We've discussed Paul Boghossian and his book against relativism
a bit in our Nelson Goodman episode. See my blog post on this from last year.
In this interview on the Philosophy Bites podcast, Boghossian talks about moral relativism, giving some shades of the view: e.g. you could be a relativist about manners but not really about the underlying principles girding them ("be polite!"). This accords with Smith's version, in which the most important moral points--e.g. generosity is good--are going to be universal, but lots of cultural factors are going to go into when and how much generosity is considered appropriate in a given circumstance.
Read Wes's post from August on the Boghossian/Stanley Fish exchange that the Philosophy Bites page refers to.
-Mark Linsenmayer
So, this might be the wrong way to think about things, but why can’t both ‘Moral Relativism’ and ‘Moral Absolutism’ (if that is the right contracting view) be correct, or at least useful in deciding the Morality of an action.
For conversation, let me suggest that ‘Moral Relativism’ could give you the answer of what a person ‘should’ ‘ought’ to do, given a certain ‘limited’ set of information. Say, an incomplete set of information. And, ‘Moral absolutism’ would give you the answer of what a person ‘should’ ‘ought’ to do given ‘absolute’ information’.
It seems to me, that in a ‘real world’ situation, no one has all the facts. And in many cases, no one knows the ultimate results of their actions. That said, hindsight is often 20/20, in that, as information is gained, we have a different set of facts to judge an action.
To hold foresight to the moral rigor of hindsight, sounds like an standard where everyone will sin. But, is that the purpose of a moral standard, to show that our foresight is not as good as our hindsight? It seems like that would be easy to show.
I think what might be more important is to contrast foresight and hindsight, and see if there are any important facts in hindsight that could be moved to foresight. If there are better predictions to be made in the future, then we should make them, no?
In which case, you need accurate descriptions of both, the set of facts that were available at the time foresight was predicted, and the facts at the time hindsight was taken. And a way to compare the two. Or, restated, the set of facts in hindsight minus the set of facts at the time of foresight, equals moral opportunity to learn. (‘Moral Absolutism’ – ‘Moral Relativism’ = ‘Moral Opportunity’).
Take the classic argument of child labour. If you have one set of facts, perhaps the old ‘relative’ set, ‘children need food to live, and if children don’t help in the field there won’t be enough food’, then take the new set, the new ‘absolute set’, ‘if children get the proper education, they can build machines to grow enough food for everyone’. If in both cases, we where thinking, ‘what’s best for the individual?’, or ‘what’s best for society?’ you can have two very different, and I’d like to suggest, ‘moral’ answers to the same questions, ‘what should/ought society do about child labour?’
Anyway, just wanted to add the thought….
-jimi