“Isn’t it all relative?”

A: Aren’t Socrates and his friends just wasting their time arguing about piety, justice, right and wrong? Aren’t these things all relative?

B: What do you mean, “relative”?

A: I mean that the same action can be right for one person but not for another.

B: Who would deny this? It isn’t wrong for me to dig up my garden, if that’s what I feel like doing. But if my neighbor dug up my garden, that would be wrong. Do you think Socrates would disagree?

A: That’s not what I meant. I didn’t mean that the same type of action can be right for one person but not for another. I meant that the very same act—a specific act by a specific person in specific circumstances—can be right for one person but not for another.

B: So, when you say “for X”, X is the person who is assessing the action, not the person who is acting?

A: Yes, that’s right.

B: Let’s take as an example Euthyphro’s action of prosecuting his father in the circumstances described in the Euthyphro. Call this action “A”. Are you saying that A might be pious for Euthyphro, but not for Socrates?

A: Now you understand me.

B: I wish I did. But I still don’t know what you mean by “pious for Euthyphro, but not for Socrates.” Do you just mean that Euthyphro thinks it is pious, and that Socrates doesn’t?

A: Hmmm. Well, guess I don’t just mean that, because that’s not something Socrates would deny.

B: Right. It’s painfully clear to Socrates that he and Euthyphro have different beliefs on this matter.

A: I guess I want to deny that there’s anything else to talk about, in the case of piety. When you’re talking about (say) how much something weighs, there are two things: what you believe it weighs and how much it really weighs. But in the case of piety, and in general with questions of right and wrong, there’s just the belief: there’s no fact of the matter.

B: Many people think there’s a fact of the matter in these cases.

A: Well, I think they’re suffering from an illusion. Enlightened people don’t have beliefs about what is “right” or “wrong” absolutely. That’s like believing in witches.

B: But as an enlightened person, you can still have beliefs about what is right and wrong for you?

A: Of course. For example, I believe that inflicting unnecessary pain on animals is wrong. That’s why I don’t eat factory-farmed meat. Eating meat is wrong—for me. That’s not to say there’s a “fact of the matter.” It might be right for you.

B: You believe that eating meat is wrong for you?

A: Yes.

B: But what exactly is it that you believe? You said before that there’s nothing to right and wrong except what people believe. So when you say you believe that an action is wrong for you, do you just mean you believe that you believe that eating meat is wrong?

A: I think I see where this is going. Next you’re going to ask me what it is that I believe I believe. And I’m going to have to say it’s that I believe that eating meat is wrong. And we could go on forever like that.

B: Right. If saying that something is “wrong for you” is just saying that you have a certain belief, then we ought to be able to say what that belief is. If the answer is: “it’s the belief that the thing is wrong for you”, then we’re no better off than we were.

A: I can see now that I must mean something more by “A is wrong for X” than “X believes that A is wrong.”

B: Okay, then, tell me what you mean.

A: I mean something like this: “X condemns A.”

B: What do you mean, “condemns”? Do you mean that X believes that A is wrong?

A: No, I see I can’t mean that, although I agree it’s what we ordinarily mean when we talk of “condemning.” Let me choose a less value-loaded term. To say that A is wrong for X is just to say that X disapproves of A.

B: So when you say that eating meat is wrong (for you), you just mean that you disapprove of it.

A: Right.

B: Well, why do you disapprove of it?

A: Because it’s… Because it supports factory farming, which causes unnecessary pain in animals.

B: Why are you so concerned about causing unnecessary pain?

A: Because… Okay, I can see that you’re trying to get me to say that it’s because pain is bad, or because inflicting unnecessary pain is wrong (absolutely). I’ve read the Euthyphro. But I’m not going to fall for that. I disapprove of eating meat because inflicting unnecessary pain is wrong for me. And by that I just mean that I disapprove of inflicting unnecessary pain. Why do I disapprove of it? I just do. That’s a brute fact about me.

