Posts published by Carol Rovane

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Moral Dispute or Cultural Difference?

A picture from a Rorschach test.Credit
The Stone





Are there any such irresolvable disagreements?

A moral relativist will most likely argue that moral disputes are irresolvable because moral beliefs are not strictly true or false, because there are no facts in the world that would make them so — no moral facts. Therefore, such “truth” they may be said to have is grounded in subjective elements — states of mind such as our desires and emotions. Since these subjective elements will vary among persons and cultures, they may generate conflicts that no possible appeal to objective facts could ever resolve.

Because the term “moral relativism” is closely associated with this subjectivist picture of morality, it elicits understandable hostility. How can we earnestly hold our moral commitments if we give up on the aspiration to objectivity regarding morals, to getting them right rather than wrong?

I think there is another way to understand what moral relativism involves, which does not require us to give up our aspiration to objectivity. Let me use an example.

Imagine me to be a middle-aged woman of middle-class origin who grew up in middle America. I went to college, graduated, then went on to get a master’s degree in business, after which I worked on Wall Street and made a lot of money — so much that I retired early. I never married or had children, which was a source of regret to my parents. But they are proud of me. We are all committed to the ideals of liberal individualism, and agree that each of us is responsible for his or her own life, financially and otherwise.
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