Sample Answer to Study Question

PHIL 100A

Sample Answer to Study Question

Below please find a sample answer to Study Question 4 prepared by Lowell Friesen. This should give you a good idea of what a satisfactory answer to the study questions looks like.

Moral relativism, the view that moral statements are true or false only relative to the standards of a cultural group, fails to provide a plausible account of moral disagreement.

Consider the following exchange between two people, A and B.

A: Abortion is always morally impermissible.

B: I disagree. Abortion is not always morally impermissible.

If A and B are from different cultural groups—suppose A is from Operation Rescue and B is from Planned Parenthood—then, according to moral relativism, B isn’t really disagreeing with A. A is merely asserting that abortion is always morally impermissible for people from Operation Rescue, and B is merely asserting that abortion is not always morally impermissible for people from Planned Parenthood. What B asserts doesn’t contradict what A asserts.

Now suppose A and B are from the same cultural group—perhaps A and B are both Catholics and B, after careful deliberation, has reconsidered her view on the matter. According to moral relativism, if B’s view is a minority view, she is automatically mistaken. Furthermore, all A would have to do to show B that she is mistaken is produce a poll that showed B’s view to be the minority view.

These consequences make moral relativism implausible. First, according to moral relativism, people from Operation Rescue and Planned Parenthood don’t actually disagree. This is absurd. If people from Operation Rescue and Planned Parenthood are in agreement about anything at all, it is that they disagree. Second, according to moral relativism, people with minority views are always mistaken. But this isn’t true; the initiators of the Civil Rights Movement, for example, were not mistaken. Third, if moral relativism is true, the right way to resolve moral disputes within a group is to poll the group’s members. But again, nobody thinks this is how moral disputes should be resolved.