Relative Ethics

What hope can there be of creating an inclusive system of global ethics? Are there methods of approaching human behaviour that can cross boundaries of culture and belief yet still remains meaningful? Can we rescue our notions of morality from the steel trap of a rigid absolute position on the one hand, and a formless void of meaninglessness on the other? I contend that not only is the problem of relative ethics soluble, its solution carries with it the promise of resolving a great many of the essential problems facing the world today.

 

Cultural Relativism

One of the most striking transformations of thought in the twentieth century was the collapse of the absolute position, or the rise of relativism. Although Einstein was not personally in favour of a philosophically relativistic viewpoint, his own theories of special and general relativity transformed science by removing the certainty of time and space, and rendering all observations as dependent upon their frame of reference for their meaning. There are strong parallels with relativism applied in other arenas, such as moral relativism, which suggests that there are no absolute standards of morality – these values require a frame of reference (a culture) to be understood. In anthropology, the principle of cultural relativism – that an individual’s beliefs and actions should be interpreted in terms relevant to their own culture – has been axiomatic for almost a century. 

In part because of the force of will behind empirical thinking, and in part out of the habit of absolute religious traditions (such as most of the Abrahamic faiths) relativism has been resisted, but this process is futile and self-defeating. Relativism does not and cannot remove absolute points of view – it can only say that their absoluteness is constrained to their frame of reference. To put it another way, the Catholic church need not fear relativism will undermine it’s authority, because it’s authority only extends to those who accept its absolute claims in the first place.

Arguments between people with absolute and relative belief systems are pointless: the two ways of thinking are entirely disjunct, thus a person approaching the dispute from the one position cannot produce arguments that will be meaningful in the other party’s belief system. Fortunately, this need not matter. The relativist cannot deny the absolutist’s position (at least within their own frame of reference), and the absolutist can disagree with the relativist’s position, but cannot take away the freedom of choice which permits the relativist to hold that position. As we shall see, agreement on abstract topics such as this (which inherently involve some metaphysical elements) is not required for us to make progress in ethics. 

To proceed, let us work from the zetetic position – that there is an external reality, and therefore there may be absolute statements that can be made, but since all we know of that external reality is via our senses, interpreted by our belief systems, and constrained to an interval representing a tiny speck of time next to the age of the universe, we are never in a position to assert with perfect confidence which statements (if any) might be absolute. Regardless, we all live on the same planet and have to live together. A prerequisite for success in this endeavour is the extension of freedom of belief to all parties – required by religious parties as a necessary consequence of free will, and insisted on by secular parties as a political necessity.

The problem we face, therefore, is how we are to have common ethical ground in a world with a diversity of beliefs. If moral truths depend upon a frame of reference, how can we make any progress in ethics? And if we cannot, does this doom us all to the empty world of ethical nihilism, where nothing has meaning?

I contend that recognising the relative elements of ethics need be no barrier to co-operating in ethical discussions. In fact, it is a necessary step towards making any serious progress in the field. But before we can pursue this, we must convince ourselves that we are all in the same boat, so to speak, and that no-one can escape taking their frame of reference into account in the context of ethics.

A Priori Ethics

Let us start with those who acquire an a priori system of ethics, principally associated with religion (indeed, in the manner I use the term, necessarily associated with religion). One of the singular advantages to identifying one or more religions is that it provides a foundation from which to derive one’s ethics. However, what it does not and cannot do is provide a definitive, absolute system of ethics – the individual still has a vital role in organising those ethics coherently. 

We do not need to demonstrate the relationship between a relativistic perspective and the dharmic faiths (Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Sikhism), as these religions introduce relativism as an a priori element. For example, the Rig Veda, a major Hindu text, says “Truth is One, but the sages know it variously”, Sikhs are taught that all the major faiths are possible vehicles for spiritual enlightenment (a view held in common with Sufi Islam), while the Dalai Lama has observed that the idea of Buddhism being ‘the one true path’ is necessarily false for any Buddhist, and considers attempts to convert people both anti-Buddhist and abusive. Clearly, anyone coming from a dharmic religious background is already in a position to accept relative ethics. 

It is perhaps harder to see how the Abrahamic faiths lead to such a position, but it is not difficult to demonstrate. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that one is a Christian. From this belief system, God has provided an a priori system of ethics, contained within the Bible. However, while the Christian believes in the perfection of God, the Bible is a human document, written by humans in their all-too-human and hence imperfect languages. If one accepts that language itself lacks the capacity to maintain absolute meanings, which follows from Wittgenstein (as we have seen before), we have already introduced a relative element to Christian ethics. Even if one somehow maintains that words can maintain a fixed meaning, or that God can intervene to maintain meaning in some lexicographical divine intervention, there remain unassailable problems. 

