 Conformity is a type of social influence

involving a change in belief or behaviour in

order to fit in with a group.
 This change is in response to real (involving
the physical presence of others) or imagined
(involving the pressure of social norms /
expectations) group pressure.
 According to the arguments forwarded in
defense of Ethical Relativism, the Argument from
Conformity is seemingly the easiest way to destroy
and annihilate.
These are the couple of reasons:
 1st- According to one form of Ethical Relativism
(i.e., conventionalism)“whatever a society
believes to be right is right for the particular
society
 What is considered “good” is what the
majority approves or acknowledges as good
 What the majority says as “bad” is bad.
 Thus, morality is simply dependent of what
the majority wants or decides.
 The obvious problem with this view is that it makes the
majority as the only true and legitimate voice of what is
moral or not.
 “For when we talk about moral code or ethical beliefs
of a society, it would only mean the moral code or the
moral beliefs and stand of the majority in a society”
(Barcalow 1998:56)
 Ex: Society believes that abortion is immoral, simply
means that the majority of the members of that
particular society that the act in question is immoral.
 If a society believes that slavery is right, that simply
means that the majority of people in that society
believe that it is right.
 The logical implication of this is very clear and
somewhat terrifying: The majority is always right!
They can never be wrong!
 If the argument from conformity is valid, then, all that
we have to do is to take the word of the majority as
gospel truth or some kind of dogma and be assured
that we are already in the right.
 We should just openly accept and embrace what
the majority of our society had come to accept and
embrace, and that would save us from risk of falling
into the pit of erroneous judgement.
 But majority is not always right! We know for a fact that the
minority can also be correct in moral matters.
 Let’s take a serious look at history to see the presence of so-
called reformers (or rebels if you wish): Socrates, Mahatma
Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., to name a few. “If the majority
is always right, then all these and many other moral reformists
are simply wrong.”
 “How can we define the boundary or scope of what really
constitutes a group?”
 In reality, people belong to numerous subgroups. One can
be a member of a religious group, a fraternity or sorority, a
professional group, an ethnic group, a peer group, and
many more.
 People can belong to overlapping societies or
groups. In fact we all do.
 Some of these groups do not only overlap but at
times also conflict with one another. It would be
easy if we belong to homogenous group.
 However, the world is not like that. Our world is
diverse mixture of overlapping groups and
communities, and people do not always adhere
to the rule of majority.
 “The world is a lot more complicated than that.
We are multicultural to some extent”(Gensler,
1998:15)
 If there were any such thing as an objective
moral truth, we should be able to prove that
some moral opinions are true and others false.
But in fact we cannot prove which moral
opinions are true and which are false. Thus,
there is no such thing as an objective moral
truth.
 Its plausibility mainly hangs on how strict
and rigid we should take the whole
question of “proof” in matters of pertaining
to morality (See Barcalow 199:63).
 If we take proof as we ordinarily construe it
to be in a day-to-day, “normal
conversation, then we would venture to say
that moral issues can be “proved”.
 But if we take it to mean “proof” in the
standard scientific sense, then we would
say otherwise.
 The fact that human beings disagree with each
other on certain fundamental issues, is nothing but
just common occurrence. “But unlike the disputes
between scientists about the age of the universe or
constitution of matter, which can be settled in
principle through empirical method of observation
and experimentation, ethical disputes seem to be
far from being resolved” (Curd, 1992:171-172).
 Perennial issues which have not been settled like
euthanasia, abortion, divorce, homosexuality,
capital punishment and the like. Far from seeing the
definite end of various disagreements regarding the
morality behind all these, they instead continually
bother and confuse us even more.
 Granting, for the sake of
argument, that indeed we are
uncertain about the morality of
some of our actions and
decisions, and cannot really
“prove” them beyond reasonable
doubt. This does not mean that it
has no answer whatsoever”.