What Are Plato's Arguments Against Moral Relativity

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Fernando Benitez
Professor Krzysztof Sulewski
Philosophy 115
7 November, 2015
An Analytical Outlook on Moral Relativity
Moral relativity is an important topic in meta-ethics. It is also widely discussed outside the realm of philosophy (for example, by political and religious leaders), and continues to stir controversy among philosophers and non-philosophers alike. This is perhaps not very surprising in view of recent evidence that people’s intuitions about moral relativism vary widely. Despite the fact that many philosophers are quite critical about moral relativism, there are few contemporary philosophers who defend forms of it. This includes prominent figures such as David B. Wong, Jesse J. Prinz, J. David Vellemen, and Gilbert Harman. The …show more content…
There would be philosophers that would argue against this concept, a notable one being Plato. Plato strongly opposed this view, asserting that values such as justice and right conduct were absolute and beyond the realm of subjective viewpoints. One of Plato’s arguments against moral relativism is that it is logically unsound. Plato believed that moral relativism has no ethical or logical ground to stand on, since it refutes itself. If all values and standards are subjective and dependent on perspective, then anyone is free to adopt as his own perspective the idea that moral relativism is false. By this argument, Plato says that moral relativism undercuts itself by allowing in its own logic the possibility that it is false. Aside from this argument, Plato proposed a theory regarding the existence of universals or abstract objects. As time progressed philosophers began to question the idea of an objective standard of morality. In the early modern era, Baruch Spinoza a moral anti-realist (1632-1677) would claim that nothing is inherently good or evil (Spinoza also believed in ethical egoism in that everyone ought to seek their own advantage). This closely relates to the modern concept of
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