ABSOLUTISM AND RELATIVISM IN ETHICS

[A Professorial Lecture delivered at the Mabini Hall of Colegio de San Juan de Letran, Intramuros, Manila on 29 January 1998.]


1.0 The Problem and the Hypothesis
1.1 Are moral values relative or absolute?[1]
1.2 Values in general, seen a priori, are absolute—across the board; seen a posteriori, they are basically relative and only become absolute by the process of absolutization.

2.0 The Framework of Analysis
2.1 The paradigm of this discussion is linguistic analytic.[2]
2.2 The linguistic analytic paradigm aims to clarify meanings of concepts, statements, propositions and other utterances so as to facilitate understanding.[3]
2.3 The inferential point of reference of the linguistic analytic paradigm is The Principle of Contextual Dependence.[4]
2.31 The principle of contextual dependence recognizes the metaphysical assumption that there is a multiplicity of contexts.[5]
2.4 The basic contextual loci of this discussion are the community and the individual.[6]
2.41 Based on the metaphysical assumption of the multiplicity of contexts, a community is one among many; so is an individual.
2.42 The epistemological framework of this discussion is based on the three-phase belief acceptability spectrum of:

SUBJECTIVITY > INTERSUBJECTIVITY > OBJECTIVITY[7]


3.0 The Analysis
3.1 Moral values, seen a priori, are absolute—across the board—because of their transcendent origin.[8]
3.2 Using our epistemological framework[9], a priori moral values are posited as an objectivity at the contextual locus of the community where they are intersubjectively accepted.
3.3 However, deviation from some of these moral values is committed at the locus of the individual.
3.31 Such an act is one of subjectivity, wherein some moral values which are originally absolute become relative by the process of relativization.
3.32 In other words, relative moral values are actually relativized a priori moral values rendered as such by the subjective act of an individual.

_____________________________________________________________

ABSOLUTE VALUES > RELATIVIZED VALUES > RELATIVE VALUES

OBJECTIVE > INTERSUBJECTIVE > SUBJECTIVE

COMMUNITY > INDIVIDUAL
_____________________________________________________________

4.0 Moral values, seen a posteriori, are basically relative to the subjective desires, intentions, aspirations and signfications of individuals as they perceive, interpret, and act on the reality they experience individually.[10]
4.1 However, living together in the contextual locus of a particular community, higher desires, intentions, aspirations and significations have to be satisfied on the level of the intersubjective.
4.11 Hence, standardization of moral values agreed upon on the intersubjective level becomes objective in the form of principles and laws that at this point are more identified with the community.
4.12 In short, basically subjective moral values have already attained the level of the absolute by the process of absolutization.
4.121 Therefore, absolute a posteriori moral values are actually absolutized moral values.

_____________________________________________________________

RELATIVE VALUES > ABSOLUTIZED VALUES > ABSOLUTE VALUES

SUBJECTIVE > INTERSUBJECTIVE > OBJECTIVE

INDIVIDUAL > COMMUNITY

____________________________________________________________

5.0 From the above discussion, it is affirmed that moral values, whether apriori or a posteriori are standard and standardized respectively, in the contextual locus of the community. And moral standards (standardized morals) are moral absolutes or to put it in the language of formal logic,

“For any x such that if x is standard (Sx), then x is absolute (Ax).”

Which is equivalent to:

“It cannot be that x is both a standard and not an absolute.”


5.1 Considering the relational discrepancy between the contextual loci of community and individual, the community standardizes and hence absolutizes whereas the individual relativizes. The question now is: Isn’t it possible for a community to relativize, and for the individual to absolutize?
5.2 Further extending the use of our inferential point of reference which is the principle of contextual dependence[11] in its recognition of the metaphysical assumption of the multiplicity of contexts, relativization can occur at the contextual locus of the community if we consider it not as a sole logical universe but rather one among many in the logical universe of a set of communities.
5.21 We have here a case of the multiplicity of contexts wherein each community is a self-sufficient context with its own absolutes.
5.211 Hence, the logic of this assumption goes like this: “If there is a multiplicity of contexts, there is also a multiplicity of absolutes. And in a multiplicity of absolutes, one set of absolutes becomes relative in the face of other absolutes of their respective contexts.”
5.212 Hence, the absolutes of a particular context are rendered inapplicable to the other contexts.
5.3 In the same vein, an individual relativizes in a multiplicity of individuals but absolutizes in the context of his or her own specific locus as an individual.

6.0 The Conclusion
6.1 The linguistic analytic paradigm has led us to satisfy the twofold aim of meaning clarification and understanding facilitation[12] by allowing us to conclude with the statement that “Moral values are absolute and relative” without committing logical contradiction.
6.2 All in all, the entire exercise is but an affirmation of the inferential point of reference: The Principle of Contextual Dependence.[13]


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[1] Cf. Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics: The New Morality (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1996), pp. 44-45; Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind: A Revolutionary Approach to Man’s Understanding of Himself (New York: Ballantine Books, 1980).

[2] Cf. A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1974), p. 137; Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1997), p.22.

[3] Cf. Arthur C. Danto, What Philosophy Is: A Guide to the Elements (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., 1968), p.16.

[4] Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. www.filestube.com/p/philosophical+investigations+pdf

[5] Cf. Berger and Luckmann, p.21.

[6] Cf. Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principle of Morals (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

[7] Cf. Kathleen M. Haney, Intersubjectivity Revisited (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1994), p.1.

[8] An origin that transcends human experience. Cf. Immanuel Kant’s “Categorical Imperative.”

[9] Cf. 2.42.

[10] Re a posterori (or empirical) moral values: Cf. Leszek Kolakowski, Positivist Philosophy: From Hume to the Vienna Circle (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1972), pp.224-225.

[11] Cf. 2.3.

[12] Cf. 2.2.

[13] Cf. 2.3.