Moral Relativism (With a Focus on Moral Conventionalism)

If morality is not dependent on the individual, is it possible for morality to be relative to society? Indeed, it
may be hard to find a consistent moral subjectivist, but not a moral conventionalist. In fact, when moral
relativism is discussed in classes and the usual textbooks, it commonly refers to moral conventionalism.
And due to the increasing globalization and consequently clash of worldviews and cultures, more and more
people are starting to doubt the superiority of their worldview, especially as they are beginning to see that
other worldviews can be as coherent and reasonable as the one that they have. Thus, it is not now
uncommon to see how one act taken as wrong in one culture is something that is perfectly permissible in
another. In fact, many social scientists especially anthropologists are proposing that the idea of universal
human rights should be abandoned because they are simply inventions by Western countries with their
particular Western cultures. We will see how this idea will fare in the battle for truth. Below are the three
usual arguments advanced in support of moral conventionalism.

a) Argument Based on the Survival Value of Cultural Morality – As mentioned, most proponents of
moral conventionalism are anthropologists who have done extensive research on different cultures and
discovered the great differences between moral rules and ideas. With that discovery, they concluded
that morality is something that societies invent in order for their people to survive. In other words,
cultural morality has a survival value for those who follow it. For instance, the Inuit culture whose
people are commonly known by the name Eskimos, have a practice in which the elderly are expected
to kill himself in front of his relatives and this act will be celebrated. From an outsider’s perspective,
such a tradition smacks not only of insensitivity towards the elderly but of an obvious violence towards
the helpless. But the Inuit people have a reason for doing this and the elders are in no way pressured
into doing so. Because food is scarce in such a culture, it would appear very wasteful to feed the elders
who can no longer help in hunting and fishing. As such, the elder in such a situation is believed to have
already overcome the present hunting ground and will now travel to the next after his present death.
The celebration then is not a celebration of the elder’s death per se but an expression of
congratulations for a life well spent and hope for the coming life to come. Such an example shows that
some moral norms are invented in order to help society survive the challenges of scarce resources,
fierce weather conditions and impending deaths. For the moral conventionalist, to criticize such norms
is to be insensitive to how such norms helped the society survive the most deadly situations.
b) Argument against Ethnocentrism – Another reason advanced in support of moral conventionalism is
the idea that it attacks ethnocentrism, the prejudicial view that interprets all of reality through the eyes
of one’s own cultural beliefs and values, as Pojman defined it.1 Indeed, to impose one’s culture on
another especially when it involves force would be tantamount to oppression. If an American sees a
Filipino like me eating with my hands inside my house in my country, he might find such a custom to be
weird, to say the least. But if he imposes that such a custom shouldn’t be practiced merely because it is
something that he was not brought up to practice, I would find such a reaction to be revolting. As a

1
Louis Pojman & James Fieser, Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, 7th ed. (Boston MA: Wadsworth, 2012), 15.
 Westerner brought up in a different culture, he has no right to impose his culture on me, especially
when he is stepping on my land. This example shows that there is indeed something wrong with
ethnocentrism, and this is what the moral conventionalist claims. Ethnocentrism should not be
practiced and moral conventionalism is an idea that seems the exact weapon created to counter it.
Moral conventionalism states that all cultures are equal and no culture has the right to impose their
culture onto another.
c) Argument for Tolerance – The moral conventionalist is not only passionate to fight the evils of
ethnocentrism but also to promote something: the value of tolerance. So-called universal moral
principles and rules are seen by the moral conventionalist to be nothing but expressions of imperial
thinking set to impose one’s cultural norms onto another. “Live and let live,” is the natural mantra of the
moral conventionalist. Tolerance is seen as a virtue of open-mindedness and humility by the moral
conventionalist. If you can tolerate my use of hands while eating my food, I will tolerate your use of so
many forks and knives while eating yours. If we are open enough to tolerate others of their culture, we
are humble enough to admit that we are not the center of this universe. Other people have thoughts,
worldviews, desires and goals that need not coincide with ours and we should be humble enough to do
that and open enough to accept such diversity.

