On Moral Relativism And Its Theoretical Difficulties

Moral relativism has been a widely debated topic among moral philosophers since the beginning of the 20 th century.Cultural anthropologists find that moral diversity and moral divergence exist widely in our lives by the study of different nations.So they think that different cultures have different ethics.The research of cultural anthropologists provides the basis for moral relativism.Moral relativism holds that there is no universal and objective moral norm,only different moral norms in different cultures.The right and wrong judgment of an action should be based on the moral norms in its culture,not on the moral norms in other cultures.And there is no objective morality to judge which of these different moral norms is better.The achievements of cultural anthropologists also provide philosophers with an intuition that morality is relative to different cultures and societies.Based on this intuition,philosophers have provided multiple arguments to support moral relativism.Among them are Gilbert Haman,David.B.Wong and David Velleman.Haman and David.B.Wong demonstrate moral relativism from the moral divergence in moral experience.In particular,David.B.Wong profoundly portrayed our divergence in moral concepts.He used the example of abortion to illustrate his view.On the issue of abortion,some people support abortion and some oppose it.In addition,there are great differences between virtue-centered morality and right-centered morality.David.B.Wong believes that we should be tolerant rather than be interfere with other culture ethics,if we do not have sufficient justification.Velleman bases moral relativism on custom,which produces norms that guide and bind human behavior.A common feature of Haman,David.B.Wong and Velleman's argument is that they have reduced morality to custom.The arguments of moral relativists are brilliant.And moral relativism is supported by the empirical research of anthropologists as well.This makes the theory of moral relativism attractive.But the theory of moral relativism still faces difficulties.First of all,is moral divergence really fundamentally unsolvable? We find that a lot of moral divergence is actually factual differences that can be reconciled.Even if we assume that moral divergence is fundamentally unsolvable,then moral relativism will cancel moral divergence.Secondly,if we restore morality to custom,our moral system will no longer be stable.Morality will also be abolished by custom,and we will move towards moral nihilism.In addition,moral relativism also faces the problems of moral progress,sub-group and so on.So if moral relativism wants to become a more convincing theory,it must provide more effective arguments.