Racism and Ethical Relativism: What You Need to Know

Introduction 

Taking into consideration an ethical issue like racism, we can develop a position whether ethical relativism is right or wrong. From this perspective, we can debate on relativism about culture, that is, the idea that societal norms are equal. The relativism in this scenario asserts that if racism is right in one society, then there is no choice but to morally engage in practices that are racist in that given society (Shchipunov, 2015). Ethical relativism, therefore, is a mistake and very wrong.

Ethical relativism views that whatever is ethically acceptable is an individual concern, commonly referred to as individual subjectivism or a cultural matter, also known as cultural conventionalism/ relativism is morally right (Shchipunov, 2015). Different societies possess different beliefs and customs, and every person believes that societal views from one’s community are correct. However, in a real sense, there are no customs which are better or worse than another given society’s beliefs or way of living. Every culture has a set of standards which guides its people to differentiate between what is acceptable or not. Ethical Relativism involves taking a stand that none of the ideas is either right or wrong. Either way, it considers all views to be equally valid, or therefore each has the mandate to determine what is probably right and applies to them (Shchipunov, 2015). That is, the truth varies from one person to another. Ethical relativism brings out the positions: whatever may be right for you is not necessarily right for me, the way your culture believes that something is right is not a guarantee that my society does the same and that moral issues do not apply to everyone at any given time or their jurisdiction. It declares a stand social norms and ethics guides our morality, and therefore people are subject to change concerning their ethical positions due to cultural influence, knowledge, and innovations in technology within the surroundings.

Ethical relativism also may be as a result of sentiments and emotion (Kupperman, 2014). That is, language can be used to express desires or disapprove an action towards something and therefore it could be right or wrong depending on preferences. Thus, ethical relativism is an avenue used by researchers to explain what may be right or wrong regarding morality and to bring out the virtue of different societies to be able to appreciate each other.

Ethical Relativism regarding racism 

Racism falls into two paradigms: Racial inferiority where a specific population refers to another society as inferior because of belonging to a given race and racial antipathy which involves hate, aggressiveness, and prejudice to a given community because of their skin color. It includes treating some members as defective and others as superior. Racism concerns moral judgment and way of reasoning. It is a matter that deals with particular beliefs regardless of whether those beliefs are right or wrong (Francén Olinder, 2016). Racism from the moral psychology view outlines the acceptable things to do and those that are not right. It creates disputes on what is the right or wrong way to approach racism. Discussing this from the point of ethical relativism, not everyone is opposed or supports racism. Some societies may find it morally right to uphold racism whereas a different society may term as very wrong. Both are right from their perspective but the issue come in when the question of morality comes in. The effect of racism concerns different cultures regarding their moral codes. There are differences in every culture concerning what is moral and how it has been over generations. Taking, for instance, a white person working in some parts of the developing countries with state ministries, government bodies, and law enforcement institutions. His/her refusal to offer bribes or spend their nights in big restaurants may be seen as a disrespect to the cultural norms of a high-level officer as is the case in that part of the globe. Another instance relates to booking appointments. In most of the Western countries, meetings are done on time and being late for a meeting can be viewed by others as a cultural influence and often associated with developing countries.

(Sullivan, 2016) If a society believes that racism is morally wrong and another culture thinks that it is right, then the fact that racism is morally wrong is relative, that is, it will depend with the community that one belongs and how the matter has been over the years. Therefore, the question raised from this is whether actions that focus on racism a right or wrong because due to a society believing it to be right or wrong therefore is a flaw.

Objections of Ethical Relativism from Racism Point 

Individual relativism 

From the individual’s point of view, individual relativism refutes itself. If whatever each person thinks is morally right, then a different case arising from another person believing that there exists an objective right concerning ethics, then that person will be right, therefore, refuting others (Shchipunov, 2015). Moreover, there is no room for argument on what is acceptable or invalid even when one is sure that somebody is hugely wrong. In this case, one is made to agree that racism is indeed right yet personally he or she knows it is wrong. That is, if one government official claims that racism is right and receives support from another official, then all people, in this case, are right without considering what one might be believing in or views of that specific person. For example, if an African student scores A’s in coursework and the tutor admits to failing him is not just as well, not correct. Therefore from this scenario, individual relativism is not correct as an ethical theory.