Responding to Moral Conventionalism

Are the arguments for moral conventionalism escape the weaknesses of moral subjectivism? Does the fact
that societies have different moral rules establish the veracity that one’s society ought to dictate what is
right and wrong? From a scientific perspective, the moral conventionalist does seem to have the
anthropological and social facts on his side. Societies do seem to have different moral rules. But should
such facts about societies led us to believe that such diversity establishes that society ought to be the
norm? The first argument seems to show that some moral rules promote the survival of a culture, such as
in the example of the Eskimos. Does that imply that we cannot criticize what we see to be the immorality of
such a practice? I don’t think so. It would be immoral if such a practice simply celebrates the death of the
elder merely because he is already useless but the data tells a different story. From the perspective of the
Inuit, what they are doing is an expression of caring for the elderly: the suicide is a celebration of what he
has done for the family and also a passage towards a new hunting ground. So the moral principle of caring
for the elderly is not being contested. What divides us and them are the facts that surround the matter. The
Eskimos believe in a new hunting ground; we don’t. This discovery shows that there is an agreement
between two different cultures about the same moral principle, they only disagree as to how this principle
should be carried out. Although situations like this are not easy to resolve (How can you prove there is no
new hunting ground?), most societal rules with important bearings on morality have hardly the survival
value that moral conventionalist has taken some of them to be. Take the sati practice in India: a widow
burns herself alive by having herself put onto her dead husband’s funeral pyre (Kellenberger, 2008: 21).
This practice has persisted because the Indian culture has a negative view of widows and women in
general. It is clear that the practice has nothing whatsoever to do with the survival of Indian society. Such
an abominable cultural practice is predicated on the grave mistake of thinking that widows no longer have a
value; it has nothing to do with a society’s survival. So, it is a mistake to use this argument to legitimize all
moral rules because they help a society survives when most of it is not geared towards that very goal
anyway. Some are clearly just a practice that rests on a dubious belief (such as the inferiority of women).

How about the claim that moral conventionalist attacks the evils of ethnocentrism? For the moral
conventionalist, moral absolutes are nothing but an expression of what one society finds right or wrong and
so have no universal binding value. If a person claims that killing babies is wrong, he should not impose
that idea to other cultures who find nothing wrong with killing babies. By imposing the idea that infanticide is
objectively wrong is to impose one’s cultural standards onto another who does not share that idea, and thus
commits ethnocentrism. In other words, the moral conventionalist takes ethnocentrism to be wrong
wherever one is coming from. But wait a minute, if you notice by now, there seems to be a looming problem
there. The moral conventionalist argues that morality is relative to the society and yet at the same time
claims that ethnocentrism is wrong whatever society one may be coming from. This is flat-out contradiction.
What if the society that I am in takes ethnocentrism to be right? With that, the moral relativist cannot
criticize ethnocentrism because it is legitimate by the moral relativist’s own standard. Indeed, the moral
relativist cannot make a moral criticism of any kind because any action is right or wrong as long as it is
permitted or practiced by a particular society. And among those possible actions, ethnocentrism can be one
of them.

Just as the moral relativist cannot accuse anybody of committing a wrong through ethnocentrism, he
equally cannot promote anything as a universal moral value such as tolerance. The moral relativist claims
that moral relativism promotes the value of tolerance, openness to cultures and diversity but like his attack
against ethnocentrism, such a passionate cause puts him into a web of inconsistency. Why should
something as tolerance be a universal value to a moral relativist? To claim that something as tolerance
should be practiced by everyone is to make a universal claim, something that a moral relativist cannot do. If
my society approves of intolerance, then the moral relativist has no choice but to claim that it is the right
thing to do from my society’s perspective. But then, that is to say that the moral relativist cannot put a
universal value to anything, tolerance or otherwise, because doing so would already make him a moral
objectivist. By the same token, we can criticize the moral relativist who promotes tolerance by accusing him
of ethnocentrism, tolerance being just a value to his particular culture. Needless to say, that is how
inconsistent a moral relativist can be.

