Arguments Against Moral Relativism

I think moral relativism is a sound theory. There is no wrong or right and people have just made it up to make their lives easier and better. It is a worthy theory because one cannot test for something that is right or wrong and people do things because it helps them or it makes them think more highly of themselves. If I said stealing was right could you prove to me that it was actually wrong? Ethics is not like science where someone can run some tests and figure out the answer. Because everyone has different experiences and different lives there will never be two people who think the exact same thing and because of this there will never be universal ethics.
If you believe that there is a right and wrong in this world could you prove it? If I go out a kill someone nothing bad is going to happen to me. I’m not going to get some incurable illness or struck by lightning because it didn’t matter that I killed someone. …show more content…
The only reason why I would be punished is because of human law. Humans say that it is wrong to kill people because they themselves don’t want to be killed. Rachels says, “There are some moral rules that all societies will have in common, because those rules are necessary for society to exist.”(Rachels, 22). Yes many people have agreed not to kill others, but it is not because it is right or wrong, but because humans generally like living and do not want other people to take their life away from them or anyone they love. Agreeing not to kill people is a survival tactic so we can build a functioning society and improve our quality of life. All things that are “right” are because they help us in some way.
An argument against moral relativism is that if nothing is right or wrong could we improve? I think we can improve, but it has nothing to do with being right or wrong. As a human I want to do things that make me happy. Having the right to vote and to get a job as a woman makes me happy. I wouldn’t have had that opportunity in the 1800’s, but I do now. We’ve improved. Before it was not wrong that I didn’t have the right to vote but nor was it right that I couldn’t. Let’s take away whether or not it is right or wrong, what other reasons would people want to give woman the right to vote. If one was a politician they could then appeal to woman to get in office, so this could help their chances of winning. If it was just some random person then they sympathized thing, if I were a woman I would like to have the right to vote, or if I couldn’t vote I’d be unhappy. Because people recognized that it made other people unhappy things changed. Rachels says that “many of our practices are merely peculiar to our society.”(Rachels, 23). If many of our practices are just things that are our culture does then how can we know which ones actually count as morals. If stealing is taught to be wrong then it is just a practice that our culture and many other cultures agree with, but that doesn’t make it a moral just because many people are following it. Many people are told to wash their hands after going to the restroom, not because