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Instructor Resource Manual – Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, 9e – MacKinnon & Fiala
Chapter 3: Ethical Relativism
Learning Outcomes
• Describe the difference between descriptive relativism and metaethical relativism.
• Discuss criticisms of objectivism, subjectivism, relativism, and moral realism.
• Explain how relativism poses a problem for moral judgment.
• Explain the connections between relativism and pluralism.
• Evaluate the arguments in favor of and against relativism.
• Differentiate between relativism and a commitment to tolerance.
• Explain how relativism might come up in conversations about concrete moral issues.
• Defend your own ideas about relativism.
Associated Readings
1. Pojman, “Who’s to Judge?” from Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life.
2. Lachs, “Relativism and Its Benefits.”
Getting Started
You might begin by asking whether people from various cultures do have different moral beliefs
and practices. For example, do they have different sexual mores? Have students name some of
these differences, if they can. Do different cultures have different views about the place of
women in society? Do they have different practices and beliefs regarding human rights? Next,
you may ask the students whether they agree that these different views and practices are all
equally valid or good. If students say that different values are valid for different cultures, you
can suggest a cultural belief that students would generally condemn (say, slavery). Ask how
someone can judge something like slavery to be inhumane or wrong and not condemn a culture
that condones such practices.
Key Terms
Epistemology: theory of knowledge.
Descriptive relativism: the descriptive claim that values differ depending upon culture and
perspective.
Instructor Resource Manual – Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, 9e – MacKinnon & Fiala
Metaethical relativism: the metaethical claim that there are no objective or nonrelative values
that could mediate disputes about ethics.
Objectivism: the metaethical idea that ethical propositions refer to objective facts (versus
subjectivism); see also moral realism.
Individual relativism: the idea that ethical claims are relative to an individual’s values and
perspectives; see also subjectivism.
Cultural relativism: the idea that ethical values vary from society to society and that the basis for
moral judgments lies in these social or cultural views.
Perspectivism: the relativist idea that there are only perspectives and interpretations, which
cannot be reduced to a fundamental fact of the world.
Skepticism: a questioning and doubting attitude.
Absolutism: the metaethical idea that there are eternal and unchanging values and rules (versus
relativism).
Straw man argument: fallacious argument that describes an opponent’s position in such a way as
to easily dismiss it.
Moral realism: the idea that there are ethical facts and that moral judgments can be said to be true
or false; see also objectivism.
Moral pluralism: the metaethical idea that there is more than one objective value (associated with
Ross); see also prima facie duties.
Prima facie duties: the pluralist idea that there are several duties, each of which is valuable but
which can end up in conflict (associated with Ross).
Answers to End of Chapter Review Exercises
1. Ethical relativism holds that all ethical beliefs are relative either to individual persons
(individual relativism) or to particular societies (cultural relativism). To say that ethical values
Instructor Resource Manual – Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, 9e – MacKinnon & Fiala
there are many irreducible moral values, such as happiness, autonomy, privacy, fidelity, etc.?
If you think there is only one good, what is it? If many, what would you include in your list?
Answers to the Study Questions for
Pojman, “Who’s to Judge?”
1. As Western thought has grown to reject ethnocentricism, the belief in moral objectivism has
2. The diversity thesis registers the fact that moral rules differ from society to society. These
3. Cultural relativism, it seems, must allow for intolerance. If a culture does not have a principle
Answers to the Study Questions for
Lachs, “Relativism and Its Benefits”
1. Through analogy with sensory intuitions of color Lachs suggests that any claim of a singularly
2. Again, just as all claims of a “normal” perspective for intuition are arbitrary, so is the
