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John's definition of ethical relativism moves away from discussions of culture and differences between cultures. Heskovits seems to have been mainly concerned to promote tolerance and non-interference as a way to maintain world peace. John's definition reflects a more purely philosophical concern: whether there are objective values (i.e., values independent of human choices, decisions, and attitudes).

The idea that value is not "built into" the universe has been taken as all but self-evident by many 20th-century philosophers and other scholars in England and America. For many people, this idea has become part of common sense. But it has not always been seen that way, and it may be useful to ask ourselves the following questions:

• What would the universe be like if it had values built into it?
• What is the difference between a universe with values built in and one without values built in? Would it look different? Sound different? Behave differently?
• What would we look for in order to decide whether our universe does or does not have values built into it? How can we tell?
• If the universe has values built into it, how can we find out what they are? Would scientific methods help? Would conceptual analysis help?