However, moral relativists, in contrast, know there to be nothing which is absolutely right or wrong as there is no universal standard by which we can measure our behaviour or our actions. Thus some people may believe one action to be right, whereas others may believe it to be wrong whether it is a cultural or social belief. This means that everybody should be tolerant and be respectful of other people’s beliefs and behaviour. We should recognise that our ideas about the right way to behave are not absolute, and therefore we have no right to try and impose them on other people. For example, a group of teenagers in the United Kingdom cannot be justified to judge another group of teenagers in the Middle East as the beliefs and behaviour of the different groups will vary greatly and we have no right to dictate what is right or wrong.
One specific approach to relativism is called cultural relativism. This encompasses morality and other areas too such as religious beliefs and social behaviour. It underlines how people’s customs are different all over the world and we should respect this. For example; Men should take off their hats if they go into a church, whether they are Christian or not, and they should cover their heads in a synagogue, whether they are Jewish or not. A cultural relativist will say that morality is the same as good manners, so one should adapt their behaviour to conform to the norms of the society in which they live in as things such as dress codes and table manners are different in different societies. We therefore cannot try to enforce ways in which societies live, for example, if one civilization believes that elderly relatives should spend their last few years being cared for in a nursing home, whilst another culture may disagree and say it is the families duty to care for their elderly relatives, then they could both be right in their own ways, according to their own social codes.
Some moral relativists believe there is no valid way of proving whether one belief is right or one belief is wrong as everyone has different moral beliefs, however they do know that even if we cannot know certain types of behaviour are wrong, all the same it is justifiable to make laws for the protection of humanity, and to penalize those people who chose to go against this ‘social contract’. The definition of ‘good’ is then said to be no more than ‘what which is socially acceptable’.
However, something could be right in one circumstance, but wrong in the other. For example, lying might be considered right if it was done in order to get a good result, like misleading an enemy in order to save lives. But lying could be considered wrong if it was done out of hatred or greediness. Another example is abortion as it can be argued as the right choice for a very young pregnant girl but on the other hand it can be seen as wrong for an adult woman who is using it as a method of contraception.
An alternative Christian ethical theory promulgated by Joseph Fletcher, an Anglican theologian in the 1960s, situation ethics, discarded legalistic codes of ethics in favour of a more relativist model. Fletcher argued that the morally right thing to do was that which was most loving in that particular situation.
Fletcher argued that the two extremes of antinomianism (no rules) and legalism (lots of rules) cannot work. The only true capable ethical standard is the course of love. Each situation is best assessed and acted upon in terms of the best consequences to be brought out by love and love alone. The love that Fletcher meant was agape love or unconditional love. Whereas Natural Law theorists ask what the law says, Fletcher asks what the best decision to help others is. A recent example that can be associated with what is the best decision to help someone is ‘The Charlotte Wyatt case’. Since baby Charlotte was born she has stopped breathing three times and each time she has been resuscitated. Doctors at the hospital said they believed if she stopped breathing again they should not revive her as her quality of life would be so poor and her life would be dominated by pain. The doctors are using a situation ethics approach as they are trying to make the best decision for Charlotte, in a loving way as actions are considered good if they help human beings and bad if they hurt people. By letting Charlotte suffer for longer, this could be seen as the doctors hurting her. However, the situation ethics theory is no accepted by everyone. It has been rejected by some Christian Churches, most notably the Roman Catholic Church.
To conclude, a general summary of what has been said about moral relativism is that there are some things which are usually right or wrong, but nothing which is absolutely so, because there is always the possibility of circumstances which call for exceptions to be made. In addition, judgements about other people’s morality can be justified but never absolutely.
However we must also remember that in ethical terms, to maintain that some things are right and other things are wrong, and that these things are fixed for all time and all people, is called absolutism and is the opposite to moral relativism.
Reviewing situation ethics, we know that the two extremes of antinomianism cannot work, so therefore the overriding moral principle of decision-making is love (agape) and nothing else. A key aspect of situation ethics is thus to use the best loving method to help someone in their particular situation.