Three Problems with Moral Conventionalism

Although the common arguments for moral conventionalism have been adequately addressed and
criticized, this is not an admission that the idea has been finally put to rest. There are many moral
philosophers who defend moral conventionalism in the way in which I defined it and they are very
sophisticated and competent in their field. So let us assume for the sake of argument that the responses
which I gave against moral conventionalism can be met. Such assumption however does not mean that
moral conventionalism becomes a plausible ethical theory by default. Below are the three problems which
defenders of MC have to grapple with before they can make it a full-blown ethical theory.
First is the conceptual problem: how should society be defined? The Webster dictionary defines it as “any
number of people associated together geographically, racially or otherwise with collective interests.” Let us
turn to how many can make up a society, and the definition says ‘any number of people.’ It does not matter
whether it’s two or two hundred as long as they fulfill what makes a society: similarities and collective
interests. Consequently, if two people are similar for whatever reason and have the same interests, then
they would count as a society. But if this is the case, then this would legitimize any act, as long as there is a
group of people who thinks the same about the issue and have the same interests. Rapists, murderers and
scam artists can form their own groups and that would count as a society. For the moral relativist, the
unfortunate conclusion is that for these people their actions are right because their societies, which they
themselves make up, say that those are right. However, this leaves us back to moral subjectivism with a
twist: the arbiter has to be more than one. They may be two, three or a hundred people but they are all on
the same level, having the same aim. To make this clear, we can look at any society as a separate person
composed of different neurons, i.e., the members, but this person still thinks and acts depending on what
his several neurons dictate. It is still moral subjectivism with just a minor modification.

Second is the epistemological problem: how can we know what society dictates as right and wrong? If
society is taken to mean in its restrictive sense, which is a group of people with a common government and
laws, then one answer to this question of how we come to know the morality of society is through its laws.
But such an answer is acceptable only at face value because once we see that there are realistic and true
cases of people violating the laws of the land, then we are caught in a dilemma. Who will dictate morality
then: the society’s laws or the usual practices of the people? Here in the Philippines, we have many laws
against corruption especially while in public office, but it has become ubiquitous to think of Philippine
politics as mired in a system of corruption and selfishness and greed. In such a case, what will it mean to
follow society’s laws when the influential members of such society violate them anyway?

Third is the plurality problem. What society will we follow if we are members of different societies? With
the onset of globalization and the world portrayed as becoming a global village, it is now easier to imagine
a one world civilization as compared to the past. The rise of technology, especially the Internet, allowed us
to become informed with recent events in the other side of the world. Businesses are becoming global, and
so are people who now have the resources to travel the world. Different religions, once practiced in a small
part of the world, are now getting attention worldwide. Connected with all these is the creation of societies
catered towards common passions, interests, goals and desires. There are societies for alcoholics,
shopaholics, bookworms, atheists, bikers, freerunners, and mountain climbers. In fact, for any interest you
can think of, there is likely to be a society geared towards enlivening the passion about it. So this means gt

Objections to Moral Conventionalism

a) Moral conventionalism is inimical to the idea of universal human rights. – The idea of universal
human rights entails that there are certain endowed human rights that cannot be violated. Some of
these rights are the right to life, liberty and property. This means that no society should enact laws
which arbitrarily violate these rights. But if moral conventionalism is true, then there are no universal
human rights that need to be respected regardless of one’s society. We have no right to call on the
 behavior of some Indians who disrespect and assault women on public buses because their society is
simply indifferent to such behaviors. But this idea is clearly morally abhorrent especially as we learn in
history that moral progress has been possible because certain people have recognized their basic
human rights. Martin Luther King has fought for the same rights of the Blacks as the Whites. William
Wilberforce has recognized that slaves have the same basic rights as their owners and so he
persistently worked against the slave trade until slavery was finally abolished in 1833. All these
significant events are celebrated because they are evidence that all human beings need to be treated
in ways that all human beings ought to be treated regardless of their color, education, or gender: as
human beings with certain inalienable rights.

