Bernard Williams' Attack on Moral Relativism

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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 views, 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. This video lecture is part of an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics.

[DinkSmalwood]

First Michael Sugrue then Jeffrey Kaplan. So far this year the algorithms have been more than kind to me.

[pezeron]

Philosophy was my favorite course in high school in France but many other kids hated it and I wish we had such an amazing teacher as you. You make philosophy easy and fun.

[apathy]

As smart as you are it aggravates me you dont get this at all and Williams is wrong. Some societies will be tolerant which is by relativistic terms right and other will be intolerant which is also right. Some will believe foot binding which is your example is wrong and should be stopped others will say their society their rules and according to Relativism they are both right. Say you have N societies I bet most will say wilful murder is wrong. That doesnt make Thou Shalt not Kill a Moral Truth or Universal Moral principle because others will disagree. This supports relativisms claim it doesnt detract from it. Williams is wrong.

[petardraganov]

The word "vulgar" comes from the Latin "vulgus" meaning people. Latin used to be the Vulgar Tongue, the language of the commoners. The term is derogatory nowadays, with its etymology lost to most people, but it is interesting how "common relativism" still is an adequate name.

[mileskeller]

Brilliant way to pose the issue. I have never thought to use toleration as the negation for moral relativism.

[daithi]

Great presentation. I happen to believe in relativism and try to live my life based on my own moral code, but as a relativist I've never believed that I was required to accept and tolerate the moral views of others. As long as your moral views don't affect me then I have no problem being tolerant. However, once your views cross that line and start to affect me then I just may be willing to go to war over my own morals.

[battlefieldcustoms]

between this channel and and Royal Institute I am more than confident about getting back to school and learning something real

[anaiscarrichon]

A big thanks! I'm just starting my memoire in moral and experimental philosophy, with a lack of knowledge (but not of interest!!) in philosophy 'cause I'm studying cognitive science. Your work is really enjoyable and understandable, it will helps me for sure! And your accent is french-friendly in my opinion 😂

[josemariarecalde]

You can perfectly have moral relativism and not tolerate any other moral systems, because you don't believe in any of them, or apply the one you fancy the most and rip the rest apart

[jimitreweek]

Thank you for these insightful videos, please continue making them.

[cliptych]

Vulgar: lacking sophistication or good taste. I'd guess that the lack of sophistication is the important part here.

[xenspace]

As I understand it, 'moral relativism' as a concept was created by an anthropologist (or maybe sociologist) in order to get people to reflect on different cultural values and try to see things from the viewpoint of other societies, rather than just judging them (and note that being non-judgmental is not necessarily the same as being tolerant) - it was never meant to be a philosophical argument in the usual sense. The main problem I have with it is that it only applies to morality in the sense of 'following convention; acting according to a set of rules', not to ethical conduct, which involves an individual searching to understand what goodness is, and how to act according to the good. A 'moral' person believes themself to be good regardless of how dreadful their actions might be, because they are following the rules. This is why we need more ethical people in order to create an ethical society, as a bunch of rule-followers have no true insight into what is actually good.

[JM-usfr]

I think William’s argument is just a glorified restatement of the is-ought problem. The supposed contradiction can be remedied as follows: If we redefine “tolerance” as the fact that it would be inappropriate (not necessarily immoral) to apply one culture’s moral codes to another culture all else being equal, then this follows immediately from relativism.

My problem with relativism is not at this level. I would take it back to a much more basic instinct. Moral relativism would suggest that anyone acting against the culture is behaving immorally, and anyone acting in line with their culture is behaving morally. So during the civil rights era, Martin Luther King Jr was profoundly immoral, and during WWII, Hitler was undeniably moral.

That’s my problem with moral relativism.

[johnmichaelcule]

"Vulgar" derives from Latin "vulgus" = The Common People. So it's not only derogatory but snobbish too.

[SkiRedMtn]

As soon as I saw principle 2 I was like that’s supposed to be applied to everyone so it’s not relative. So if a society didn’t practice tolerance then they’d be universally, not relatively, wrong.

[PHILRichardB]

Just objectively, this video is so cool. How do you get these awesome effects? I teach online and would love to up my online lecture game!

[AceHack]

You forgot about non-Euclidean geometry. In those geometries the angles can be greater or less than 180 in a triangle but I get your point.

[nourmasalkhi]

Hi! I think the criticism of Tolerance is absolutely valid, but you can come to the same conclusion by arguing the negative of its inverse.

I will define Intolerance here as a relative moral that holds the imposition of other's morals onto oneself as wrong.

I argue that Intolerance is universally moral, because anyone who claims to not be Intolerant would have to accept the imposition of Intolerance onto themselves when told to do so.

In any frame of reference if even just one person is both Intolerant and believes in imposing their morals onto others everyone within that frame will either have to adopt that persons morals entirely including Intolerance or be forced to adopt Intolerance separately to protect their own morals until everyone within that frame is Intolerant.

Violating Intolerance would grow from being a benign evil to the most evil until it becomes universally evil and it's inverse Tolerance (not imposing ones morals onto others) would become universally moral.

Please let me know if there are any logical errors in my reasoning.

Loved your video. It helped me a lot.

Thanks!

[goffshas]

There is one more move for the vulgar relativist to make. They can say there is no universal values EXCEPT tolerance. And I think this is a move most often made. But the solution to this move is in the claimant himself. It turns out this is a flabby and bloated ideology; the response should be that they cannot tell, for instance in a quite vulgar manner, certain Muslim countries how they should treat women. And so to realistically advocate this system you have to give up an awful lot. Most people are not willing to give that up. The fact of the matter is THEY don't want to be judged themselves. I have never seen anyone, espousing this ideology or not, who is absolutely tolerant.

[MrLcowles]

It's truly sad and demoralizing (lol) how few people can understand such a simple argument.