 Now, we are going to talk about what are the obstacles to a moral engagement. We have seen laid the foundations of our enterprise with in the moral domain. Now we are trying to find out that what before we begin full swing that what are the objections or obstacles that one faces before a moral engagement. Now the first obstacle that we face is moral relativism. As written on the board there are two basic obstacles or most common obstacles to moral engagement which are moral relativism and egoism. Now let me briefly tell you what is moral relativism. Now moral relativism is exemplified by the frequently quoted adage that you come across that that is your life and your values and this is my life and my values and therefore I will not sit on judgment upon your values and you cannot sit on judgment upon my values. Now that are moral frames of reference or difference and there can be no hierarchy among these moral frames of reference or moral points of origin. That you come from a different culture and I come from a different culture and therefore we both cannot there is no basis for us to have a dialogue. Now this is quite a prevalent attitude which is exemplified again by the claims that well I am not judgmental, not being judgmental so not making moral judgments upon another culture or another individual or another domain. So let me briefly put it as that the frame that moral relativism is talking about not making a hierarchy between frames of moral reference. Now when I say that we do not make a hierarchy amongst the moral frame of reference what I am saying is that well one moral domain cannot sit in judgment of another moral domain. So this comes out to mean that this is your life and you decide what you do this is my life and I decide what to do. Now this is quite common attitude that we see does it actually stand for relativism. Now let us see now if I were a relativist a moral relativist or an ethical relativist I would not be able to sit on judgment on your moral actions and likewise you would not be able to sit on my on judgment on my moral actions. But now is that really the case that we do not judge each other or is there something more to it. Now this we would all like to call ourselves relativists if this shows an attitude of humility about knowledge and openness and being non-dogmatic about value claims but well let us see. What do we mean by moral relativists claim now the relativist claim is that well I cannot judge your actions that means whatever you do is beyond my judgment but do we actually mean by that mean by when we say that we are not judgmental that or do we mean something called tolerance. That is we see when I claim that I am not sitting in judgment over your actions do I perhaps actually mean that I am tolerant of your value system for if I were a relativist then no matter what you do say an individual is mercilessly quashing a little puppy on the means road a relativist well would say that that is his decision and that is his values which he is executing a person with tolerance would make a judgment would say that well it is wrong for that person to trouble the puppy this way and perhaps when the threshold of tolerance breaks and he says that he sees that the puppy is being tortured too much and that too in an unprovoked stimuli then he would perhaps step in and stop the chap from torturing the puppy now the second is an case is an example of somebody who exhibits tolerance although we would commonly believe that the second is also an example of relativism it is not an example of relativism now the opposite of relativism is absolutism or having or being a fundamentalist about values now the moment we say a fundamentalist about values are connotations are of somebody who is dogmatic rigid unkind and perhaps wicked or evil maybe even a terrorist but that is just a connotation of fundamentalist the denotation of fundamentalist or an absolutist is that one who is open that there can be some transcultural values that even Mahatma Gandhi is a fundamentalist for that reason because if he holds that non violence is a transcultural value no matter what then Mahatma Gandhi is an absolutist the Amnesty International which works for human rights world over is a fundamentalist organization because it believes human rights are applicable all over the world to all peoples at all times the universal declaration of human rights is again a fundamentalist absolutist claim so you would see a moral relativist on the other hand cannot make any judgments at all so even the act of in a culture where new born babies are mercilessly slaughtered because of their gender can also not be judged by the moral relativist so coming to the absolutist now we see the absolutist actually does have some stands the moral relativist can have no stand so the first obstacle that we face to moral relativism to the moral engagement is moral relativist now somebody who calls himself relativist cannot have a dialogue about morality because for him simply that just as apples and oranges cannot be compared unless until you have a common domain of fruits so you cannot compare different value systems because each value system belongs to each domain it comes from there is nothing to converse about because there is no common truth or no common ground to arrive at now let us reconsider ourselves are we people who are tolerant or are we relativist perhaps most of us would claim would claim to belong to the domain of tolerant people rather than relativist so as we see that relativism is gives us a hue of intellectual humility and non dogmatic approach but it is not so actually in fact tolerance is what we perhaps more accurately mean or to target when we say that we are humble or about our moral or value claims that they are fallible so being fallible is not the same thing