Bernard Williams: Vulgar Moral Relativism

[Veritas Aequitas]

It is difficult for me to explain, but one will get the overall idea from this video that Vulgar Relativism, is self-defeating or self-contradictory.

Bernard Williams' Attack on Moral Relativism as Vulgar Moral Relativism
Jeffrey Kaplan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uBbmuvW-Kc

This is a lecture explaining a brief section called "Interlude: Relativism​" in his book "Morality: An Introduction to Ethics."
The basic idea that Williams has is that there is a tension between moral relativism and some kind of universal toleration principle.
These two view, which Williams believes contradict one another, however, are often held together, by the same people, as part of a view that he calls "Vulgar Relativism."
The problem with Vulgar Relativism, Williams claims, is that it is self-defeating or self-contradictory.

Notes: Jeffrey Kaplan;
Bernard Williams’s Interlude: Relativism,
in his book Morality: An Introduction to Ethics.

In this brief interlude, Williams defines and attacks a view that we can call “Vulgar Relativism.”
Vulgar Relativism is really a view about the relationship between the following two claims:
A. Relativism - What is morally right or wrong can only be coherently understood as relative to the accepted moral code of a society.
B. Toleration - It is wrong for people in one society to condemn or interfere with the moral
code or values of another society.
Vulgar Relativism is, basically, the combination of these two. More precisely, it is the claim that A is true and that B follows from A, so B is true as well. Even more precisely, Williams defines Vulgar Relativism as the view that adopts each claim in a three-step argument that he lays out in the first paragraph of the reading.

[Veritas Aequitas]

https://andrewmilroy.com/2017/12/02/vul ... es-taylor/

Williams views “vulgar relativism” as a disgusting moral view in philosophy.
Normally referred to as moral relativism, this moral view holds that what is right can only be determined as what is right for that specific society at that specific time, whichever the time and society may be.

Williams uses three propositions when defining what “vulgar relativism”.
His first proposition is that a ‘right’ can only coherently be understood as meaning what is “right for a given society” and then his second proposition is that what is “right for a given society” is to be understood in a functionalist sense.[1]
His third proposition, the conclusion which follows from the first two propositions, is that “vulgar relativism” precludes people from one society to condemn and interfere with the values of another society.[2] T
o come to the conclusion that no society ought to interfere with individuals from another society in order to confront them on specific practices of their society, Williams takes to be a vulgar moral position.
He does not think that such a conclusion can be a consequence of the nature of morality.[3]

In Williams view, a large objection to “vulgar relativism” is the difficulties which surround the identification of “a society”.[4]
If society is defined partially through the values of a cultural unit, then Williams claims that the functionalist propositions will become nothing more than bare tautologies, self-contradictory in other words.

Furthermore, there is the problem with just what exactly it is we should take to constitute as a society. How many people must be involved and in what sort of an arrangement needs to be addressed under this “vulgar relativism” which it is not. For example, are the people in Ghana who still follow the Ashanti tradition a society, or would it be more proper to classify them as simply a group of people who are part of the Ghana society but are practicing the Ashanti tradition.
As Williams previously pointed out is there even a distinction between society and the practice of a tradition or are they both one and the same. Even if it were the case that those following the Ashanti tradition in Ghana do make up a specific society of their own, Williams questions whether or not due to the size of the society and the high degree of relational integration between the two groups, both in values and future dependency, should it not be the case that to some extent it is acceptable to intervene and/or condemn specific practices of one or the other.

Williams further into the article notes that the idea of morality as only existing to each specific society without overlap is in at least a minimal degree false. There is, in fact, Williams believes, some aspects of morality which seem to cross over societies and cultures. The example Williams provides is that of the element of universalization, found in any morality.[5]
It seems that many of the most fundamental aspects of morality can be found in each society and it is merely the way in which that society extrapolates what should and should not be permissible is what differs.

[1] Williams, Morality (Harper and Row, 1972): pg.20
[2] ibid
[3] ibid pg.25
[4] ibid pg.21
[5] ibid pg.23

[Veritas Aequitas]

http://carneades.pomona.edu/2019-Ethics ... ivism.html

We’re back at the question about relativism and tolerance. Williams is harshly critical of the attempt to move from moral relativism to conclusions about tolerance.

He identifies this view as “vulgar relativism” which he calls “the anthropologist’s heresy … the most absurd view to have been advanced even in moral philosophy” (Williams 1972, 20).

Vulgar Relativism has three points:

‘Right’ means ‘right for a given society.’
‘Right for a given society’ is to be understood in functionalist terms.
Therefore, it is wrong for the members of one society to condemn or interfere with the values of another society.
Williams criticizes the logical consistency of moral relativism in the first premise and the universal moral conclusion. He also raises questions about the usefulness of the functionalist assumption in the second premise.

functionalism
If we’re going to say that moral standards are relative to a culture, we’re going to have to identify which standards a culture has. This is a point that we made in our discussion last time.

Williams’s “vulgar” relativist has an answer: a culture’s standards are the ones that play a functional role in maintaining the society over generations.

Williams’s central point about this is that it isn’t very helpful in some of the cases where we very much need standards. These would be cases where there is no society to maintain or where the identity of the society is what is at issue.

In wars, for example, the contending sides do not make up a single society. So there can’t be any standards that would maintain their common society. Does it follow that there are no moral standards in war?

Furthermore, many postcolonial states faced significant questions about whether they governed unified societies or not. The political boundaries were typically drawn by the colonial powers and rarely reflected existing cultural or political alignments. So if one group does not think it belongs to the same society as another and that other group disagrees, the question “what rules function to maintain the society?” can’t be answered until we settle the question that is actually at issue, namely, “what is the society here?” Again, the functionalist assumption seems to lead to the unhappy conclusion that there are no standards at all.

cortez’s men
When Cortez’s men discovered that the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice, they were horrified. Williams takes that to show just how hard it is to cease judging others by your moral standards (Williams 1972, 24). These were not nice people and they were there to pillage. But they couldn’t help seeing the Aztecs as humans and judging them by their standards for human beings.

