Sandip asked:

What is the view of contemporary philosophers about 'moral relativism'?

Slavery was practiced in the the past which is considered immoral today (right?). Was it considered
immoral those days also? If it was does it mean some of the world leaders who had slaves were
immoral? If not, then the definition of morality has changed, right!? So why is there objection to moral
relativism? Or should the term be 'contemporary moral absolutism vs relativism'?

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Moral relativism is notthe thesis that what is regarded as moral or immoral varies from place to place
or from time to time. That is uncontroversially true, as your example demonstrates: Plato and Aristotle
wrote extensively about ethics but both of them took the moral legitimacy of slavery for granted.
Today we (most of us) take a different view.

Rather moral relativism is the thesis that morality itself, and not merely its public perception, can vary
with context. So a moral relativist could argue that slavery was ok in the ancient world, but wrong
today: Plato was right not to condemn slave owners, and we are right to condemn them. Opponents
of moral relativism think that this is nonsense; the standards of right and wrong should apply
everywhere and at all times. So if slavery is wrong for us it was wrong for Plato too, and his failure to
condemn it was an error (perhaps an understandable or excusable error, but still an error). Of course,
our moral standards are not necessarily right either, although we might hope that we have made
some progress, as we have in other areas of knowledge.

Some contemporary philosophers have deep misgivings about all forms of objective truth, including
(perhaps especially) that of moral judgements. This has led to their endorsement of moral relativism,
or at least the accusation that they have done so.

You might find the following two on-line encyclopaedia entries helpful:

" http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/moral+relativism

http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/m/m-relati.htm"

If you are looking for something more substantial, I would recommend Mary Midgley's Can't We Make
Moral Judgements?(St. Martin's Press/ Bristol Press, 1991).

Andrew Aberdein

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that there are moral absolutes, and that slavery is absolutely
immoral. Let us say, in addition, that some world leaders have in the past, and do now, regard slavery
as moral. Does that mean that slavery wasor ismoral? No, it means that those people were and are
mistakenabout morality. Your argument above does not support moral relativism, it merely points out
that people can be and have been wrong. In other words, their "definition" of morality is not, given that
there are moral absolutes, "the" true definition of morality. So your argument is irrelevant to the issue
of absolute vs. relative morality, although not, of course, to the relative understandingsof morality.

Steven Ravett Brown

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