Editing Moral relativism (section)

==History==

[[File:David Hume 2.jpg|thumb|right|Scottish philosopher [[David Hume]]—his thinking was influential in the development of relativism.{{citation needed|date=April 2020}}]]

Moral relativism encompasses views and arguments that people in various [[culture]]s have held over several thousand years. For example, the ancient [[Jainism|Jaina]] [[Anekantavada]] principle of [[Mahavira]] (c. 599–527 BC) states that truth and reality are perceived differently from diverse points of view, and that no single point of view is the complete truth;<ref>Dundas, Paul (2002) p. 231</ref><ref name="kollerjurno">Koller, John M. (July, 2000) pp. 400–07</ref> and the [[Greeks|Greek]] [[philosopher]] [[Protagoras]] (c. 481–420 BC) famously asserted that "man is the measure of all things".<ref>{{Cite web|title=Protagoras {{!}} Greek philosopher|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Protagoras-Greek-philosopher|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en|access-date=2020-05-28}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Protagoras of Abdera: Of All Things Man Is The Measure|url=https://www.worldhistory.org/article/61/protagoras-of-abdera-of-all-things-man-is-the-meas/|website=[[World History Encyclopedia]]|access-date=2020-05-28}}</ref> The Greek [[historian]] [[Herodotus]] (c. 484–420 BC) observed that each society regards its own belief system and way of doing things as better than all others. [[Sextus Empiricus]] and other ancient [[Pyrrhonism|Pyrrhonist]] philosophers denied the existence of objective morality.<ref>[[Sextus Empiricus]] ''Outlines of Pyrrhonism'' Book III, Chapter 21</ref>

In the early modern era [[Baruch Spinoza]] (1632–1677) notably held that nothing is inherently good or evil.<ref>{{cite web
|author = Kelley L. Ross
|title = Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)
|publisher = History of Philosophy As I See It
|year = 1999
|url = http://www.friesian.com/spinoza.htm
|access-date = 2009-12-07
}}</ref>  The 18th-century [[the enlightenment|Enlightenment]] philosopher [[David Hume]] (1711–1776) serves in several important respects as the father both of modern [[emotivism]] and of moral relativism, though Hume himself did not espouse relativism. He distinguished between matters of fact and matters of value, and suggested that moral judgments consist of the latter, for they do not deal with verifiable facts obtained in the world, but only with our sentiments and passions. But Hume regarded some of our sentiments as universal. He famously denied that morality has any objective standard, and suggested that the universe remains indifferent to our preferences and our troubles.{{citation needed|date=April 2020}}

[[Friedrich Nietzsche]] (1844–1900) believed that we have to assess the value of our values since values are relative to one's goals and one's self. He emphasized the need to analyze our moral values and how much impact they may have on us. The problem with morality, according to Nietzsche, is that those who were considered "good" were the powerful nobles who had more education, and considered themselves better than anyone below their rank. Thus, what is considered good is relative. A "good man" is not questioned on whether or not there is a "bad", such as temptations, lingering inside him and he is considered to be more important than a man who is considered "bad" who is considered useless to making the human race better because of the morals we have subjected ourselves to. But since what is considered good and bad is relative, the importance and value we place on them should also be relative. He proposed that morality itself could be a danger.<ref>{{cite book|last=Smith|first=Douglas|title=Friedrich Nietzsche|year=2008|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|pages=362–363}}</ref> Nietzsche believed that morals should be constructed actively, making them relative to who we are and what we, as individuals, consider to be true, equal, good and bad, etc. instead of reacting to moral laws made by a certain group of individuals in power.<ref>{{cite book|last=Spinks|first=Lee|title=Friedrich Nietzsche|url=https://archive.org/details/friedrichnietzsc00spin|url-access=limited|year=2003|publisher=Routledge|location=Florence, KY|pages=[https://archive.org/details/friedrichnietzsc00spin/page/n17 5]}}</ref>

One scholar, supporting an anti-realist interpretation, concludes that "Nietzsche's central argument for anti-realism about value is explanatory: moral facts don't figure in the 'best explanation' of experience, and so are not real constituents of the objective world.  [[Moral value]]s, in short, can be 'explained away.{{'"}}<ref>[[Brian Leiter]], "Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy" [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche-moral-political/ article link at Stanford Encyclopedia]</ref>

It is certain that Nietzsche criticizes Plato's prioritization of [[transcendentalism|transcendence]] as the [[Theory of forms|Forms]]. The Platonist view holds that what is 'true', or most real, is something which is other-worldly while the (real) world of experience is like a mere 'shadow' of the Forms, most famously expressed in Plato's [[allegory of the cave]]. Nietzsche believes that this transcendence also had a parallel growth in [[Christianity]], which prioritized life-denying moral qualities such as humility and obedience through the [[Christianity|church]].  (See ''[[Beyond Good and Evil]]'', ''[[On the Genealogy of Morals]]'', ''[[The Twilight of the Idols]]'', ''[[The Antichrist (book)|The Antichrist]]'', etc.){{citation needed|date=April 2020}}

Anthropologists such as [[Ruth Benedict]] (1887–1948) have cautioned observers against [[ethnocentricism]]—using the standards of their own culture to evaluate their subjects of study. Benedict said that transcendent morals do not exist—only socially constructed customs do (''see'' [[cultural relativism]]); and that in comparing customs, the anthropologist "insofar as he remains an anthropologist ... is bound to avoid any weighting of one in favor of the other".{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} To some extent, the increasing body of knowledge of great differences in belief among societies caused both [[Social sciences|social scientists]] and philosophers to question whether any objective, absolute standards pertaining to values could exist. This led some to posit that differing systems have equal validity, with no standard for adjudicating among conflicting beliefs. The Finnish philosopher-anthropologist [[Edward Westermarck]] (1862–1939) ranks as one of the first to formulate a detailed theory of moral relativism. He portrayed all moral ideas as subjective judgments that reflect one's upbringing. He rejected [[G.E. Moore]]'s (1873–1958) [[ethical intuitionism]]—in vogue during the early part of the 20th century, and which identified moral propositions as true or false, and known to us through a special faculty of intuition—because of the obvious differences in beliefs among societies, which he said provided evidence of the lack of any innate, intuitive power.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}