I think it’s obvious that sometimes you should change your moral beliefs when you’re confronted with people who disagree with you. I also think it’s obvious that sometimes you should not.

But when should you do the one and when should you do the other? That’s not easy to say. In fact, there aren’t just two options. I put a spectrum of ten different ways of reacting to being confronted with different moral practices on the board.

It’s abominable and must be stopped.
It’s wrong but we can’t stop it.
It’s wrong, but stopping it would be worse than letting it continue.
It’s wrong, but it’s not my business to tell them what to do.
I think it’s wrong, but who am I to judge?
I don’t know what to make of it.
It’s OK for them, but definitely not for us.
It’s OK for them but maybe not for us.
It’s OK for them and so OK for us too.
It’s great! We should copy them.
This is far too crude, of course. But I hope to give a sense of the variety of possible reactions.

Anthropologists surely believe that there is a lot to be learned from other societies. What’s the point of being an anthropologist if you don’t believe that? If their relativism is phrased incautiously, however, they could inadvertently wind up saying the opposite. If each culture is completely separate from the others, such that all judgment across cultural lines is inappropriate, then it’s hard to see how learning across cultural lines could be possible.

key points
These are the points you should know or have an opinion about from today’s class.

Vulgar relativism.
The lesson of Cortez’s men and the Aztecs.

references
Williams, Bernard. 1972. Morality: An Introduction to Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[FlashDangerpants]

That video is arguing that relativism as a branch of moral realism is oncompatible with a (axiomatic, a priori) universal toleration principle.

Who at this site is a moral realist of the realtivist sort (other than perhaps Skepdick)?

The video is perfectly good and worth watching, but I see no relevance to any other conversations going on at PN.

[Iwannaplato]

A. Relativism - What is morally right or wrong can only be coherently understood as relative to the accepted moral code of a society.
B. Toleration - It is wrong for people in one society to condemn or interfere with the moral
code or values of another society.

Yah, well that's a problem since B contradicts well B, since other cultures are going to have judgment of other cultures (and subcultures within their own cultures) as a core value. Hence Vulgart, not any old, relativism.

[FlashDangerpants]

As a side note though: Head to the 29th minute of that viedo and you will see he presents an argument that moral realtivism and toleration if both taken to be true arrive at a mutually exclusive fact claim.

A similar argument has already been made that VA's "credible" moral science simply constructs lists of activities ordered according to estimates of goodness and badness. But that nothing prevents the Taliban from creating an identical moral science and listing things according to their take on goodness and badness units. And that the end result is two "credible" FSKs each asserting contradictory facts.

So VA should not be linking to this sort of argument as he is on record refusing to accept that this brand of counter represents a problem.

[Skepdick]

As a side note though: Head to the 29th minute of that viedo and you will see he presents an argument that moral realtivism and toleration if both taken to be true arrive at a mutually exclusive fact claim.

Dude. When are you ever going to get over mutual exclusivity? It pertains to the particular measurements of events not the possible measurement outcomes of events.

It can't be that you measure a Qubit and it's both 1 AND 0 but it can be that any given measurement is 0 OR 1.

The notion of mutual exclusivity becomes incoherent in a quantum paradigm.

[Iwannaplato]

I realized also, on further mulling, that it grants an odd, immaculate, ontological status to a culture/society. IOW is this by country? Well countries have different subcultures/subsocieties. Why would the Amish, say, be able to be judged within 'their' culture, the US, but the US can't be judged from outside it? Or why not down to the family or the individual? Why is there this wall of moral judgment protection around cultures/societies, but not within? Why can't the 'criminal' or 'the Mafia' or 'the honor killers' claim societal status - within philosophy if not within the laws of a country - and thus diplomatic immunity?

[Veritas Aequitas]

PH's [and his likes] beliefs of morality is Vulgar Moral Relativism.

PH do not believes that Morality is objective since there are no objective moral facts.
However PH believes there is morality which is based on feelings, opinion, and judgment of right or wrong.
In this sense, PH's belief of morality is moral relativism, i.e. relative to individual[s] feelings, opinion, and judgment of right or wrong.

While it is likely PH may condemns certain relative moral views, he is likely to tolerate them.
PH's toleration is implied since he does not have any objective morality that these moralists should adopt or change their moral beliefs to.

For example, Islamists believe in accordance to the mandate of their religion, homosexuals should be killed by throwing them off tall buildings and other means.
People like PH may openly condemned such acts and hope actions are taken against them, but his basis is merely based on political and legal ground not moral grounds.
In this case, morally, PH does tolerate such abhorrent evil [immoral] acts.

According to Bernard Williams' definition, PH and his likes are Vulgar Moral Relativists.

[Iwannaplato]

PH's [and his likes] beliefs of morality is Vulgar Moral Relativism.

This is false. PH does not believe B.

B. Toleration - It is wrong for people in one society to condemn or interfere with the moral code or values of another society.

[FlashDangerpants]

While it is likely PH may condemns certain relative moral views, he is likely to tolerate them.

Really letting your inner Stalin show there.

[Agent Smith]

"He planted the seed" said Azel, quite beside herself. "No, he didn't" Rufus replied. "He planted the seed" repeated Azel. "No he didn't! Don't believe me, go check!" Rufus responded, rather offended. Azel walked toward the bushes, peeked behind and returned, her head swaying from side to side, "nope, he didn't plant the seed!"