Subjectivism,

Relativism, and
Emotivism
Case 1
• Abdulla Yones killed his sixteen-year-old daughter Heshu in their
apartment in west London. The murder was yet another example of
an “honor killing. “ an ancient tradition still practiced in many parts
of the world.
• Using kitchen knife, Yones stabbed Heshu eleven times and slit her
throat. He later declared that he had to kill her to expunge a stain
from his family, a stain that Heshu had caused by her outrageous
behavior.
• What was outrageous to Yones, however, would seem to
many Westerners to be typical teenage antics, annoying but
benign. Heshu's precise offense against her family's honor
is unclear, but the possibilities include wearing makeup,
having a boyfriend, and showing an independent streak
that would be thought perfectly normal throughout the
West.
• In some countries, honor killings are sometimes endorsed
by the local community or even given the tacit blessing of
the state
Question
• What do you think of this time-honored way of
dealing with family conflicts?

• What is your opinion regarding morality of honor

killing?
Objectivism
• The doctrine that some moral norms or principles are valid
for everyone -universal-
• In other words regardless of how cultures may differ in their
moral outlooks.
Cultural Relativism
• The view that an action is morlly right if one's culture
approves of it. Moral rightness and wrongness are
therefore relative to cultures. So in one culture an action
may be morally right; in another culture it may be morally
wrong.
Case 2: Female Circumcision and Cultural Reltivism

Question:
1. Do you think that FGC is morally permissible? If you judge
the practice wrong, are you appealing to some notion of
objective morality? If you judge it permissible, are you
doing so because you are a cultural rrelativist? explain
your reasoning.
Some arguments about Cultural Relativism
1. People's judgments about right and wrong differ from culture to
culture.
2. If people's judgments about right and wrong differ from culture to
culture, then right and wrong are relative to culture, and there are
no objective moral principle.
3. Therefore, right and wrong are relative to culture, and there are no
objective moral principle.
• Premise 1 is most certainly true, people's judgments about
right and wrong do vary from culture to culture.
• Premise 2 is false why? because there are disagreements
among cultures about right and wrong, there must not be
universal standards of right and wrong. but even if the
moral judgments of people in various cultures do differ,
such difference in itself does not show that morality is
relative.
• Another reason to doubt the truth of Premise 2 comes from
questioning how deep the disagreements among cultures really are.
• Judgments about the rightness of action obviously do vary across
cultures. But people can differ in their moral judgment not because
they accept different moral principles, but also because they have
divergent nonmoral beliefs.
Subjective Relativism
• The view that an action is morally right if one approves it.
• That individuals are morally infalliable and that genuine
moral disagreement between individuals is nearly
impossible
Emotivism
• The view that moral utterances are neither true nor false
but are expressions of emotions or attitudes.

• That people cannot disagree over the moral facts because

there are no moral facts, that presenting reasons in support
of a moral utterance is a matter of offering nonmmoral
facts that can influence someone's attitude, and that
nothing is actually good or bad.
Summary
• Subjective relativism is the view that an action is morally right if ones
approves of it. A person's approval makes the action right,. This
doctrine (as well as cultural relativism) is in stark contrast to moral
objectivism, the view that some moral principles are valid for
everyone.
• Subjective relativism, though has some troubling implications. it
implies that each person is morally infallible and that individuals can
never have a genuine moral disagreement.
 Cultura Relativism
• The view that an action is morlly right if one's culture approves of it. the
argument of this doctirne is based on the diversity of moral judgments
among cultures: because people's judgments about right and wrong
differ from culture to culture, right and wrong must be relative to
culture, and there is no objective moral principles.

• This argument is defective, because the diversity of moral views does

not imply that morallity is relative to cultures.

• The alleged diversity of basic moral standards among cultures maybe

only apparent, not real. Societies whose moral judgments conflict may
be differing not over moral principles but over nonmoral facts.