b) Moral conventionalism entails that there are no universal human values. – Aside from
undermining human rights, moral relativism also attacks the very values that humans have long fought
for to achieve. Sane and rational human beings naturally recognize the objective value of ideals such
as justice, love, fairness and equal treatment under the law. But for the moral conventionalist, these
ideals are nothing but cultural inventions that may or may not apply to a different society. This however
is very hard to swallow. It is difficult to imagine a society that has thrived in spite of its members not
caring for their children or contracts not being followed or one in which following basic societal rules are
optional. If somebody doubts as to whether he should be just in his dealings, it is clear that such a
person is making a mistake to think that being just is just an option that is equal in value with not being
just. Being just is a moral requirement that overrides all other nonmoral considerations. To doubt
whether justice ought to be universal is to make a basic moral mistake that only a moral conventionalist
can make.

c) Moral conventionalism entails that social reformers are immoral. – Social reformers are those
individuals who did something heroic and extraordinary by fighting all the social pressures around them
and attacking the evils that they find in their society. Martin Luther King and William Wilberforce were
mentioned before but there are other names too important to leave out: Jose Rizal, Malcolm X, Isabella
Baumfree, to name a few. Many whistleblowers working in the Philippine government have come out,
detailing the corrupt practices that have been going on in their offices. Benhur Luy (Janet Napoles
PDAF scam) and Thorrson Montes Keith (on the recent 15 billion Philhealth scandal) immediately
comes to mind and so are the others who had the courage to risk their work and life to fight what they
see as evil. We admire these people but for the moral relativist, these social reformers are doing
something immoral: because they are fighting the society that ultimately determines what is supposed
to be right and wrong. This is indeed an odd claim because nobody in his rational mind would doubt
that these people have done the right thing, even in exchange for their comfort, safety and even their
lives. However, in pain of being inconsistent, the moral relativist has no choice but to admit that social
reformers are indeed being immoral because they are going against the ultimate moral arbiter of their
actions.

d) Moral conventionalism begs the question. – Moral conventionalism is true because morality is
dependent on the society in which one happens to live. Examine that statement carefully. If moral
 conventionalism is defined as the view that morality is ultimately determined by society, then what was
given as a reason is just a restatement of the claim. It is tantamount to saying that moral relativism is
true because moral relativism is true, which is clearly question-begging. To beg the question is to make
an argument in which what is given as a reason is just a restatement of the conclusion. It takes the
form of A, therefore, A; or A because A. However, we are not given an independent reason to think that
moral relativism is true, other than the fact that different societies have different morals, which is a
descriptive fact, not a normative claim.

The Ted Bundy Test against Moral Relativism

So far, we have surveyed different arguments for the two versions of moral relativism and responded
against each of them. By now, it is safe to say that moral relativism is beset with difficulties such that it is
implausible as a metaethical theory. In fact, there is an argument against moral relativism that can put the
final nail to its coffin. We may call this the Ted Bundy Test to moral relativism. The test is simply this: if a
metaethical theory cannot state that what Ted Bundy did is objectively wrong, then it is not only a false
theory, but a dangerous and repulsive one at that. For the context, Ted Bundy is a well-known serial killer
who had murdered more than 30 women throughout his life. These are his words that are tape-recorded as
he was talking to one of his victims:

Then I learned that all moral judgments are “value judgments,” that all value judgments are
subjective, and that none can be proved to be either “right” or “wrong.” Believe it or not, I
figured out for myself…that if the rationality of one value judgment was zero, multiplying it
by millions would not make it one whit more rational. Nor is there any “reason” to obey the
law for anyone, like myself, who has the boldness and daring—the strength of
character—to throw off its shackles…. I discovered that to become truly free, truly
unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest
obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable
“value judgment” that I was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked myself, who were
these “others”? Other human beings, with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a
human animal than any other animal, a pig or a sheep or a steer? Is your life more to you
than a hog’s life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the
one than for the other? Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment,
declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as “moral” or “good” and others as
“immoral” or “bad”? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is
absolutely no comparison between the pleasure I might take in eating ham and the
pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which
my education has led me—after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous
and uninhibited self.2

