Why not Moral Relativism? (Part 2 of “Can one be moral without the negative parts?”)

I have argued that it is both possible and desirable[1] to eliminate morality (or moralism, which is the embrace of morality) from our speaking and thinking and feeling. But some people who have thought about these issues and who are themselves dissatisfied with various aspects of morality as it is often practiced, nevertheless feel that something valuable (perhaps even essential) would be lost if we simply dispensed with morality, and argue that it is possible to reconceive morality (and some would even argue that this is the standard conception) in such a way that its noxious components are ameliorated. 

            I can certainly appreciate the force of this aspiration, having been an arch moralist for most of my life (and truth be told, retain these impulses despite 16 years to the day[2] of trying to rid myself of them). When I consider, to take but one of countless examples, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I am filled with the conviction of its evil. Is it really sufficient for me to characterize the invasion (and its consequences) as something I really don’t like? that makes me (very) sad but not (very) mad? that I wish had not happened rather than believe ought not to have been done? etc. The amoralist response can seem like very weak tea indeed. It also seems to be missing something that it is important to be able to experience and express, and to act upon. I think this element is the categoricity of morality, which meets a deep need for convictions that can withstand the pull of circumstances and inclination. 

            Nevertheless I can still bring into view my many reasons for wanting all of us to be rid of the baneful effects of moralism, as well as my wisdom born of experience that strong feelings do not carry their legitimacy in their strength (and indeed are great deceivers[3]). The question is then: Are these effects essential to moralism, or merely side effects which might be ameliorated? As I have noted elsewhere,[4] it is easy enough to deny that they are essential effects simply by defining morality in a way that removes them; but, as I have also noted, this is a false solution if the resultant sense of morality is not the one most people actually embody in their thinking and feeling and speaking and acting. A further issue is whether, even if they are only side effects, they can be eliminated or ameliorated (“managed”) sufficiently to make morality more palatable.

            One suggestion along these lines is moral relativism. This view has many varieties, but the one of which I now speak goes like this: We can retain our moralist vocabulary and responses and behaviors so long as they are understood to be personal or local responses and hence not necessarily shared by or binding on others who happen to have different responses. So as regards my example: I could condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine as evil, etc., but understand that most Russians feel just as strongly that their cause is just. Furthermore (and essential to relativism as a genuine alternative to moralism in the baneful sense) the status of our respective convictions is the same; that is, both are essentially subjective, and are understood to be so. Thus, to say the invasion is a moral outrage is not to assert this as an objective fact but is rather to express a deep feeling, analogous to how one would express one’s passionate enjoyment of a Rachmaninoff piano concerto without the implication that the concerto is in itself somehow magnificent and sublime, even though it definitely feels that way to you, such that someone who does not share your enthusiasm must be somehow deaf.[5] 

There is a whole literature in moral philosophy about this kind of issue. Many critics of this way of “saving” morality see it as downright incoherent. How could someone judge something to be wrong and yet not mean this to apply universally? How could someone believe one ought to do something without intending this to be true, not just a matter of taste or preference? How could an assertion be a mere expression of feeling, since the grammar of assertion embodies a logic that an expression cannot sustain? And so on. 

I too have been of that persuasion, but what gives me pause now is empirical work which suggests that our moral views are not as objectivist as most philosophical ethicists (including myself) have supposed.[6] And this has led me also to examine my own moralist feelings even more scrupulously than I have heretofore, and – lo and behold – I detect (or think I do) an uncertainty on this score even there. 

To the objection that such feelings could only be incoherent I would then reply that – so what? Feelings can certainly be incoherent. That does not mean they do not exist. And so the way human beings grasp morality may be incoherent, but this could be moralism’s saving grace: Maybe we can be moralist after all without being … moralistic!

[1] Or is nonmoral terms, “something most of us would prefer if we thought about it.”

[2] I am writing this on December 25, 2023. My “anti-epiphany” took place on Christmas day, 2007.

[3] To wax rhetorical: Morality is a great temptress with whom it can be deeply satisfying but also dangerous to indulge or even flirt. Furthermore I hypothesize substantively that the strength of moral convictions is due not so much to the belief that one ought (not) to do something (or that something is wrong, deserved, etc.) as to the desire that someone (not) do something or that something (not) be the case.

[4] See “Can one be moral without the negative parts?”

[5] Although they might be … just as someone who does not share my feelings about the Russian invasion might simply be unaware of the relevant facts. But my main point is that we may both be in full possession of the facts and yet feel differently.

[6] See especially Thomas Pölzler’s A Philosophical Perspective on Folk Moral Objectivism.

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