To operate an absolute system of ethics requires absolute certainty of the relative weights and priorities of all elements in the ethical system, in all situations. (That this may not be a sensible approach to ethics is tangential at this point). But how can any Christian determine the relative weights of the elements of their ethical system? Does Jesus’ “new commandment” to love one another trump the Ten Commandments of Moses? What is the relative importance of Paul’s letters in respect of Jesus’ ministry? Should Leviticus be interpreted as the historical context of Jewish law from circa 1,500 BC, or as laws that modern Christians still have to incorporate, however implausibly, into their lives? Should “Thou Shalt Not Kill” be interpreted absolutely, and if so, how can any Christian support war?

Every Christian faces choices of how to interpret the Bible (and in some cases, other sources, such as Papal dictates) from which they must build their own ethical framework. That this does not result in a single interpretive framework is apparent from the observation that there are some 34,000 separate and distinct Christian denominations or groups in the world. Clearly, if one believes in a divine plan behind Christianity, diversity of belief was inherent to that plan – any other interpretation leads to arrogance (and hence in Christian theological terms, to the sin of pride). 

Naturally, the same process can be applied to Islam and Judaism to derive similar conclusions: diversity of belief is inescapable, and when this is accepted, relative ethics must also be accepted to at least a certain extent.

 

Derived Ethics 

If one does not acquire an a priori system of ethics from a religion or elsewhere, one must use reason to derive a system. That this does not result in a single coherent ethical framework is apparent from the lack of agreement among secular ethicists on anything beyond an in-principle acceptance that secular ethics are possible. The contention that notions of empathy (sympathy, in Hume’s account) in concert with reason or logic can result in viable systems of ethics is generally accepted by secular ethicists, but the only other point of agreement seems to be the questionable conclusion that the behaviours that will result from such derived systems will be preferable to a morality derived from religion. In the light of relativism, such a claim becomes self-referential – clearly if one is pursuing secular ethics, one is operating in a frame of reference which chooses to reject religion as a source of ethics, so the conclusion is inherent in the premise.

Derived ethics suffer from problems of language as much as any religiously derived ethical system; language is simply not a sufficiently precise tool to specify such things uniquely, even when a common frame of reference exists. Furthermore, since many words are essentially metaphysical in their interpretation, individual beliefs (about words et al) dominate ethical interpretation. Consider, for instance, how an individual’s idea of when a human life begins affects their views on abortion. 

Furthermore, reason – the method by which secular ethics are derived – cannot be trusted by any means beyond faith. It is ironic that Hume’s account of ethics is generally the stepping point for attempts at secular ethics, yet Hume’s observations on reason show that we are reliant on induction as a key tool for reasoning, and that induction cannot be guaranteed to function – resorting (in the conclusion to his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding) to the insistence that even though reason cannot be provided a firm foundation, nor any answers to reasonable objections provided, nonetheless as a matter of pragmatism we are forced to act and reason and believe simply by nature of our existence.

Fortunately, none of the problems facing the secular ethicist are problematic if relative ethics are also accepted. The individual’s cultural frame of reference becomes part of the process by which a person arrives at their ethical conclusions. This denies an absolute system of secular ethics, but it does not render secular ethics any less viable than religiously derived ethics. 

Problems only result if the secular ethicist attempts to cling to some notion of absolute ethical values. Then they must explain why, if these principles are absolute, other people do not reason them thus also. If the explanations that follow rest, essentially, on asserting the superior perceptiveness of the absolutist in question, it amounts to the claim that their nervous system is better tuned to the universe than other peoples’. At this point, they might just as well claim to have been appointed by God.

Pluralism 

Strict moral relativism is challenging because it denies the absolute ground of certain ideas that many people consider to be inviolable. For example, many people living in the world today consider sex with children to be an abomination. Yet this was neither uncommon nor forbidden in ancient Greece, where pederasty was a cultural norm, and there is some evidence that in ancient Egypt children might have assisted in the bedroom. These ideas are highly offensive to many modern perspectives, but they cannot be denied as universally immoral when viewed from a strict relativistic perspective.

It is important, therefore, to recognise that accepting relative ethics is not the same as giving carte blanche to all possible ethical systems. An individual may accept that other systems of ethics are practiced, without personally accepting all of the ethical beliefs that are thus implied. For instance, we may accept that to an Aztec or Tlaxcala being chosen as a human sacrifice was an honour, but that does not mean that we have to allow human sacrifice in our own societies. 

