Ethics: Absolute vs. Relative

A Discussion

by
Professor Jon Saul

by Professor Jon Saul

What is the moral standard to use? What do you do?

Ethics as the study of choices people make regarding right and wrong.

Let us define moral relativism: the idea that decisions about right and wrong are purely personal. This is the issue of absolutes or absolute values.

This would mean that

Only I define what is moral for me.
I do not judge others by my own standards.
I must judge others by their own standards.
Only I am responsible for my actions.

If everyone is allowed to act in accordance with his or her own values, then doesn’t anything go? How can you tell the good from the bad?

This moral dilemma has been with humans forever. Take Hollywood, for example. Up until the 1950’s the good guys all wore white hats. But the anti-hero was made popular in the 1950’s by Marlin Brando in The Wild Ones. This continued through the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s with Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry, Will Smith’s Bad Boys and many, many others.

So who is the good guy? Are there any good guys left? Should there be?

This is, by the way, what the German philosopher, Friederich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) and the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821 –1881) had in mind when they wrote, respectively, “God is Dead” and “If God is dead, all is permissible.” To some, these were frightening words; to others, they heralded a great era of freedom.

These writers realized that the ethics of Christianity was the cement that held European society together and that if this cement were to dissolve, and the moral commandments of the religion no longer heeded, then people would be free to act in many, many ways that they had heretofore refrained from.

This idea, that civilization restricts human beings from certain actions, was a prime theme in Sigmund Freud’s (1856 – 1939) psychology: the ego, libido and superego (conscience, society, civilization). In fact, Freud focused on the fact that Western society represses the normal human sex drive, sublimating this energy into the creation of Western civilization.

So, how do you tell the Good from the Bad (Evil), the civilized from the uncivilized?

What is civilization? Are the terrorists who chop off heads civilized?

Does evil exist?

What is Relativity? Albert Einstein, German-Swiss, U.S. scientist (1879 – 1955): E=MC2

This equation accomplishes the following:

Energy and matter are the same thing (you can convert one to the other).

Energy is defined by matter (in terms of matter)

Matter is defined by energy (in terms of energy)

The idea of relativity is to evaluate/define things in terms of other things or in relationship to other things.

Much of our knowledge is based on this principle: up is defined only in terms of down; big as the other end of the spectrum from little; wide vs. narrow; right as the opposite of left, etc.

Applied to the ethical forum, this means that a person’s actions must be judged in relation (relationship) to whom that person is:

the circumstances / relationships the person
the person’s commitments, responsibilities (roles)
the expectations that others have for that person
the person’s past experience, heritage
the person’s goals, feelings, preferences

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The story of Socrates (470 – 399)

Socrates broke the law of ancient Athens when he allowed (encouraged) students to question the existence of the gods. He was guilty of corrupting the morals of a minor (minors).

How do we apply the approach of moral relativity to this situation?

If we consider that Socrates, first and foremost, was a citizen of Athens, then he was subject to the morals of the city (city-state). Consequently, his arrest and trial were all ethically right (morally correct) as these actions were in accordance with the laws and customs of the civilization in which Socrates voluntarily lived.

Please note that Socrates could have left Athens: exile was one of the choices he was offered. He could have chosen to not break the law again, also a choice he was given. However, Socrates chose to drink the poison hemlock: he felt that he could not live anywhere but in Athens (a free city-state) and could not abandon the search for the truth (the highest Good).

In this case, with Socrates as a citizen of Athens, the standard we choose to apply is that

the society is based on law
the law applies to all people
Socrates is a person
therefore, Socrates must obey the law or accept the consequences

However, what if we consider Socrates, first and foremost, as an individual human being with his own values or moral code? Socrates, for example, believed that the search for the truth is the highest Good. He believed in this absolutely, as evidenced by the fact that he chose his own death over disobedience to this moral maxim.

Socrates also believed, however, that Athens was the only civilized place to live. Indeed, the Greek word barbarian means someone who is not Greek. Ancient Athens was a city-state unlike any other. Here, humans practiced direct democracy (pure democracy), although only free men could vote (women and slaves were considered to be property).

Socrates knew that he could not pursue the truth in any other place. Only Athens afforded him the freedom to pursue his search. Therefore, from Socrates’ own vantage point, he could not live anywhere else.

Consequently, Socrates could only morally choose death.

So, did Socrates do the right thing? Was his choice moral? Should he have obeyed the law?

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Ethics allows us to create laws and evaluate them.

Ethics allows us to consider situations where there are moral choices to be made: where there is a choice of behavior involving human values.

Human values are those qualities that are regarded as good and desirable.

Choice: we all make choices all the time:

To bring these choices to the conscious level and to recognize the morality, immorality or amorality of one’s actions, is the existentialist view.

Moral: in accord with a standard of morality

Immoral: not in accord with a standard of morality

Amoral: without reference to any moral standards

Ethics suggests what ought to (should) be done in a given situation.

Ethics is moral judgment.

The Law: breaking the law: what is the relationship between law and ethics.

Laws are made by people.

We are supposed to obey the law.

But what do we do when the law is morally wrong?

Think about:

Mahatmas Gandhi (1869 – 1948), MLK (1929 – 1968): non-violent civil disobedience vs. violent revolution

and

Karl Marx (1808 – 1883) (Dialectic Materialism) vs. Vladimir Lenin (1870 – 1924) and the Russian Revolution of 1917.

I remember the civil rights movement of the late sixties and the black power movement of the early seventies. The feeling a the time was that the military/industrial complex (John Kenneth Galbraith b.1908) was totally in control in the name of the Silent Majority. Non-violent disobedience was no longer working. People were suffering, dying in the war, living in poverty at home, etc. and no one did anything.

So, the idea followed was that one should disobey the rules of such a society in the effort to create a better one – this idea came from the Declaration of Independence (1776).

It was hard to understand the above and not to submit to it. It was harder for those who had already lost everything – or felt they had nothing to lose - the minorities, chiefly, the blacks, not to turn violent.

So radicals, black, white and gray, robbed banks, set off bombs, killed people in the effort to bring down the dominant society which was oppressive –

Is it?

Was it?

What should have been done??

What should be done now?

Laws apply to all = address things that are wrong for all people to do...

(Doesn’t this sound like a universal?? Or an absolute???)

Remember, individuals are responsible for their own actions!

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