as being a relativist so one must clear one's theoretical standpoint that whether one is a fallibilist or a moral relativist now who is a fallibilist a fallibilist is one who has one's own value claims but thinks that it is fallible that well it can be wrong but a relativist is different a relativist could think that he is wrong but he would find no other way of correcting himself because well there is no absolute trans-cultural value to arrive at so if you are a relativist the moral engagement does not take off for as we see that there is simply no reason for engaging morally because there is no common ground to arrive at but as we have shown that perhaps we all sit in judgment of the other and we all sit in judgment of the other and then we see we refrain from taking an action to a large extent but we are constantly judging one another so this way a moral relativist has no possibility of engaging in a moral discourse whereas if you are open to the idea that there can be not that there is but that there can be one single trans-cultural value you are an absolute test so as we see that relativism it does not hold ground because we are constantly engaging in judging what is a better value in refining our values we are fallibilist at the most and curious at the least but we perhaps are not relativist now let me talk about the other dilemma or the other obstacle that the moral engagement precedes to the other the other obstacle to moral engagement is egoism. Egoism is claiming that well everything that I do I do it in my self-interest right so ethical ego is egoism here would say that now is this true because if everything I do and I do I do it in my self-interest that would mean well that there is no moral domain out there for me to discuss no find out and decide on the course of action my actions are just a result of my course of the way I would like to act my whims and fancies so if you are an egoist now the ego the term egoism you should not be confused with egotism or the commonly cited problem of the I trouble commonly cited problem known as I trouble where people tend to use too much of the letter I to denote themselves now coming back to egoism on the other hand is a philosophical theory which claims that each one of us acts only in one's own interest now there are two versions of egoism they are psychological egoism and ethical egoism psychological egoism is a descriptive theory that is it is describing behavior human behavior and it is claiming that well we should do what is in our the psychological egoism describes that human beings do what is in their self-interest ethical egoist on the other hand would say human beings ought to do what is in their self-interest so the truth or falsity of the truth of psychological egoism makes ethical egoism and almost an obvious truth and denial of ethical egoism brings it the other way around now let us see if I say that everything I do I do it in my self-interest now if this is the claim that an egoist is making I do not see any how to engage with him in a moral debate rather I would like to ask him or her that is there anything that you can do which is not in your self-interest now let me bring you to let me bring you to the point that what is the problem that the ethical egoist suffers from the ethical egoist is claiming that well whatever I do I do it I it is in my self-interest so all my all my targets all my work is for the execution of my desires now I would ask the ethic the egoist that is there anything that he can do which is not desired by him let me write it on the board to make it clear now the problem of the egoist is understood by understanding the ambiguousness of the term self-interest if self-interest means something that is desired by me or that gives me satisfaction well we cannot conceive of a human action that is not in self-interest because whenever we see whatever we act on it is definitely for a for one's own satisfaction now if that interpretation of self-interest is broadened so much that satisfaction also means self-interest then there is no possible human action which is not in self-interest and thereby everyone is an egoist and thereby there is no possibility of doing a non-self-interest action but this is where the problem is now Mother Teresa has sacrificed her the luxuries of her life to help the downtrodden now she definitely gained satisfaction out of it that is why she did it now could this be called self-interest because if self-interest is to mean that well whatever we do is that that gives a satisfaction well then everything that we do is in self-interest so it is us calling every action as actions of self-interest so here is where the difficulty with egoism lies the broadness of the interpretation of the term self-interest if everything that is done is for self-interest then self-interest is simply incorporates all that we do and thereby there is no possibility and it is trivially true that all actions are self-interested actions but in reality perhaps it is not so if you there is a difference between an action which is benefiting one and an action which is causing harm to one but benefiting the other now both the actions might give us satisfaction but self-interest is served in the first and not served in the second so we can see that self-interest is only if understood in its sharp rigid sense will have actions which are not in self-interest but self-interest expanded or interpreted as any action that gives a satisfaction then well there are no actions which are not out of self-interest so these are two most common problems or obstacles that we face before a moral engagement and in this brief few minutes I have tried to explain that why these two do not stand a ground so with this we would like to proceed to our next course of syllabus which is consequentialism.