Date: 2008-06-24 02:54 pm (UTC)
1. When I use the word "relativism", I refer to the belief that human ideals, truth, morals, ethics, and other values are relative to the time, place, culture and circumstance under which their judgments are developed, and cannot be held as being universally true. It holds that there is no bias-free platform from which a universal truth can be established, and that all human ideas are necessarily socially constructed.

Perhaps just as important is what relativism is NOT: it is not the belief that nothing is true. It is not a position from which you can make no moral judgments. Belief in it does not preclude you from thinking you are right about any given issue, or in pursuing a political or legal goal based on that premise.

2. Yes, I think relativism is important. It is important largely because it is misunderstood, and it is blamed (fraudulently) for all sorts of social ills, mostly by those who either don't understand it or deliberately misinterpret it. But it is also important because I think a lot of problems in our society come from the widespread adherence to non-relativistic – that is to say, so-called 'objective' or 'absolute' notions of morality, achievement, opportunity, culture, and behavior. I think if relativism were more widely understood and applied, we would be able to approach a lot of social and political problems in a more straightforward way, without a lot of unhelpful moral baggage (after Rorty, I am a neo-pragmatist in this regard).

3. I'm not sure; I'd have to ask them. I do think that when a lot of conservatives and right-wingers use the term, they more or less mean it as nihilism, a sort of omnipresent belief that nothing is true and all moral judgments are equally false and should be ignored. When they say "such-and-such is a relativist", they mean "such-and-such is a moral monster with no values", which is not correct.

4. I'm not sure how to address this either. I suppose if they're sincere, they worry that those under the sway of moral relativism have lost their moral compass and are capable of believing any sort of pernicious nonsense. If they're not sincere, they're just deliberately muddying the waters to make it look like people who adhere to a philosophy that threatens their position as arbiters of the only acceptable moral code are vile beasts inclined to murder and rapine.
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Frank Kogan

July 2025

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