B: If that’s right, then arguing about right and wrong is pretty silly, isn’t it?

A: Exactly my point. The activity Socrates thinks is so important is really just an empty game. At bottom they’re just arguing about their own personal attitudes, but they pretend they’re discussing some kind of objective subject matter.

B: Have you always been a vegetarian?

A: No, only these last four years.

B: Before that, you approved of eating meat?

A: Yes. For me, then, it was right for people to eat meat.

B: What changed your mind?

A: I started to learn more about the horrors of factory farming. I realized that inflicting so much unnecessary pain was not…something I approved of.

B: Did you approve of inflicting unnecessary pain earlier in your life?

A: No, of course not. I never approved of it. It’s just that I didn’t realize that by eating meat I was contributing to the infliction of unnecessary pain on animals.

B: Let me get this straight. Earlier in life, you approved of eating factory farmed meat, but you disapproved of contributing to the infliction of unnecessary pain on animals.

A: Right.

B: When you ate turkey on Thanksgiving, back in those days, you were contributing to the infliction of unnecessary pain on animals, right?

A: Yes.

B: So you were doing something you disapproved of?

A: Sure—though I didn’t know this at the time.

B: And you were also doing something you approved of: eating Thanksgiving turkey?

A: Yes.

B: So was that action right or wrong for you at the time? I assume you won’t say it was both!

A: (Pause.) It was right for me then, because although it was the kind of action I disapproved of, I didn’t know it was, and so I didn’t consciously disapprove of that particular action.

B: Suppose I give you a hot dog and claim it’s really a veggie dog, and you believe me. Would it be wrong for you to eat it?

A: No, because I wouldn’t consciously disapprove of it.

B: So why, when you go to restaurants, do you take such care to make sure there are no meat products in the dishes you order? If you didn’t know about the meat, it would be right for you to eat them—right?

A: I see what you’re getting at. I ask whether there’s meat in the dishes because I think eating meat is wrong for me, even if I do it unknowingly. Of course, if it’s not my fault that I don’t know, I have an excuse.

B: But the fact that you don’t know about the meat does not make it right for you to eat it: otherwise you’d have no reason to try to find out!

A: Okay, I accept that. I think what I want to say now is that eating that Thanksgiving turkey was wrong for me even then, and that I only realized that I had been doing something wrong (for me) four years ago.

B: Well, then, why do you persist in adding “for me”, if you think you can make mistakes about what is wrong for you?

A: It’s needed because although I think one can be mistaken about the rightness or wrongness (for one) of a particular action, whether the act is right or wrong depends entirely on certain general principles one accepts: in my case, the principle that one must not contribute to unnecessary suffering in animals.

B: And I suppose you think you can’t be mistaken about this principle?

A: Right. All that matters is that I accept it.

B: And by “accept it,” you mean “take it to be true”?

A: True for me.

B: I thought you’d say that. And to say it’s true for you is just to say that you approve of it?

A: Yes.

B: How do you know that the general principles you accept don’t conflict? Before you became a vegetarian, you accepted two different general principles, one saying that it is okay to eat meat, the other saying that one should not contribute to unnecessary suffering in animals. You didn’t know these principles conflicted until you found out more about how meat is produced. When you approved of both principles, were they both true for you?

A: You make a good point. I guess it’s important that the principles one approves of are at least consistent with each other, given the way the world is. Otherwise I’d have to be a relativist about logic, not just morality!

B: So, how do we find out if the principles we approve of are consistent with each other?

A: Well, we see what follows from them (together with other things we believe about the world), and we test them by considering various hypothetical cases. If we derive a contradiction this way, we know we’ve got to revise our principles.

B: So, we do what Socrates does in the dialogues?

A: Uh huh. So I guess there’s a point to what Socrates is doing, even for a relativist!

B: At the beginning of our discussion, you used “It’s all relative” as an excuse to dismiss what he was doing as silly.

A: Well, I shouldn’t have. But I still think these issues about justice and piety and right and wrong are “all relative”!

