Cultural Relativism, Ethical Positivism, and Human Reason

The challenge of ethical relativism leaves mankind in doubt about the standards with which it can critique the ethics of a different society on account of the fact that the theory states that societies develop ethics in order to cope with both their physical, and social environments. The central tenet of the dogma is that there is no universal truth in ethics, and therefore critics speak in vain when criticizing the ethics of another society; rather, the critic ought to tolerate the ethics of another society because the ethics he obeys, and those that he critiques developed in two different environments. However, ethical relativism can lead mankind down a path to aberrant ethical positivism where the only standard of ethics are the existing ethics of the day thus denying man the capability of improving his society via reason.

In fact, the entire concept of tolerance, while it is certainly a keystone to an open society in which individuals of differing judgments of value (especially ones of a metaphysical character) can unite in the division of labor that is the engine of prosperity, should not hinder man from critiquing himself, his society, or that of others. There is absolutely no reason to uphold the status-quo as the absolute best of all outcomes in the fashion of some demented species of Leibnizian optimism, and to demand that man should even tolerate all outcomes. For instance, if a missionary is murdered while in Papa New Guinea there is absolutely no reason why his sponsors should not be outraged even though they are from a different culture, and uphold different ethics. However, their just outrage does not mean that it is necessarily just for them to persecute the guilty New Guineans under Western law for the crime. For, while we should not tolerate actions that are deeply offensive to our judgments of value, that does not entail that we can persecute the offenders; instead, just because tolerance should not be given to an actions does not mean that coercion should be used against him. While tolerance should sway the sword-arm of man, it should not do so for the pen of the critic for imagine how much would have been lost in Western civilization if Voltaire had been condemned as not being “tolerant” of his native France.

Instead, society can be improved via the actions of brave souls willing to face the disapproval of society in order to elucidate the problems of the status quo, and how human reason can provide solutions to them. Without a doubt, a dogmatic interpretation of cultural relativism leads to an ethical positivism where the only criterion of right, and wrong are the ethical facts that exist despite how repugnant they may be to a critical analysis. Indeed, the fact that cultures have developed differing ethics does not mean that man does not have any objective criterion for judging ethical standards, which is a conclusion of ethical relativism. Nevertheless, whether by an objective standard, or not man must still refine his society in order to best fit with his moral judgments of value, and even though one might deny that there is any truth in ethics, it is still absolutely ridiculous to believe that certain ethical systems of not advantageous over others. For instance, man has enjoyed an era of unrivaled prosperity on account of the fruits yielded by capitalism, which is in turn made possible thanks to the division of labor, and society has changed forms distinctly as a result of demands the free market. It is absolutely foolish to believe that man does not possess enough reason to realize that there is a difference between an industrial society, and a preindustrial one, and that the two require different social norms, and ethical perspectives. Yet, if we take ethical relativism as a dogma, then we deny man's ability to do so, and we end up in a paradox of sorts: while the doctrine asserts that ethics are nothing but a society's adaptation to its environment, it is a straight-jacket against man's ability to further evolve his ethics to adapt to an environment in flux for no man, nor society exists in a stationary world.