Ethical relativism or moral relativism is the view that ethical or moral values and beliefs are relative to the various individuals or societies that hold them. Thus, according to the ethical or moral relativists, there is no objective right and wrong. This means that what is right for one person is not necessarily right for another or what is right in some circumstances is not necessarily in another.
Two Forms of Ethical Relativism
There are two forms of ethical relativism, namely:
1) Personal or Individual Ethical Relativism and
2) Social or Cultural Ethical Relativism.
On the one hand, personal or individual ethical relativism holds that ethical judgments and beliefs are the expressions of the moral outlook and attitudes of individual persons. Hence, for the individual ethical relativists, there is no objective standard of right and wrong inasmuch as the “individual person” is the basis of moral judgments. The ethical relativist may, therefore, say “I have my own view and you have yours. Neither my view nor yours is better or more correct.”
Let us take, for example, senicide or geronticide, that is, the abandonment to death or killing of the elderly. There was a common belief that during famines or other extremely difficult situations, the Inuit or the indigenous people of Northern America would leave their elderly on the ice to die. If this is indeed the case, the individual relativist would say that no one, especially the outsiders of this culture, has the right to say that the Inuit are wrong because the morality of such action depends entirely on the individual Intuit beliefs. Hence, in individual ethical relativism, any person has no right to say that others are correct or incorrect since to do so would assume an objective standard of right and wrong. As we can see, this example is considered an individual or personal ethical relativism because it is the individual that is the basis of moral judgment.
On the other hand, social or cultural ethical relativism holds that ethical values and beliefs vary from society to society and that the basis of moral judgment lies in these social or cultural views. Thus, in determining the rightness or wrongness of human actions, one must base it on the norms of a particular society. Let us take, for example, the ancient Indian practice of Sati or Suttee.
As is well known, the ancient Indians had the practice of burning the wife alive in the funeral pyre of her deceased husband. Whatever the reasons behind this practice, the act was seen as heroic. In fact, records show that some wives willingly allowed themselves to be burnt alive on their husbands’ funeral pyre. Indeed, if an outsider is to judge this act, she may view this as immoral, especially if she is a Christian. But for the social ethical relativist, that might be the right to do in that particular culture. This is because, for the social ethical relativists, no society’s view is better than any other in a trans-cultural sense. Hence, no society has the right to say that particular culture of a certain society is wrong.
From what we have just presented above, we can draw three possible reasons that support ethical relativism.
First, on the diversity of moral values. The ethical relativists may have argued that the presence of disagreements on many ethical issues or even on basic moral values or principles will prove the point that we cannot attain objective truth. Hence, the idea of objective right and wrong is inconceivable for ethical relativists.
Second, on moral uncertainty. Because of moral uncertainty, the ethical relativists would have argued that because there is great difficulty in knowing what is the morally right thing to do or believe, then again, we cannot attain objective right or wrong.
Third and last, on situational differences. For the ethical relativists, the situations and life world of different people vary so much that it is difficult to believe that same things that would be right for one would be right for another. Hence, what is right or wrong for one may not be necessarily right or wrong for another.