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Subjectivism, some cultural differences, and cultural moral relativism -- A remembered incident, human rights as a "higher standard," and arguments against cultural moral relativism -- More on "higher standards," arguments against subjectivism, why Maria is not a cultural moral relativist, and manners versus morality -- Tolerance, conscience, moral universals, ethnocentrism, and moral absolutes -- Modified cultural moral relativism and qualified subjectivism -- Moral relativism versus moral absolutism, the determining type of moral relativism versus the varying type, Vishnu sums up, and different kinds of cultural differences revisited

This article looks at whether moral relativism fits within an evolutionary framework. As a metaethical theory, the main ideas of moral relativism include: conventions, moral reasons, moral diversity, and moral disagreement. Two different versions of moral relativism are examined, those developed by Gilbert Harman and by David Wong. Several other writers who have characterized the relationship between moral relativism and an evolutionary perspective are also discussed. In addition, the article examines what three different models of evolution (those of Darwin, Dawkins, and Gould) imply about moral relativism. I argue that Wong's version of moral relativism, which eschews moral conventionalism, has the best fit with an evolutionary perspective. This may be the case, though, because Wong's version is quite flexible and leaves us with the lingering question of whether it is really moral relativism.

Programs of ethical relativism notoriously face two great difficulties: 1) how can they account for our need to make ethical judgements about other groups and individuals with whom we come into conflict? and 2) how can they allow for us to criticize the group, set of desires, etc. to which our ethical norms are said to be relative? Integrity and Moral Relativism develops a moderate version of cultural relativism that can answer these questions. After examining and defending the notion of a "world-picture," and of incommensurable differences across world-pictures, the book brings its theoretical framework together with the history of anthropology to argue that a culture is indeed the appropriate expression of a world picture. It then draws on literary, philosophical and historical resources to illustrate the way in which Western society, specifically, contains traditions distinguishing legitimate cross-cultural judgment, and legitimate from illegitimate cultural self-criticism. As long as there is a language for these possibilities, an individual can see ethics as culturally based without compromising his or her integrity

The argument for metaethical relativism, the view that there is no single true or most justified morality, is that it is part of the best explanation of the most difficult moral disagreements. This text discusses the latest arguments in ethical theory in an accessible manner, with many examples and cases.

In any society influenced by a plurality of cultures, there will be widespread, systematic differences about at least some important values, including moral values. Many of these differences look like deep disagreements, difficult to resolve objectively if that is possible at all. One common response to the suspicion that these disagreementsareunsettleable has always been moral relativism. In the flurry of sympathetic treatments of this doctrine in the last two decades, attention has understandably focused on the simpler case in which one fairly self-contained and culturally homogeneous society confronts, at least in thought, the values of another; but most have taken relativism to have implications within a single pluralistic society as well. I am not among the sympathizers. That is partly because I am more optimistic than many about how many moral disagreements can be settled, but I shall say little about that here. For, even on the assumption that many disputes are unsettleable, I continue to find relativism a theoretically puzzling reaction to the problem of moral disagreement, and a troubling one in practice, especially when the practice involves regular interaction among those who disagree. This essay attempts to explain why.

Abstract: This paper is a response to Park Seungbae's article, "Defence of Cultural Relativism". Some of the typical criticisms of moral relativism are the following: moral relativism is erroneously committed to the principle of tolerance, which is a universal
principle; there are a number of objective moral rules; a moral relativist must admit that Hitler was right, which is absurd; a moral relativist must deny, in the face of evidence, that moral progress is possible; and, since every individual belongs to multiple cultures at once, the concept
of moral relativism is vague. Park argues that such contentions do not affect moral relativism and that the moral relativist may respond that the value of tolerance, Hitler's actions, and the concept of culture are themselves relative. In what follows, I show that Park's adroit
strategy is unsuccessful. Consequently, moral relativism is incoherent.