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Absolutism vs Relavatism

Absolutism and Relativism

Quick revise
Absolutism
Absolutism is making normative ethical decisions based on objective rules. It maintains that some
things are always right and some things are always wrong. They are fixed for all time, places and
people.
Advantages of Absolutism
 It allows moral rules to be evaluated critically.
 It is fair as people are treated the same as the rules are the same for everyone.
 If a moral rule is right, then there would be no need to have different rules for different
people because the absolute rules are universal.
Disadvantages of Absolutism
 Sometimes it is not appropriate to treat people the same due to circumstances that arise due
to situations.
 Life is not simply 'black and white' and as this is the case, it is simply not right to make
everyone live by the same rules.
Relativism
Relativism says that nothing is intrinsically right or wrong.
It is popular in the present day because there is a belief that everyone should be tolerant towards
others' beliefs and views; this idea for freedom of speech implies that there are no ‘real’ absolute
truths.
Some believe that all human circumstances are different and therefore there is a need to have
different moral rules for people.
Cultural Relativism
 says that different countries - or even areas within a country - have different values, for
example, Muslims expect women to cover up (at least some of) their bodies.
 It affirms the idea 'when in Rome do as the Romans do'.
 It allows there to be variety in different cultures.
 However, as there are no overriding standard to compare cultures to, noone can say that one
culture is better than another because of what they believe - this could be either an
advantage or a disadvantage.
 Moral truths are no more than subjective feelings about behaviour which can therefore never
achieve the status of fact as they are the result of ways of life and opinions which vary from
culture to culture or person to person depending on circumstances.
Historical Relativism
 This says that what was right one hundred years ago may not be right in the present day
because times and society have moved on.
 100 years ago, women did not have the vote but due to changing opinions in society they
now do and hold principal positions in parliament, etc.
 Society also accepts the need to change sets of rules which used to be sufficient in previous
times.
Advantages of Relativism
 It allows for the diversity that is present in the world.

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 It understands that life is not black and white.

 Cultures may believe that their practices are more justifiable than other cultural practices,
but by using a relativist approach, this will allow for acceptance between different peoples.
Disadvantages of Relativism
 Just because there are different moral views, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are all of
equal value. For example, the Nazis believed that they were right to kill millions of Jews,
homosexuals and disabled people: surely it would be wrong to say that this had the same
worth as other moral views. Cultural Relativists would not be able to criticise the Nazis as
they believe that all cultures have views of equal worth.
 Cultural Relativism also ultimately reduces the meaning of what is ‘good’ to ‘what is socially
acceptable’. For example if a culture allows wife-beating, then cultural relativism would
also have to say that wife-beating is morally acceptable.
 It may be more difficult to decide when the rules need changing in different circumstances.
Absolutism versus Relativism
Ethical Absolutists can condemn practices such as the Nazi persecution of the Jews because
Absolutist views give definite guidelines as to what is right and wrong.
Relativism can take into account the reasons why something happens. Absolutists would have to
condemn a mother who steals food for her starving children because in their eyes all stealing is
wrong, whereas Relativists can say stealing is wrong usually but as the mother needed to feed her
children, what she did was right and should therefore not be condemned.
Absolutists can appear to be intolerant to views of others, for example, if they are against cruelty
of animals, they would be against the Islamic practice of sacrificing lambs, but Relativists would be
able to see the religious significance and the importance of that practice to the Islamic community
and will therefore not condemn it.

DIFFERENCES:
1. Moral Guidelines
In absolutism, the moral guidelines are definite while those of relativism are dependent on
the contexts of various situations.
2. The Value of Tolerance
Relativism is more closely associated with the value of tolerance since the differences in
background are considered. On the contrary, absolutism does not look into diversity as it
strictly adheres to the moral guidelines; hence, its critics argue that this perspective paves
way for discrimination.
3. Intrinsic Values
Unlike relativism, absolutism holds that acts are intrinsically right or wrong. For instance,
since absolutists believe that killing is intrinsically wrong, a woman who killed a rapist in
self-defense is condemned as immoral. On the other hand, a relativist understands
the crime of passion involved in the situation and views the woman as moral.
4. Religion
As compared with relativism, moral absolutism is more associated with religion since church
doctrines often endorse specific ethical guidelines.
5. Advantages

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The advantage of absolutism includes the ability to critically evaluate the ethics of different
situations while that of relativism is the capacity to tolerate diverse kinds of beliefs.
6. Disadvantages
The disadvantages of absolutism include the inability to consider the context of situations
and value the gray areas of morality while that of relativism is reducing being “morally
correct” to merely being “socially acceptable” and that the lines between what is right and
wrong may become too vague.
7. Major Categories
The major categories of relativism are moral, truth, descriptive, and normative while
absolutism does not have major categories.
8. Consequences
Absolutism does not consider consequences as its moral tenets are deontological or only
based on the specified rules whereas relativism is teleological or values the results of one’s
actions. For instance, absolutism views Robin Hood as immoral since stealing is bad;
however, relativism sees him as moral since he steals from a corrupt individual and gives
money to the poor.
9. Moral Theory Examples
A usual example of absolutism is Kantian ethics which asserts that an action is moral if the
intention behind it is moral. As for relativism, one of the popular examples is situational
ethics which primarily considers personal ideals.

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