Political Theory of Human Rights

Velleman on relativism.

A link of possible interest to some of you, given the topics we've been discussing.

David Velleman, a prominent moral and political philosophy professor, shares his thoughts on relativism. He's a universalist, and he's happy to reject relativism on the grounds that it "denies the universality of morality." Well, yeah. But that's not what makes this an interesting read. He agrees with me about the paucity of actual extreme relativists, and concludes that anti-relativists generally have some other agenda.

Note: I don't recommend reading the comments and discussion, unless you've got about four hours to kill. If you do, I'll give you better reading recommendations.

Update: Another blogger/philosopher chimes in to clarify debates about relativism, and particularly to speculate on why some want to connect liberals (in the contemporary political sense) with relativism. One particularly important point she makes is:

I have met people who think that if you are not a moral relativist, then you must believe not just that there are right answers to moral questions, but that you know what they are. If you think about it, there's no obvious reason why this should be true: in almost every other area, it's clear that we can believe both that there are right answers to questions and that we don't know what they are. (I mean: I don't know how tall Moe and von are, but that doesn't mean I don't believe that they have a determinate height.)

This is important. Universalists needn't be entirely sure of themselves on the content or morality, just that specific content exists. Universalists can admit to all kinds of uncertainty on just what exactly the moral rules that apply to all of us are. This can lead to making some concessions to relativists on practical grounds ("Well, we're not sure if this is wrong or not, so we'll tolerate different ways of doing it") while conceding nothing on philosophical grounds.

posted by David Watkins @ 9:37 AM