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Moral Change and Social Relativism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2009

Joseph Raz
Joseph Raz
Affiliation:
Philosophy, Balliol College, Oxford University
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Extract

I could not write the essay I hoped to write. I hoped to write about cultural pluralism and moral epistemology by assuming that the first is the case and exploring what implications this may have for the second. But I soon realized that I do not know what cultural pluralism is. I do not mean that I have just belatedly discovered that the phrase “cultural pluralism” is used in different ways on different occasions. I mean that I realized that I myself did not know in what sense the phrase may be used which makes it relevant to the inquiry suggested by the general topic of this volume. So the following reflections are based on one assumption: The fact of multiculturalism cannot have much bearing on moral epistemology unless it bears on moral truths.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , Winter 1994 , pp. 139 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1994

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References

1 In this essay I am proceeding on the assumption—not to be examined here—that at least some types of moral statements bear truth values.

2 When referring to “the moral practices” of a society. I wish to imply neither that members of that society never fail to conform to the standards generally endorsed in that society, nor that mere Up service paid to a standard which is systematically disregarded in action is enough to make that standard part of the practice of the society. Rather, the phrase refers, as it commonly does, to a general but unspecified degree of endorsement coupled with a similarly general and unspecified degree of compliance in action.

When referring to morality being a function of moral practices, I mean “function” in its natural signification—i.e., a thing that depends on and varies with something else—which includes the idea that morality is a function sensitive to variations in moral practices. Functions which yield the same morality for all societies regardless of variations in their moral practices are excluded.

3 This condition will be examined below.

4 It is tautological if it is read as saying: “The moral rules practiced in this society which apply to its members, apply to its members”; i.e., the rules require conformity from those they apply to. It is false if it means: “The moral rules practiced in this society stipulate that the fact that they are practiced is a reason for members of the society in which they are practiced to follow them.”

5 Though quite often we invoke the practices of other societies to excuse or mitigate our judgment of actions of their members.

6 I do not know whether the argument applies to other, yet to be specified, versions of (A). The following remarks constitute a prima facie case for thinking that it does.

7 The distinction is discussed again in the next section. No final and comprehensive criteria for drawing it are needed for the purposes of this essay.

8 “The supervenience of the moral on the nonmoral” refers to a familiar philosophical doctrine according to which two things can vary in their moral properties only if they vary in their nonmoral properties.

9 Can it be otherwise? Perhaps if the moral change is not merely in one principle, but if the whole of morality valid at one point is replaced by a different morality at a later time. Perhaps then the new morality can still supervene on the same nonmoral facts, only in a different configuration. But if such a change were to happen, its occurrence would surely be unintelligible.

The possibility of moral change through conceptual change will be separately considered below.

10 The justifying reasons may also be one's epistemic reasons. But one may have other epistemic reasons, e.g., reliable advice.

11 A closely related point is discussed in some detail in the appendix to Raz, Joseph, Practical Reason and Nortns, 2d ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990)Google Scholar, as well as by Scheffler, Samuel in Human Morality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

12 The view that it does is a legacy of the instrumental conception of reason. Unfortunately, many who reject it do accept instrumental rationality as the clearest and safest form of practical rationality. See, however, Hampton, Jean, “Rethinking Reason,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 3 (07 1992), pp. 219–36Google Scholar, for arguments that, far from being so instrumental, rationality presupposes noninstrumental practical rationality. Arguments to the same effect were pressed by Warren Quinn, and will be included in the collection of his essays to be published by Oxford University Press in 1993.

13 Or at least timeless normative/evaluative principles?

14 It may be that morality itself makes sense or is in force only under certain conditions, e.g., only while moral agents exist. The discussion of the temporal boundaries of moral principles is not meant to reflect this fact but to assume it. That is, the question under consideration is whether there must be one or more moral principles which must be valid for as long as morality is in force or makes sense, or whether this is not so and it is possible that no single moral principle is valid throughout the period during which morality is in force.

15 Some changes are explained by principles which were known and understood all along. I am simply interested in the case where this is not so.