A Truce Between Objectivists and Relativists?

Suppose we haven't settled the question of whether moral relativism or moral objectivism is correct.  How can we go on to consider various ethical issues raised by technology?

One answer is to see if we can find enough common ground between relativists and objectivists to proceed.  In most cases, the answer is 'yes'.

The thing to notice is that the relativist is committed to the existence of at least a kind of 'moral fact'.  Within a particular culture, there can be 'facts' about which ways of behaving are right and which are wrong. It's just that the relativist claims these are not facts that would hold in every place and time.

Having noted this, you should now ask yourself this question - 'Is it important that I have good reasons for my moral beliefs?'  For most of us, the answer will again be 'yes'.  We want to be in a position to say why our beliefs are the right ones to hold.  This suggests that, if relativism is true, people in our culture have a moral obligation to provide good reasons in support of their moral judgments.  (Why?  Because most people think this is how you should behave and, if relativism is true, that's all it takes to make it true that you should have such reasons.)

Likewise, a believer in objectivism will presumably want to have reasons to justify his claim that the moral facts are the way he says they are.  So, he (or she) will also be committed to the project of giving good reasons in support of his moral judgments.  It seems then that, to some extent anyway, we can get on with thinking about particular moral issues without definitively settling the relativism vs. objectivism dispute.

If the relativist and the objectivist to agree on a common project, perhaps they also agree on other things.  What follow are a couple of possible starting points.  See if you think these are principles we can all agree with.

1. The Consistency Principle: 'If you are morally obligated to act one way in some particular situation (call it situation A) and you are not obligated to act in that same way in some other situation (call it situation B) there must be some morally significant difference between the two situations.'

2. The Is-Ought Principle:  'The fact that things are a certain way doesn't prove that they ought to be that way.'

For example, pointing out that some kind of behavior is natural doesn't establish that it is morally acceptable.  Some have argued, for instance, that racism, sexism and rape are all natural to humans.  Even if this is right (and these claims are highly controversial), the is-ought principle points out that it does not follow that racism, sexism and rape are morally acceptable.

3. The 'Ought Implies Can' Principle:  'To say that you ought to do something is to imply that you can do that thing.'

In other words, morality can't ask us to do things which are literally impossible (although, it can ask us to do things that are difficult).

Are there exceptions to these principles?

Can you think of any others?