The position of relative ethics, therefore, can be distinct from strict moral relativism. It can instead be a position of moral pluralism – acknowledging and tolerating alternative ethical systems and practices, but also accepting limits to allowable differences. The definition of such limits may be culturally dependent, but that does not affect their relevance – after all, we all belong to one or more cultures, and there is no sound reason for us to exclude this cultural background from our ethical decision process.

In other words, we acknowledge that moral relativism renders the range of possible ethical systems both literally infinite and potentially grotesque, but we live in a world of cultures which uses only a tiny region of the infinite space of possible ethics, and constraining our attention to the pragmatic application of our ethics to this world is not only sensible, it is inescapable. We may pretend to understand the ethical consequences of a hypothetical culture that is not our own, but such flights of fancy take place solely in our imagination, and are not coherently relevant to our situation. 

 

The Challenge of Global Ethics

One of the most hopeful responses to the problems posed by moral relativism has been to hold out an ideal by which to overcome the apparent gulf created by our differences. The Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah in his book Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, adopts (with some ambivalence) the term ‘cosmopolitanism’, which dates back to the Greek philosophers, to describe an approach seeking to balance our desire to uncover ethical common ground with the problems of cultural relativism. 

The central concept to Appiah’s cosmopolitan ethic is that we have sufficient universal commonalities to allow us to communicate – we are all human – and thus we have hope that we can reach mutual understanding, even if ultimate consensus is unattainable. He accepts, however that “there's a sense in which cosmopolitanism is the name not of the solution but of the challenge.” 

To make such a cosmopolitan ethical system possible, Appiah asserts the primacy of practice – that it does not matter why we believe a particular ethical tenet applies, it is sufficient that we agree that it does. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if one considers murder unethical because it violates God’s law, or because it is unreasonable or illogical behaviour – if it is the case that we all agree that murder is not permitted, the distinctions in our metaphysical justifications are entirely irrelevant.

This, then, is the challenge of global ethics – to find ways to communicate about our ethical systems and their underlying psychological and, indeed, spiritual needs; to negotiate between our diverse cultural frames of reference in order to find common ground; and consequently to construct a universal framework within which all contributing viewpoints are accepted as valid, even though such plurality may not allow for a perfect consensus. That it will be difficult for all concerned is inevitable, but the rewards are so incalculably vast that we would, in some significant yet highly contingent manner, be behaving unethically if we did not make the attempt.

The opening image is Night Vision by Maureen Shaughnessy, and is used with permission, and my most grateful thanks. I found it here, but you can see much more of Maureen's photos and art in her flickr sets page. She also writes a blog, Raven's Nest.

Comments

[Peter Crowther]

I need to read this article and digest it in more detail, but I'll note that my (Christian) wife has a very simple approach to moral absolutism: she asks God, and God (being omnipresent and personal) replies. God is omniscient and omnipotent (by definition), so replies in language that she is certain to understand.

It's kinda hard to argue with that form of absolutism.

[translucy]

Ahoy, captain! Nice opening salvo!
Looking forward to this campaign!

[zenBen]

If I was playing Devil's advocate, I might say this smacks of a utopian idealist's (or even an idealogue's) version of an emergent utility-maximising algorithm for a fully connected stigmergic system. I'm couching this in computer science terms deliberately here, to point out the artificiality of hoping that all parts of the system will act as specified when any of those parts are human.
Actually, since I'm not intending to play Devil's advocate, I must say that I've had similar ideas in the areas of diplomacy and economics. Unfortunately, so far (and I haven't worked on this very much) I come up against the problem that a cosmopolitan system for solving any inter-relational issues seems to require absolute arbitration. Its like Hobbes said - Bellum omnium contra omnes. For economics & diplomacy this might actually work, except that it would leave people without the essential human need of expression of free will.
I think I wrote more on this over here. On the subject of ethics, I know I wrote on compatibility of cultural ethics here.

I think those will be the most significant contributions I get to make, the next six or seven weeks are chock a block. My timing sucks more than my philosophy of ethics!

[Chris]

Peter: your wife is an amazing person, but even her Joan of Arc-like relationship with God only allows her to maintain an absolute moral position within her own frame of reference. It is clear that God is not asking her to force this position further afield - I suggest that God would have no reason to do so.

If I understood her correctly, your wife believes that it is the presence of Jesus in heaven which allows God to understand humans, and humans to understand God - he is the intermediary that allows for this communication. In other words, direct communication with God is not wholly possible (and why should it be - how can any human grasp something infinite and beyond understanding?)

