The Sevenoaks School Journal of Philosophy - Volume Two APORIAii_digitalversion - Volume 2 | Page 4

1
Is Morality Relative?
SONYA VERKHOTUROVA 1
INTRODUCTION
In the age of globalisation, when people of different cultures meet and interact
at a unique rate, the value of tolerance has penetrated the general consensus of
morality. It is imperative to establish the importance of this particular value in
our time, because it is deeply entangled with the recent rise in the acceptance of
the notion that morals are relative. The title, of course, stimulates the debate on
one of the central questions in ethics: is morality relative or absolute? Moral rel-
ativism is a moral theory that teaches that there is a plurality of moral truths and
their validity depends on a certain standpoint, thus it rejects the existence of an
absolute moral standard. There is a plethora of different types of relativism,
however I will focus on cultural relativism, because it is the most prevalent one.
In other words, I will assess the plausibility of the claim that morality is relative
to culture. The goal of this essay is to carry out a thorough analysis of cultural
relativism and explore the difficulties of the argument, thus demonstrate its im-
plausibility as it meets severe problems. I will begin by examining the claim that
moral relativism stands because morality differs from one society to another.
Then, I will look at the plausibility of arguing for cultural relativism on the
grounds of the highly attractive notion of toleration. Furthermore, I will consid-
er the usefulness of cultural relativism as a moral guide in the instances of dis-
1.
Awarded first prize in the Birkbeck University Philosophy Prize Essay Competition.
APORIA: The Sevenoaks School Journal of Philosophy, Vol. II, Publication date: August 2018.