PHI 325 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Cultural Relativism, Relativism
Document Summary
Relativism: can be seen as a descriptive theory, a theory as to what people actually believe about morality. Moral claims can be true or false : they are true only if they represent a culture"s beliefs. Problematic implications of cr (x and y are cultures: equivalence of x and y"s moral opinions. Infallibility of x"s moral opinions: contradictions arise in moral beliefs between cultures, contradiction arise in moral beliefs of a single culture x over time. Need to rule out other theories: need to argue for cr and rule out that moral truths are universal (because they are not) Is inconsistent with the moral theory of cultural relativism.
