The view that there are no objective or universally valid truths and values; they are all dependent on and relative to the culture, society, or circumstances of the individual. This doctrine often arises from observations of human diversity of an anthropological kind; in philosophy it goes back at least as far as Protagoras and the Sophists.
Relativism consists of various theories each of which claims that some element or aspect of experience or culture is relative to, i.e., dependent on, some other element or aspect. The term often refers to truth relativism, which is the doctrine that there are no absolute truths, i.e., that truth is always relative to some particular frame of reference, such as a language or a culture.
Advocates of relativism
Philosophers and anthropologists
The concept of relativism has importance both for philosophers and for anthropologists, although in different ways. with ethical relativism furnishing just one example. For them, relativism refers to a methodological stance, in which the researcher suspends (or brackets) his or her own cultural biases while attempting to understand beliefs and behaviors in their local contexts. This has become known as methodological relativism, and concerns itself specifically with avoiding ethnocentrism (the application of one's own cultural standards to the assessment of other cultures).
The combination of both philosophical relativism and anthropological relativism results in descriptive relativism, which claims that different cultures have different views of morality, which they cannot unify under one general conception of morality. The descriptive relativist reply to this is that while this might be true at a general level, different cultures have different understandings of what "innocent" means, and so are still culturally relative.
Jainism
Mahavira (599-527 BCE), the founder of Jainism, developed an early philosophy regarding relativism and subjectivism known as Anekantavada.
Sophists
Elements of relativism emerged among the Sophists in the 5th century BCE.
Bernard Crick
Another important advocate of relativism, Bernard Crick, a British political scientist, wrote the book In Defence of Politics (first published in 1962), suggesting the inevitability of moral conflict between people.
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson define relativism in their book Metaphors We Live By as the rejection of both subjectivism and metaphysical objectivism in order to focus on the relationship between them, i.e.
Richard Rorty
Philosopher Richard Rorty is criticized by both the Left and the Right for his relativistic views.
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One argument for relativism suggests that our own cognitive bias prevents us from observing something objectively with our own senses, and notational bias will apply to whatever we can allegedly measure without using our senses.
Postmodern relativism
The term "relativism" often comes up in debates over postmodernism and phenomenology. Critics of these perspectives often identify advocates with the label "relativism." For example, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is often considered a relativist view because it posits that cultural, linguistic and symbolic beliefs shape the way people view the world.
These perspectives do not strictly count as relativist in the philosophical sense, because they express agnosticism on the nature of reality and make epistemological rather than ontological claims.
The spread and popularity of this kind of "soft" relativism varies between academic disciplines. Advocates of this kind of relativism often also claim that recent developments in the natural sciences, such as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, quantum mechanics, Thomas Kuhn's work on paradigms, chaos theory and complexity theory show that science is now becoming relativistic.
Relativism: pro and con
Criticisms
One common argument against relativism suggests that it inherently contradicts, refutes, or stultifies itself: the statement "all is relative" classes either as a relative statement or as an absolute one. If the statement is absolute, on the other hand, then it provides an example of an absolute statement, proving that not all truths are relative. However, this argument against relativism only applies to relativism that posits truth as relative - i.e. epistemological/truth-value relativism. More specifically, it is only strong forms of epistemological relativism that can come in for this criticism as there are many epistemological relativists who posit that some aspects of what is regarded as "true" are not universal, yet still accept that other universal truths exist (e.g. Another argument against relativism posits a Natural Law. A third argument addresses the effects of relativism. As an idea, this argument contends, relativism has the sole social value of making everyone equal by taking away any rules, thus resulting potentially in (Anomie and complete Social Darwinism) Relativism allegedly allows individuals to do as they please. Many relativists would add a corollary about harming others, but relativism itself negates these kinds of systems. (see article on Doublethink) Moral Relativism, in particular, in its more pure forms, often defies logic and acts in ignorance of possible truths. With any given action, it has the ability to inflict positive and negative states on other sentient beings, meaning it's impossible for relativism to be "the" law as even with hundreds of factors there is still usually an overall positive or negative outcome, and thus "wrong" would be attempting to seek more negative states than positive ones, possibly for personal gain. Moral Relativism either ignores this or seeks to overwrite it. Because certain things, such as logic, do exist and are constant, it is difficult for relativism to hold true in all scenarios. Since logic is inherently constant, and that some things are more true than others, it means that "strong" relativism cannot hold true under many conditions. Relativism often ignores how views have different weight to another. Another argument against relativism is that simply disregarding it often works fine at a pragmatic level. Once you have said if the X is absolute you have presupposed relativism is false. There is a contradiction, but the contradiction is between relativism and the presuppositions of absoluteness in the ordinary logic used. A very different approach explicates the rhetorical production of supposedly 'bottom-line' arguments against relativism. Edwards et al’s influential and controversial "Death and Furniture" paper takes this line in its staunch defence of relativism. A strong epistemological relativist could theoretically argue that it does not matter that his theory is only relative according to itself. As long as it remains "true" according to a relative framework, then it is just as true as any apparently "absolute" truth that a realist would postulate. The dispute lies in the distinction between whether the framework is relative or absolute, but if a realist could be persuaded it was relative, then the relativist theory could exist logically within that framework, albeit accepting that its "truth" is relative. A strong epistemological relativist must remove his own notions of universal truth if he is to embrace his theory fully, he must accept some form of truth to validate his theory logically, and this truth, by definition, must be relative. Looked at from this perspective, with all notions and premises of universal truth removed, the notion of strong epistemological relativism is logically valid.The Catholic Church and relativism
The Catholic Church, especially under John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, has identified relativism as one of the most significant moral problems of today.
According to the Church and to some philosophers, relativism, as a denial of absolute truth, leads to moral license and a denial of the possibility of sin and of God. Whether moral or epistemological, relativism constitutes a denial of the capacity of the human mind and reason to arrive at truth.
The denial of an absolute reference, of an axis mundi, denies God, who equates to Absolute Truth, according to these Christian philosophers. They link relativism to secularism, an obstruction of God in human life.
John Paul II
John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor ("The Splendor of the Truth") stressed the dependence of man on God and his law ("Without the Creator, the creature disappears") and the "dependence of freedom on the truth". He warned that man "giving himself over to relativism and skepticism, goes off in search of an illusory freedom apart from truth itself". This is the sinister result of a relativism which reigns unopposed: the "right" ceases to be such, because it is no longer firmly founded on the inviolable dignity of the person, but is made subject to the will of the stronger part. In this way democracy, contradicting its own principles, effectively moves towards a form of totalitarianism.
On June 6, 2005, he told educators:
"Today, a particularly insidious obstacle to the task of education is the massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism which, recognizing nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires. And under the semblance of freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own 'ego'"Then during the World Youth Day in August 2005, he also traced to relativism the problems produced by the communist and sexual revolutions, and provided a counter-counter argument.
Criticism
Some Church documents suggest the position that failure to accept its version of morality is the only alternative to relativism. Veritatis Splendor insists that we must hold onto
respect for certain fundamental goods, without which one would fall into relativism and arbitrariness. Persons who accept the dichotomy between Catholic doctrines and relativism but disagree about which acts are anti-life might be inadvertently encouraged to adopt relativism. In actuality, many moral systems have been proposed as alternatives to relativism; see entries on Ethics and Normative ethics for systems which reject both relativism and Catholic moral doctrines.
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