Important Difficulties

But ethical relativism also faces two especially important difficulties. First, it is logically incoherent – and this in two ways. To begin with, the ethical relativist faces a simple, but fundamental, contradiction: on the one hand, she or he wants to argue that there are no universally valid values, norms, practices, etc.; on the other hand, she or he concludes that we must thereby be tolerant of ethical norms and practices different from our own. (Just to be clear: we can get to this tolerance in other ways, as we will see below in the section on ethical pluralism.) But tolerance thereby appears to emerge as itself a universally valid ethical norm or value – i.e., one that the ethical relativist argues we all should agree upon and follow.

Hence, the position of ethical relativism seems caught in a fundamental contradiction: if all ethical values, norms, and practices are indeed valid or legitimate only in relation to a given culture or time, then it would seem that tolerance must likewise count as only a relative value. And so, if there are those who are rigidly intolerant on some point – for example, the white racist’s intolerance for people of color – it is not at all clear how the ethical relativist can coherently insist that such a person, as a product of a given culture and time, should rather have exercised tolerance.

The second logical problem for the ethical relativist is somewhat more complex. The primary argument for ethical relativism can be put as follows:

(Premise 1): If there are no universally valid values, practices, beliefs, etc., then we would expect to find diverse ethical values, practices, beliefs, etc., in diverse cultures and times.

(Premise 2): We do find diverse ethical values, practices, beliefs, etc., in diverse cultures and times.