Moral Objectivism Vs Relativism: Clash of Moral Perspectives

Introduction

Centuries of research have brought attempts to understand clashing social values by Philosophers to no particular end or conclusion. The probing question still remains: Do moral standards thrive independently of human social constructions? Several stands have been taken in respect to this question and the competing theories, Moral Objectivism and Relativism both provide some explanation in their own sense.

Understanding Morality

When discussing ‘morality’, the words that instantly come to mind are ‘goodness’ or ‘rightness’. This is because it is a clear-cut differentiation between actions or decisions that are thought to be acceptable from those that are inacceptable. Therefore they act as standards derived from varied religions, cultures and other sources but are usually universally accepted.

Moral Objectivism vs. Moral Relativism

The concept of Moral Objectivism discusses how there are universal moral philosophies that are objectively right in direct relation to prevalent circumstances or situations which make them so. Louis Pojman gives us an example of a binding moral principle: “It is morally wrong to torture people just for the fun of it.” Truly, it seems unlikely that there’ll be any circumstance that rights an action going against this principle. As observed widely, religious people tend to hold on to this view seeing as teachings coming from their faith can be taken as objective moral truths by which moral propositions can be decided to be true/false. Take for example a radical Christian being asked if it’s right to murder a person who had killed someone else. Despite subjective feelings, the person is likely to agree that the Bible speaks against murder within the 10 commandments which immediately answers the question. Therefore, he has an opinion-free standard against which morals can be measured. 

Asides religious people, philosophers have also created systems that fall under this moral stand. One like this is Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher who developed one that judges moral sentences as true or false against a ‘Categorical Imperative’. This Categorical Imperative in a brief summary, implores that man should act in such a way that whatever action can be agreed upon universally as a morally right decision. It is quite clear from this that Moral objectivism upholds certain behavioural judgements that is required to be upheld across a mix of people despite whatever differences.

Moral relativism, on the flip side, explains that there are no preceding standards against which people make moral judgements. Therefore, moral relativists don’t believe in objective moral truths used as a gradient to measure right and wrong. For instance, abortion is supported in some places because of the belief that people have a right to choice and it is morally breaching in some other places because other people believe that it is still a type of murder, no matter how young the child. Therefore, relative to people’s moral norms, abortion is both a moral and immoral act.

Arguments for Moral Objectivism

A foreigner temporarily living in village B has a son who is his only child and what is left of his family. One day, the King of the village dies and the news is spread about to everyone but this particular man because of the failure of the news bearer to efficiently carry out his job. As is custom in their village, a man has to die along with the king to be his guard in the next life and villagers endeavoured to keep their sons indoors till the searching period was over. Unfortunately, this man sent his son on an errand and waited for his son to return – which never happened. He then finds out about his son’s death from villagers who come to tell him the news. The question becomes if it’s morally right for this man to be angry about custom or accept it as what is the acceptable norm even though the rest had an unfair advantage.

Moral objectivism may take cultural norms into account but a strong point of it is its ability to correctly point out injustice. Objectivists would agree that the man would have been better prepared for the situation had he been told about the current whereabouts of the village and therefore he has every right to see his son’s death more in the light of murder than anything else. Clearly, murder is a case that most people will agree is a breach of morality. Relativists, given this case study, would agree that it is morally right for the man’s son to have been killed and also right for the man to be angry therefore there is no clear cut ‘wrong’ or ‘right’.

In another case, man A is enviously burns down man B’s mansion which he just recently completed. Man B, being infuriated decides to have his revenge by burning down Man A’s car. The case both takes them to court and those witnessing start to question if it is morally acceptable to have retaliated seen as the retaliation may not have been as dire as the initial action. Objectivists may argue that the actions of Man A was wrong as well as the actions of Man B but retaliation should not be morally accepted because if this is done this gives a standard by which people will act. This means that if the court is on Man B’s side, then people will retaliate more often and this could lead to much more serious cases with more casualties. Objectivism gives clear stated rules by which people should abide to in the spirit of keeping up the ‘rationality of man’ and avoiding anarchy. The disability of relativists to uphold laws that curbs peoples evil tendencies is what stands as a great weakness.

Lastly, objectivism seems right to judge morality because certain case such as raping a woman brings about immediate conviction of wrongness without much of an argument. Relativism would have this as a weak point seeing as they don’t value a moral standpoint over another.

Conclusion

In conclusion, moral objectivism is vital in weighing the rightness and wrongness of actions seeing as it is not only tolerant but also a measure of universal control.

Works Cited

1. Pojman, Louis P. 'The Theory of Ethics: Moral Objectivism.' In Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, pp. 12-31. Cengage Learning, 2011.
2. Kant, Immanuel. 'Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals.' Translated by James W. Ellington. Hackett Publishing, 1993.