Some Varieties of Metaethical Relativism

Philosophy Compass 11 (10):529-540 (2016)
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Abstract

This opinionated survey article discusses a relativist view in metaethics that we can call Appraiser-standard Relativism. According to this view, the truth value of moral judgments varies depending on the moral standard of the appraiser – that is, someone who makes or assesses the judgments. On this view, when two persons judge that, say, lying is always morally wrong; one of the judgments might be true and the other false. The paper presents various forms of this view, contrasts it against other forms of moral relativism, and shortly describes the main arguments for it. It considers the two most pressing objections – from disagreement and from counterintuitivity – and discusses how different forms of Appraiser-standard Relativism are affected by, or can be seen as responses to, these objections. Lastly, it discusses whether Appraiser-standard Relativism rules out moral realism, the view that there are objective moral truths.

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Author's Profile

Ragnar Francén
University of Gothenburg

References found in this work

“How to Be a Moral Realist.Richard Boyd - 1988 - In G. Sayre-McCord (ed.), Essays on Moral Realism. Cornell University Press. pp. 181-228.
Relativism and disagreement.John MacFarlane - 2007 - Philosophical Studies 132 (1):17-31.
Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics.Robert Shaver - 1992 - Philosophical Review 101 (2):458.
Future contingents and relative truth.John MacFarlane - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (212):321–336.

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