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Moral philosophers have often claimed that the variety of moral systems around the world in itself proves nothing about the status of moral judgments. In other words, variety implies nothing about objectivity, truth, relativity, and so forth. Westermarck published Moral Relativity in 1932. In 1937 W. T. Stace published The Concept of Morals, which contained an extensive treatment of what State called "ethical relativity." Stace was a professional philosopher who, while sympathetic to some aspects of relativism, criticized other aspects at length.

In Stace's view, both the ethical "relativist" and the ethical "absolutist" can easily acknowledge that ethics varies greatly form culture to culture. Thus, the variation itself does not give strong support to either of their positions.

...this variability of moral ideas is admitted by both parties to the dispute, and is capable of ready explanation upon the hypothesis of either party. The relativist says that the facts are to be explained by the non-existence of any absolute moral standard. The absolutist says that they are to be explained by human ignorance of what the absolute moral standard is.

....Thus the facts can be explained equally plausibly on either hypothesis. There is nothing in the facts themselves which compels us to prefer the relativistic hypothesis to that of the absolutist.

From W. T. Stace, The Concept of Morals, p. 14-15.

More recent philosophers writing about ethical relativism have generally agreed that the fact that there are different moral systems in different cultures does not by itself imply anything of philosophical value.