PHIL 2070 Study Guide - William Graham Sumner, Moral Relativism, Meta-Ethics
13 Apr 2014
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2 kinds of relativism: ethical relativism and social / cultural relativism. They subscribe to and live under different moral codes. There is moral disagreement in the world, between societies. William graham sumner defends cultural or social relativism (a. k. a. conventionalism). He traced how, in every society, their folkways become over time their mores". Their morality is shaped by their ethos" and life conditions, and ethos" become their ethics". There is no independent standard of good and bad, right and wrong, to apply to a society"s mores themselves. Right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust, virtuous and vicious are relative to, and determined by, social beliefs about what is right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust, virtuous and vicious. Moral judgments are a matter of social preference. X is right = df x is approved of in our society. Moral statements are at most true for a particular society.