B: I’d still like to know why you are so insistent about this. You wouldn’t make the same claim about other issues: for example, about how much I weigh. That’s not “all relative,” is it?

A: Of course not. There’s a definite, objective answer to that question, the same for everyone.

B: So why do you distinguish this way between questions of weight and questions of justice?

A: Because (as Socrates points out in the Euthyphro) when people disagree about questions of weight, they can easily resolve their disagreement to everyone’s satisfaction. All they have to do is bring out the scale. When the issue is one of justice, on the other hand, they argue endlessly, and there is no method for resolving the disagreement.

B: So you think that the persistence of disagreement on issues of justice shows that these questions have no objective answers?

A: Exactly.

B: But can’t there be persistent disagreement about straightforward factual questions? What if someone just refuses to accept the verdict of the scale, either through stupidity or because of a paranoid belief that I have somehow rigged the scale? And aren’t there lots of religious fundamentalists who reject evolution by natural selection, and who think the earth is less than 10,000 years old?

A: Okay. It’s only persistent disagreement among smart, reasonable, undogmatic people that shows “it’s all relative.”

B: What if you have a group of smart, reasonable, undogmatic color-blind people? Might they not disagree about whether two things are the same color?

A: Yes.

B: So does that show that colors are “all relative,” too?

A: Some people have taken this view, but I don’t. I just need to rephrase my principle a little bit: persistent disagreement among smart, reasonable, undogmatic people with all their faculties in good working order shows lack of objectivity.

B: Among these “faculties” do you include just the ones we’re born with, or also those that require training to acquire?

A: What do you mean?

B: A trained jazz musician can tell you whether a chord you play on the piano is a C major 7 or a G diminished. That’s a perceptual capacity she has, but she didn’t have it at birth. It took a lot of work to acquire it. So, would you include that among the “faculties” in your principle?

A: I guess I have to. I don’t want to say that there’s no objective fact of the matter whether a chord is C major 7 or G diminished.

B: But then, how can you rule out the possibility that people disagree about moral matters because some of them lack a special faculty of moral perception or judgment that can only be acquired through proper moral upbringing? In that case questions of justice would differ only in degree from our music theory question and questions of weight.

A: Look, you’re ignoring a very real difference. People do dispute about right and wrong, and there seems to be no end to it. They don’t dispute about whether a chord is C major 7. I can’t tell just by hearing it, but I know enough to ask a musician. If there’s a special “moral faculty,” every group has different ideas about what it says. That just seems ridiculous.

B: Okay, let’s leave that aside. There is persistent disagreement (among very smart scientists) about whether there is life on other planets. Do you think that shows that there’s no objective fact of the matter here?

A: No. In this case there is disagreement because we don’t have enough evidence to settle the matter one way or another. That’s not what I had in mind. I’m talking about disagreement that would persist no matter how much evidence was available: disagreement that would persist even to the “end of inquiry.”

B: But what makes you so confident that disagreement about moral matters will persist to the end of inquiry?

A: We’ve been disagreeing for at least 3000 years now.

B: Yes, but what does that show? Didn’t people disagree for 350 years about whether Fermat’s Last Theorem was true? No one could prove it or find a counterexample, despite tremendous efforts, until Andrew Wiles proved it just a few years ago. It’s a good thing he didn’t conclude that there was no objective fact of the matter! It took us thousands of years to figure out how combustion works and how the continents were formed. Length of disagreement shows nothing.

A: But at least there was progress in these areas. The scope of disagreement gets gradually reduced.

B: Hasn’t there been progress in morals as well? Isn’t there now widespread agreement, across almost all cultures, that slavery is wrong? Yet in antiquity slavery was an almost universal phenomenon. Maybe we think there’s more disagreement than there is, because we focus on it rather than the huge areas of agreement.

A: Well, I can see I won’t convince you. You have a right to your opinion.

B: What, exactly, do you mean by that?

© 2004 John MacFarlane