Studies in moral relativism

This dissertation aims to defend meta-ethical moral relativism. Chapter one argues that previous attempts to justify relativism, which either make an inferential move from the diversity of moral values and practices to meta-ethical relativism or which aim to justify relativism as a way of settling long standing irresolvable disagreements, fail. Instead, relativism is best justified as an inference to the best explanation where relativism better explains moral phenomena than competing meta-ethical theories. Part of making the case for relativism as the best explanation involves refuting a number of long standing criticisms. To that end, the following chapters argue that relativism can overcome onerous objections and is, in some respects, preferable to realist accounts of morality.;Chapter two addresses the criticism that relativism has difficulty making sense of genuine disagreement where two disputants are making contradictory claims with competing truth values. The criticism holds that under relativism two parties to a disagreement can hold contradictory positions while both of their claims are true. I resolve this problem by articulating a picture of moral relativism where the disagreements in question are better understood as negotiations over shared social norms.;Chapter three responds to the concern that relativism lacks the conceptual tools to explain moral progress. Because relativism claims that moral value is always relative to some culture it cannot show how some moral schemes can be preferable to others. Thus the relativist cannot explain how we might make moral progress. I analyze three 'strong' accounts of relativistic progress and conclude that none adequately address the concern before offering a more successful 'weak' account of progress.;In chapter four I argue that moral relativism is immune to epistemologically based skeptical arguments that threaten realist accounts.;Finally, in chapter five, I offer an overlooked concern for moral relativism: that it will entail cases of moral subordination where in the course of resolving everyday coordination problems some moral views will be subordinated to others. While relativists have offered accounts aimed at removing the possibility of oppressive moral norms, I argue these accounts will fail to justify necessary subordination. Thus, relativists face a justificatory gap.