Relativity Applies to Physics, not Ethics
Introduction
- Ethics are a set of moral principles or a sense of right and wrong that govern a person’s behaviour, especially during instances of moral dilemmas, and determine how a person leads their life.
- In moral principles, there are mainly two types of beliefs moral absolutism and moral relativism:
- Moral absolutists believe that there are moral rules that are always true and apply to everyone. These rules can be discovered and the essay statement refers to the absolutist belief in ethics.
- Moral relativists believe that moral rules are relative to time and space. In different cultures and in different periods in history there have been different moral rules.
- Main argument of the essay: There are some moral principles that are universal and can be applied to everyone, but not all of them can be applied to everyone at every time. As a result, there are few absolute ethical rules and some of them depend on time and space.
Body
- Moral absolutists believe that since there are universal moral acts that can be discovered and applied to everyone regardless of time and space, they create a dichotomy between moral and immoral acts. Such immoral acts are wrong in themselves regardless of consequences. For instance, lying is wrong and even if your lie can save lives of 100 good people, you should not lie.
- Declaration of human rights is an example of ethical absolutism wherein humanity is viewed universally.
Problems with moral absolutism:
- Any act cannot be good or bad in itself as there are consequences of each act. As a result, the harm principle should be followed, wherein the good done by an ethical act should be measured against the harm caused by it.
- Absolutism does not seem relevant considering the immense diversity in cultures, societies, and traditions around the world. Polygamy is accepted in some cultures while it is immoral in others; one cannot judge these acts on the basis of absolutist ideas.
- Moral relativists believe that any behaviour can be considered ethical or unethical depending on whether the people of that group approve of that behaviour. Relativists argue that relativism takes into account cultural diversity, circumstances of human actions, and moral evolution of societies over time. For instance, it was ethical in medieval Japan for a Samurai to kill any person he wanted, but modern Japanese society would consider such an act to be unethical.
Problems with moral relativism:
- Relative ethics does not declare any moral dilemma to be right or wrong, but one cannot bend ethical dilemmas to explain things according to every circumstance. Killing an innocent person cannot be considered ethical even if the concerned group approves of it.
- Moral rules should be above approval of a group of people. They are the guiding principles of society and should not be easily transformed.
- Moral relativism stands a chance of creating tyranny by a majority, as it considers the approval of a majority of a group to be paramount. Many improvements and ethical changes in the world came about because a few people disagreed with prevailing views. For instance protests against slavery. Ethical relativists would consider such protests to be bad behaviour.
- If a social group is choosing ethical principles as a foundation of good behaviour, it is going to be arbitrary and as a result there is a chance of such an ethical foundation to be weak. Such principles may not garner respect from everyone in the society.
- o Moral relativism also creates space for conflicts and irreparable differences between societies. There is no way to deal with two different moral principles believed by two different societies. For instance, if one society believes in capital punishment and the other does not, there is no way for these two societies to reach an agreement if we accept moral relativist argument.
- Both moral relativist and absolutist positions have problems. There should be a third approach to ethics as a result, which is in between these two positions.
- There are some universal moral principles that societies have followed across time and space; for instance, honesty, beauty, loyalty, and courage.
- At the same time there are relative principles which vary according to circumstances such as value of education, skill sets, and family norms.
- Ethics should be a mix of both these principles for a balanced life, and as a result we cannot compare ethics to gravity. Human societies and relations are complex and dynamic, due to which there cannot be simplistic universal principles that are applicable to ethical dilemmas.
Conclusion
- The ethics or moral principles in a society consist mainly of the absolutist and relativist approaches.
- Both these approaches have limitations when applied to everyone regardless of particular considerations of circumstances.
- However, there are a few moral principles that are universal and valued by all the modern societies, and can be considered absolute. At the same time, the world is complex and as a result many ethical principles are relative to time and space.
- Hence, our belief in ethics should be a mix of both the absolutist and relativist positions, which will allow us to resolve ethical dilemmas and conflicts and find a golden mean in terms of ethical behaviour.
Notes
- Keywords: relativity, ethics
- The essay should essentially be about absolute and relative ethical positions.
- One can defend any position on ethics as long as it is supported by strong arguments.