Ⅲ．Brink's Objection: Why is Moral Relativism Problematic?

O．Brink f irst distinguished two different moral disagreements:apparent disagreement and genuine disagreement. The former generally shows that the same moral principle has different manifestations according to different conditions in practice. Compared with the apparent moral disagreement, the genuine moral disagreements are more fundamental.The genuine disagreement is the collision of principles: Kantianism versus utilitarianism, Ethics versus normative theory, Hedonism versus stoicism...

For the apparent disagreements, Brink denied Mackie's premise (1). In Brink's view, Mackie's first premise is too arbitrary because it doesn't distinguish between apparent disagreements and genuine disagreements. In fact, if people realize that some moral disagreements seemingly caused by cultural differences actually embody the same principles, then they have the reason to form agreements in practice. For example, although there are different ways to realize freedom and human rights, many countries in the east and the west share a common belief in freedom and human rights.

Furthermore, the apparent disagreements may depend on non-moral facts. For example, people may have different information, self-interest,judgment, and prejudice about an event. These non-moral problems obscure people's common understanding of the concrete embodiment of the agreement criterion.

In fact, the existence of apparent disagreements does not mean that there is no moral truth. On the contrary, people should realize that different moral beliefs are just the embodiment of common truth in practice. At the same time, some cognitive realities also lead to people's temporary inability to resolve moral disagreements, but this does not mean that moral truth itself does not exist.

Aware of the commonality in principle, rational people can further think about how to realize the concept of “freedom” in other cultural,social, and political contexts in their unique “practice” contexts. Through this kind of reflective thinking (Dewey called it dramatic rehearsal), people can finally use reason to transcend disagreements in practice on the basis of common values, and understand how the realization of this concept is reasonable in other cultural contexts, and finally form mutual agreements.Therefore, there is a problem with Mackie's premise (1) for apparent disagreements.

For the genuine disagreements, the disagreements between Mackie and Brink are even greater.

After distinguishing between apparent disagreements and genuine disagreements, Mackie's point of view can be paraphrased as genuine moral disagreements can be resolved if and only if agreements exist between people before actual disagreements on moral principles. However,because there are no such agreements in principle, people cannot resolve genuine disagreements.

(1) If people can't enjoy the agreements on moral principles, then the genuine moral disagreements can't be solved.

(2) People don't enjoy the agreements on moral principles.

(3) Genuine moral disagreements cannot be resolved.

There are three problems with this view. First, moral realists can challenge the legitimacy of premise (2). Moral relativists seem to think that a certain moral value is established only within the moral system. This view is called the principle of internal justification. According to this opinion,aliens cannot judge particular moral beliefs held by the earth from the aliens’ point of view since the legitimacy of moral beliefs help by the earth is internally justified.

However, Hegel pointed out sharply in The Phenomenology of Spirit that a group of values must be found and affirmed in a common horizon.Just as the spirit of individual A must be affirmed by the existence of other individual B. Without mirrors, people can't see themselves. Without a common horizon, the moral system itself cannot be established, because moral values will be reduced to a trivial preference. People don't really struggle with questions about preferences such as “which is better, apples or pears,”“which is cuter, cats or dogs,” and “which is more beautiful, red or blue,” as it's not important. However, if relativists think that a person's moral judgment should not be interfered by others, then moral judgment becomes the same kind of preference as “apples or pears” and therefore loses its importance.

To further illustrate the relationship between the importance of moral belief and public horizon, let's think about an example. Suppose Hong says,“The meaning of people's life lies in turning their toes 42 times a day.”Others have the reason to think that this assertion is absurd or it is difficult for them to understand without further explanation. Relativists will counter intuitively think that people shouldn't make judgments. If Hong further explains the assertion, then she has already created a common dialog space,and other people could also conduct a series of dialogues such as thinking,criticizing, and debating through her explanation to form a judgment of the common horizon.

This analogy shows that the importance of moral values is rooted in a common horizon, which enables people to communicate, criticize and debate in a real sense. Through the dialog in the common horizon, people finally form inter-subjective agreements, which endow moral judgment with significance and importance. The above objection challenges the internal justification principle of moral relativists and points out that the establishment of the legitimacy of moral beliefs is a public process, and it must require the participation and dialog of others, otherwise moral beliefs will become trivial preferences.

Second, moral relativism seems to contain the following very problematic concepts: in view of irreconcilable moral disagreements,rational people should choose to suspend judgment, neither accepting the moral standards of others nor imposing their own standards on others.Firstly, from the perspective of epistemology, if others are our epistemic peers, then we have good reasons to weaken our original beliefs. In other words, it is precisely because of relativism's own principle of charity that people should respect people in other cultures, regions and moral paradigms have the same cognitive ability and wisdom as themselves. When we find that the others have different views on a factual issue, what we should choose intuitively is not the suspending judgment, instead we should adjust the judgment or at least weaken the confidence of the original belief. For example, when 99 epistemic peers give the opposite answer to a question,people have the reason to choose to modify the answer or at least doubt their own answer. Secondly, if we accept the suspension requirement of relativism, people will not be able to really criticize other moral paradigms in practice, because relativism thinks that no moral paradigms have priority.

Third, Brink pointed out that Mackie's premise (1) is a “one way view”,that is, moral principles justify moral judgments, not the other way around.However, Brink pointed out that in practice, people's constant collision and adjustment of moral judgment will constantly form agreements on moral judgment. With the expansion of these agreements, people can f inally form an agreement on moral principles, which also points to moral truth.