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| Moral
Knowledge
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Professor
Sidgwick Speaking
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All
right. Very good. Now let's wrap this up. We're just about out of time
today.
I think you have done a pretty good job of discussing the
implications of ethical relativism. I would summarize what you have
said as follows:
- Neither the theory of cultural relativism nor the theory of ethical relativism
logically entails a moral principle of tolerance. Nor does
either entail that people in one culture should not criticize nor
interfere with the actions of people in another culture. Of
course, there may be good reasons
for for tolerance and so forth, but that is a different
question.
- The theory of ethical relativism does not imply that moral
judgments or principles are arbitrary or that "anything
goes" in morals.
- The theory of ethical relativism does not imply that there are
no rational methods for resolving moral disputes. There are rational methods in some cases, although not
necessarily all cases.
- Some of you described a holistic theory of what it is to have
good reasons to accept a set of moral principles. We
could call these principles "moral knowledge," but that might mislead people.
It may be better to speak of "having good reasons to
accept" certain principles. We could also describe this
approach as a "coherence
theory of justification." It relies on making our
considered moral judgments and all available knowledge
consistent with proposed moral principles by adjusting any of
the many elements in the mixture.
- Some of you also pointed out that this coherence approach is
not guaranteed to yield a single set of moral principles. Nor is
it guaranteed to settle all ethical disputes. As John pointed
out, rational argument comes to an end. It has its limits. If we
accept ethical relativism, we must accept those limits as part
of the nature of the ethical reasoning process.
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