Moral Relativism and Moral Disagreement

There is a family of views in moral philosophy that is often confused with the previous empirical cultural differences thesis. These views are called versions of moral relativism. They tend to agree that (i) there is no objectively correct universal moral standard and (ii) whether a given action is right or wrong depends in some way on the moral standard accepted by some individual or a group. Philosophers then disagree about what the connection is between the cultural differences as an empirical claim and moral relativism as an ethical view. Some argue that we can construct a powerful argument for moral relativism starting from the cultural differences, whereas others claim that moral relativism is implausible because it makes moral disagreements impossible. These two claims are the focus of this chapter.