; this fact could in turn perhaps be explained by a social contract account of moral obligation conjoined with the hypothesis that more than one kind of contract can allow for a sustainable society. (This is the first sort of 'benign relativism' discussed in §1. Such an account does not need to assume any actual historical decision on what norms to obey, but only socialization into rough congruence in intentions, where the content of these largely shared intentions may be thought to be established over time by implicit bargaining, as hypothesized by Harman in "Moral Relativism Defended" and "Relativistic Ethics: Morality as Politics.")
69. I cannot establish here that such an argument is less tenable than anthropologically based arguments for ap-rel, but the foregoing account seems less less readily reconcilable with many of our actual normative judgments. Most of us will find implausible social contract theories which hold that any mistreatment of outsiders is morally permissible, as long as our society agrees on it. It may well be thought to count against agent-relativist theories in general that they require us actually to revise our substantive moral beliefs. Whereas the ap-relativist holds that our judgment that it is wrong for members of C to eat each other is true, though our ordinary understanding of that judgment may be inflated, the age-relativist holds that our judgment is simply false. Age-rel also seems independently implausible in that the centrality of the idea of universalizability to moral thinking (at least, to our moral thinking) leads to a reasonable expectation that if there are objective moral facts, they are unlikely to sanction such wide differences in morally permissible behavior as those which are a consequence of age-rel.
70. That is, it will make better sense if the purpose of such judgments is to assign blame or commendation to a given agent. What looks like a judgment of an agent's goodness may also be used to convey the appraiser's evaluation of a certain character type, in which case the judgment would presumably be relative to the standards of the appraiser, not of the agent.
71. I am grateful for discussion of earlier versions of this material to the audience at a colloquium at the 1995 APA Pacific Div. meetings, and to Richard Boyd, Nancy Snow, Alien Wood, and especially, David Phillips.