This essay examines various definitions of moral relativism, first discussing the views of Charles Stevenson and Walter Stace and suggesting that neither of these two authors deals
Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day defined a good society as one that makes it easy for you to be good. Correlatively, a free society is one that makes it easy to be free. To be free, an
This paper tries to place certain issues in the discussion of relativism, not to deal with any one of them thoroughly. It is concerned with any kind of relativism, in the sense t
Relativism, roughly put, is the view that truth and falsity, right and wrong, standards of reasoning, and procedures of justification are products of differing conventions and fram
Moral relativism is an important topic in metaethics. It is also widely discussed outside philosophy (for example, by political and religious leaders), and it is controversial amon
Two kinds of moral relativism – metaethical and normative – are here distinguished. Metaethical relativism holds that conflicting moral judgments can both be correct. Normative rel
The first reading offers a prophetic portrait of the figure of the Messiah, a portrait that attains all its meaning at the moment when Jesus reads this text in the synagogue of Naz
In the '80s, the theology of liberation in its radical forms seemed to be the most urgent challenge for the faith of the church. It was a challenge that required both a response an
Relativism is a very general term for a whole range of positions. There are two questions to ask that help determine the kind of relativism that is at issue. First, what is it that is held to be relative? And second what it the unit of relativity? Some say that truth is relative, or that values are, or that reality is, in other words that something is not true absolutely, or good objectively, or real in itself, but true, or good or real for someone or other. This raises the question of to or for whom, and there are three answers: a) relative to an individual, b) a group, c) human beings in general. Relativism is often argued for on the basis that different people may have different beliefs and standards, or that there is intractable disagreement about what is true or good, etc. Critics of relativism point out that difference and disagreement in belief are compatible with there being some truth about the matter independently of what people think. Additionally, it is observed that relativism seems self-refuting: saying all truth is relative amounts to saying it is true (non-relativistically) that truth is relative which is to say both that truth is and that it is not relative, which is a contradiction. These points notwithstanding relativism has been remains popular perhaps because it is thought to respect the diversity of views.