Cultural relativism 

Cultural relativism again has its limitations in this concern. First, it does not justify explanations of other cultures. Some cultures accept racism, but relativism does not provide reasons why their actions are acceptable or moral (Pojman & Fieser, 2017). Ethical relativism gives no room to argue what is right or wrong among different cultures however much convinced that a given perception is false. For instance, if a top western government official says racism is right and the other officials back him or her up, then all actions focusing on racism are right as long as the societal norms thought it to be right. This way of using cultural relativism will lead to abnormal behaviors from some individuals as a result of not agreeing with the cultural beliefs. That is, believing that belonging to a particular race is a non-scientific basis but a social construct which may lead to the branding of an individual disrespectful to the community, which according to them is not right. Cultural relativism again does not provide the statistics of a given question, that is, whether racism is right. It does not offer the counts of what other cultures think of belief (Levy, 2014).

Ethical relativism suffers the problem of specificity. The idea of a given group believing that moral beliefs are as a result of social groups forming them and assuming that those ethics apply only to the people who came up with them. In this case, it raises the concern on the extent of the applicability of the laid out beliefs and norms in terms concerning a given race. In this manner, if one thinks in this way, then he/she is not probably referring to a specific group of people.

Negative implications of Ethical Relativism 

As much as there is a lot of flaw in relativism, relativism brings about disagreements among the relativists. Even though ethical relativism might be correct, it has a lot of undesirable outcomes:

First, it does not give space for condemnation of other cultures (Pojman & Fieser, 2017). If a particular society acknowledges racism, then there would be no need for others to condemn racism as it would be morally wrong for another community to condemn racism due to relativism. Since that society deems racism as right, it would be right for them to continue racist activities. In this manner, the verdict is not correct because we may say that the other society is mistaken about morality.

Secondly, it does not allow the condemnation of one’s culture. In case ethical relativism was right, then there would not be cases of one criticizing their own culture. According to relativism, none of the societies are at wrong concerning their actions (Pojman & Fieser, 2017). A community can decide that people of different skin color are cruel and what majority choose and say it is right will be permissible and whatever the majority say it is wrong is not permitted.

Also, relativism makes moral progress impossible because under it, there is no existence of moral development. Relativism does not have standards of things changing over time (Pojman & Fieser, 2017). During pre-colonial periods, most societies approved racism, so in this case, racism was permissible at that time and was morally right which led to vices such as slavery. Currently, the majority of the societies does not approve racism; therefore, through relativism, racism is morally wrong now. As a result, the present moral views are better than they were during the colonial period. Thus, the current view nor the precolonial view of racism is better than the other, but they are different.

Lastly, ethical relativism causes absurd situations, which is if a society repeatedly endows racism as right then it would justify it as right (Dion, 2012). The act of regularly performing a wrong action and making it right is absurd.

Conclusion 

Despite the fact that ethical relativism is a debatable issue, it has been one of the leading causes of confusion. The confusion is as a result of some people thinking that there are a lot of moral standards concerning what is wrong and right and therefore tend to believe that it is true. One should be able to differentiate the subjective truth and the objective truth to qualify this issue. Universal moral standards may be there even though different communities hold different views, that is, we may agree that these differences may be morally unacceptable, for instance, racism is not acceptable however may be socially acceptable.

The logical errors in ethical relativism are huge, therefore, is illogical, counter-intuitive, impossible and dangerous for it to be right. Ethical relativism is thus false because morality cannot be subjective. The moral position of racism is not just about skin color or one coming from a specific race which is either inferior or superior. It is wrong to agree that things are not acceptable or wrong because a large population does not agree with it or on the other hand, becomes acceptable if the society discovers that these actions are acceptable. Racism is not only verifiable that it is wrong but also because there are some objective moral truths concerning the moral status of the activities that come with it. Furthermore, some things will always be unacceptable, regardless of the individual trying to justify them. It is morally wrong to discriminate anyone because of belonging to a specific race.

References

Dion, M. (2012). Are ethical theories relevant to ethical leadership? Leadership & Organization Development Journal , 33 (1), 4-24.

Francén Olinder, R. (2016). Some Varieties of Metaethical Relativism. Philosophy Compass , 11 (10), 529-540.

Kupperman, J. (2014). Ethical Knowledge . Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

Levy, N. (2014). Moral Relativism . London: Oneworld Publications.

Pojman, L., & Fieser, J. (2017). Ethics (7th Ed.). Boston: Cengage Learning.

Shchipunov, O. (2015). Ethical relativism: philosophical approaches to the study. Contemporary Problems of Social Work , 1 (2), 58-62.

Sullivan, G. (2016). Toward a thoroughly cultural and discursive moral analysis of prejudice, discrimination, and racism. Psyccritiques , 61 (13).