This scenario does not guarantee that the absolute position she is afforded in her relationship with God is the same as other absolute positions that other individuals are afforded in their relationship with God. Perhaps, as I suggest here, God's plan requires diversity...

Relative ethics does not mean that people cannot hold absolute positions, it simply means that we should recognise the scope of those absolute positions.

Extend my best wishes to your wife - I'm glad I had the chance to meet her before life swept me away from that continent!

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Avast, translucy, no salvos here! This is a ship of peace! ;) Glad to have you on the crew.

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zenBen: Even if you're going to be swept up with busy work for the next two months, I suspect this campaign will run for six months or more - there will be plenty of time for you to contribute, I'm sure. Play at your own pace! :)

I do not believe absolute arbitration is required - dialogue in itself is sufficient to produce peaceful stable states (eventually). The goal of cosmopolitanism is not consensus, remember, just a place (a doubtless chaotic place) where we can all live together.

As for market philosophies, this is necessarily outside our scope and closer to political philosophy, so I must pass. As for the compatibility of cross-cultural ethics, you seem to agree that there is sufficient commonality for this to be viable, hence I must take you as in support of the premise of this post. :)

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On the whole, a quieter response than I expected. I was hoping, I think, for some opinion from the a priori camp... Perhaps it will come in time.

Very well, I guess we shall proceed to some definition of ethics, then. I am certain we are not done with this particularly topic, however - it shall doubtless see debate at some point in the future. :)

My best wishes to you all!

[translucy]

zenBen, Chris,

IMHO a discussion on the issues of "perfect arbitration" or "much improved (if not perfect )interpersonal / intercultural understanding" is getting ahead of itself.

None of the propositions or conclusions you Chris, have put forward on this blog (on religion, metaphysics, science, etc, as a foundaton for your ethical stance) seem to be even close let alone a major part of mainstream belief systems in the west.

On the contrary, as discussed last year here, the mutual divide in the triangle of "the religious dogmatists", "the anti-religious dogmatists aka the so-called scientific rationalists", and the majority of "the dis-oriented or dis-interested" runs so deep that they would have a hard time understanding at all the thrust of your argument.

So how can the insight into the issue of "cultural, metapysical nd consequentially ethical relativism" (if that is the adequate term) be brought to the masses?

[zenBen]

"So how can the insight into the issue of "cultural, metapysical nd consequentially ethical relativism" (if that is the adequate term) be brought to the masses?"

Via absolute arbitration!
No, wait, that would be a case of the messenger killing the message.

[Chris]

Well although I hope to change the world, I don't expect it to happen anytime soon. :)

From reading Charles Taylor it sounds as if the younger generation right now already has an intuitive grasp of the social relativity issue, and indeed the problem may not be introducing this idea at all...

For me, if I can fashion an idea with merit, and word it such that all comers, regardless of religion or culture, can read it without vehemently over-reacting, then we are closer to being able to sit around the hypothetical table and hammer out an agreement.

That I am overly idealistic in this regard can be taken as read. :)

Best wishes!

[translucy]

zenBen, Chris,

I guess my point is that "epistemological clarification" has to precede "ethical arbitration".

I don't think anybody here on this blog is "overly xyz" - this blog seems to have a soothing effect on its readers :) I guess I would just put more emphasis on the epistemological skepticism you seem to find in Hume's writings as well. The whole world view that is implicated in words like "arbitration" or "democratic society" cannot be taken as absolute and in fact today is not understood or practiced well in societies that claim to be built on these principles.

Young people in their teens and twenties may indeed have an intuitive access to the practice (rather than to any well founded theory) of "ethical pluralism" - but the question remains whether their ability to communicate and "arbitrate" extends beyond the confines defined by the codes & standards of globalized western culture, currently more and more identified with an all encompassing market place. (But heck, efficient arbitration is the genuine feature of a working market place so maybe everything gonna be alright in the coming global uber-mart?)

Chris,
Speaking of Taylor I wonder whether you have considered Richard Rorty, esp. "Contingency, Irony, Solidarity"?

[Chris]

translucy: your concerns regarding the abilities of the younger generation to see beyond their own cultural background are doubtless well founded; still I think there are ways to play this game to our mutual advantage. I'm content to work on the abstract problems and have faith that discussion of this kind gradually filters into the social system as a whole. Perhaps this is merely mindless optimism! :)

I haven't read any Rorty, no, and after a recent 'book binge' in a local store my wife has cut me off from buying any new books until I've read the ones I have! :) I should read Dewey before Rorty, anyway, and I have a Dewey in my current pile.

Best wishes!