2
Harry V. Jaffa, Homosexuality and the Natural Law (Claremont Institute of the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, 1990), 3–4.
The words of Ted Bundy are horrific but if one examines closely, his view about morality is the same view
as that of the moral subjectivist. They both believe that moral judgments are subjective. They both believe
that values are not objectively binding such that the majority valuing human life is no better than Ted Bundy
valuing his pleasure more than the life of his victims. While Ted Bundy is a moral subjectivist, the same test
can be applied to the moral conventionalist. But it is clear that Ted Bundy’s actions are wrong, objectively
wrong, and therefore moral relativism is a false theory.
What makes the Ted Bundy Test a persuasive way to argue against moral relativism? The test is a kind of
a reductio ad absurdum argument, literally translated as a ‘reduction to absurdity’. It is a way of showing
“that the claim to be refuted implies something that is ridiculous or absurd in ways that are independent of
any particular counterexample.”3 So what is ridiculous about moral relativism? It is the fact that by its own
lights, it cannot affirm that what Ted Bundy did is wrong. In fact, it seems to be that Ted Bundy’s actions are
a logical consequence and largely motivated by his moral relativism. But Ted Bundy’s actions are wrong
regardless of what he thought about it and even if it happens that his society approves of such actions.
Thus, moral relativism fails the Ted Bundy test.

An Ethics of Convenience

Now that we have finally reached the conclusion, it is quite clear that moral relativism (both in its
subjectivist and conventionalist’s form) is like a mansion built on sand: it appears to be strong and dignified,
but is totally weak on the inside. This is why I’d like to think that those stubborn people who want to stick to
moral relativism as a viable philosophy in life, even after you showed them all these strong objections, only
do so because it provides them with convenience. This is the reason why moral relativism can also be
called the ethics of convenience. When somebody points out that what they are doing is wrong, it is easy
to say, “It is wrong for you but not for me (or my society),” and that would be the end of the matter. It seems
that such an answer is available for anyone who wants to make a justifiable excuse for what they really
know is wrong. And it is interesting to know what happens when they are the ones on the opposite end of
the line. For some intellectuals, moral relativism seems defensible intellectually and personally and they go
to great lengths to argue for it. They may have some points worth discussing about but it seems that carried
to its extreme, moral relativism is practically unlivable. No one can live in a world where stealing is ok or
rape or wanton cruelty or random killing just for the fun of it. Even moral relativists rely on the effectiveness
and implementation of laws when carrying out their lives. Every one of us needs some form of universal
justice to trust our fellow human beings and to perform our duties. If we believe in moral relativism, justice
should not make sense to us and we don’t have to do our duties. Moral relativism clearly destroys such
important universal values as justice and love and even the stubborn moral relativist would have to

3
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Robert J. Fogelin, Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic, 8th ed. (Belmont, CA: Cengage
Learning, 2010), 386.
concede that those values are important and necessary not only for the survival but also for the flourishing
of all human beings (which clearly include them).

And so, the moral relativist who is fast in saying, “it’s wrong for you but not for me (or my society)” betrays a
kind of inconsistency in his value system. This same person relies that other people would treat him justly
in his dealings with him. He is expecting others to treat him as an end in himself and not merely as a means
to somebody else’s ends. He expects that his rights would be recognized by the law, regardless of whether
someone fails to recognize those rights. He depends on the laws of his society and on other people to
follow these laws so that everybody, including himself, would be able to function well in the society they are
in. His very life depends on the universality of these laws; otherwise, there would be no decent society in
the first place because it depends on some laws on which everybody can agree. As such, he may likely
have said this simply to make an excuse for his action and he doesn’t want anyone to interfere with it. But
morality overrides certain inconveniences. In fact, our moral duties and obligations sometimes even imply
pain on our part. But we should bear in mind that we are obligated to do what is always right and avoid
what is objectively wrong, simply because that is what we ought to do as sentient and rational human
beings, and it doesn’t change whatever one says about them.

This objectivity of morality however is no less controversial than moral relativism that we have just attacked.
Proving that moral relativism is false does not necessarily indicate that moral objectivism, by default, is true.
Both of them can be false and moral nihilism, the view that there are no moral facts whatsoever, may be
the only game in town. Indeed, we have to prove that moral objectivism is true in order to escape the pang
of moral nihilism and that would be the task we have for the next chapter.