语言学与哲学（美国麻省理工） (16).pdf

: Problems of Philosophy
Prof. Sally Haslanger
November 19, 2001
Moral Relativism
The problem of moral relativism begins with the fact of moral diversity: different cultures have different moral codes. Of
course, it's not just between different national cultures that moral opinions differ; the same can happen between different
subcultures of the same national culture. What does this show? Consider:
Moral diversity: Different cultures have different moral codes/values.
Does it even follow that:
Moral conflict: Different cultures have conflicting moral codes/values.
Does moral diversity imply moral disagreement? Not obviously. Consider:
i) different definitions, ., of euthanasia, rape, terrorism, self-defense.
ii) different factual assumptions.
Nevertheless, there does seem to be at least some genuine moral disagreement around. The most famous such issue is
probably abortion. Some people disagree about abortion because they disagree on whether abortion is killing a person,
since they have different views about what counts as a person. Yet sometimes people agree that it is in some sense a
person, but disagree about whether it is permissible in such cases to take a life. Cultures disagree about right and wrong in
a way that cannot be explained by assigning different meanings to their words or in terms of background factual
disagreements.