WHY ETHICAL
RELATIVISM IS INVALID
And why Ethical
Rationalism is to be preferred
ETHICAL RELATIVISM is the belief that no ethical standard can be proven true - that’s both wrong and socially harmful.
WRONG: We surely have the right to be free to do what we should do, and since as an end in itself we should treat a thing as it is, we have the provable right to be free to do so! Treating a thing as it is doesn’t mean we should condone an injustice – it just means we should be realistic and face the facts. If an injustice exists, we should first treat it as existing and then combat it.
If we have the provable right to be free, then we surely have the provable right to life. We can’t be free unless we have life; the provable right to be free requires the provable right to life. And if we have the right to be free, we have the provable right to property - i.e., to what we produce – since our property contains our labor and our labor is part of our freedom (otherwise we’re a slave). As for land, no one produced it, but it can be justly regarded as property if it is taxed according to its value - thus we needn’t violate the rights of private property via taxation to raise governmental revenue).
Ethical relativists believe that no ethical standard can be proven true, but ethical relativism is itself an ethical standard and so by its own admission it can never be proven true! Hoist by its own petard!!
ETHICAL RELATIVISM IS SOCIALLY HARMFUL: Societies which maintain that the equal-rights doctrine is only a personal opinion argue weakly for their ethical opinions and so are asking for trouble. Their enemies also have opinions.
When you oppose murder, slavery and robbery (as ends in themselves), you are thereby granting others their equal rights to life, liberty and property; wouldn’t a valid proof strengthen your opposition?
Society often kills as when it executes a heinous criminal, or denies liberty by imprisoning them, or denies property by fining them. Changing circumstances can justify moral relativism, which is the application in the real world of ethical principle, but ETHICAL RELATIVISM (WHICH CONCERNS PRINCIPLES) CAN NEVER BE JUSTIFIED, WHILE ETHICAL RATIONALISM IS ALWAYS JUSTIFIED. Honest people agree as to principle but may disagree as to the application of ethical principle in the real world because changing circumstances are hard to analyze.
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Your comments are invited.