 …a llwyddoch chi'n gŵr. Hau, rydw i'n gŵr Mary Antall, mae gennym o'r ffaith yn fath arall, ond mae o'n llwyddoch chi, felly oherwydd dyna'r ar winners. Rydyn ni'n rŵn amdano chi'n gŵr buddau. Rydyn ni'n rŵn amdano i gŵr ar uwch, ac yn swyddwch ag i chi hay iddo ar rheid enwedig. Rydyn ni'n ffodcast. circle to everyone who's watching this on a podcast. All these slides that I'm using are going to be available either in hand out form or with the podcast so you should be able to follow everything that I'm doing without needing to take copious notes. OK, let's get started. OK, in this session, we're going to be doing all these things. It's not going to take us too long to go through the first three. Mae'r cwrs maen nhw'n bryd yn gweithio'r llyfodol a'r amser maen nhw'n ddim eich bod yn gweithio'r rhagol. A ydych chi'n awyrio'n cymryd o'r ddielema morol. Rydw i'n ddigwydd, dwi'n ddigwydd yr hyn yn gallu'r asturiaeth ar y cyfrunau a phobl. A dwi'n ddigwydd yn ddigwydd, dwi'n ddigwydd, dwi'n ddigwydd. Rydw i'n ddigwydd. Rydw i'n ddigwydd, o'ch ddielema'n ddigwydd. Rydw i'n ddigwydd. Rydw i'n ddigwydd ychydig. Lachodd. Right. Whether you tell the truth or not. But that's not a problem. Because we know we should tell the truth, shouldn't we? So it can't be that on its own that's the problem. Okay. So if you tell the truth, what are you not being? Or what you fear you're not being is kind. So we've got two rules. Two rules that we like to obey in everyday life. Don't we? Be truthful, be kind. And the problem with this situation is it looks as if we can't be both. It looks as if you've got to choose between honesty and kindness. And that's not a comfortable situation to be in, is it? Okay. Moral dilemmas of this sort are common. And the reason they're common is that the rules of everyday life, like be kind, be generous, be truthful, whatever, are general rules that have to be applied in particular situations. And as a result of that, they come into conflict. Can you think of any more moral dilemmas? Can you think of any that you've come across perhaps in your everyday life? What about at school when a teacher pressed you up against the wall and said, who did that? What's your problem here? And you know who did it. You don't want to rat on your mates exactly. So be loyal in, again, to be polite to your teacher or be truthful or something. Again, it comes into conflict here. In all these situations, you've got a general rule that's come into conflict with another general rule because a particular situation brings them into conflict. You might think that it's easy to get out of this particular dilemma. I mean, let's have a straw poll. If you were in this situation, who would tell your friends that you think her hair looks terrible? Maybe not quite like that. You would, okay, one, two, quite a few of you are putting up your hand. Okay, who would be kind? Most of you, okay, that's interesting. But you probably go, or at some time in your life, you will have gone through this sort of way of thinking. Well, sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. If you're kind to her, she might go around looking like that for the next six months, mightn't she? And that would be to be cruel to her because when she realised how awful she'd look, it's a bit like looking at those photographs of yourself in the 70s, isn't it? And also another thing you might try is, well, it's only a white lie if I tell her she looks fine. It's not a black lie. I'm not doing it for bad reasons. I'm doing it for good reasons. What we have to do here is that we are rationally required by dilemmas like this to reflect on our values. We say, okay, what is truth? What is it to be honest? Or what is kindness? What is it to be kind? And if I were God, I would make sure there is many moral dilemmas as possible because I would want people to be asking themselves, well, how do I act in order to be kind? What do I need to do in order to be honest? In this situation, being honest is difficult. Is that an excuse not to be honest, et cetera? All these things are prompting us to think about our values and about what we should do in particular situations. But we yearn for these moral rules, don't we? We yearn to have things like be truthful, be kind, be generous, be loyal, et cetera, because it makes life easy, doesn't it? It takes decisions away from us. And in this situation, a lot of people are tempted to make further rules. These are the sort of rules that they're tempted to make. So, here's one. When kindness and honesty conflict are always be honest. Now, I bet you know people who've made that rule for themselves. Do you? Yes, OK. Lots of nods here. Or possible new rule too. When kindness and honesty conflict are always be kind. Do you know anyone who's living by that sort of rule? Yeah. Again, lots of nods. OK, in this situation of the year, you wouldn't say, if you were afraid, you wouldn't say, oh, I like that. You would say, well, I'm afraid it doesn't suit me, but maybe it doesn't suit my taste, but it may be suit others. You'd be a moderate. OK, there are different ways in which you might be honest. I mean, nobody's, well, actually that's not true. Very few people are going to actually say, but a few would say, yuck. I mean your 16-year-old son is not going to hold back. Well, he might. OK, but we yearn for moral rules, because moral rules make life easy. That's why we're tempted to make rules like the former two, which are not so obviously useful actually. But in this yearning for rules, we reveal ourselves to be moral generalists. A moral generalist is someone who believes that morality is governed by rules. One reason you might think this is people think of morality as principles, set of principles, and of course, what are principles but rules by which to guide us in our thoughts and in our actions. If you think that morality is necessarily principled and by that you mean that it's necessarily rule governed, then you're a moral generalist. OK, but... Oh, right. OK, there's this little complication here. It doesn't matter how complicated the rules are that you think we're governed by. The fact is, if you think that morally we're governed by rules, then you are some sort of moral generalist. OK, particularly... Let me try that again if I take a run at it. Particularists deny that moral reasoning is governed by rules of any kind. OK, Jonathan Dancy, he is of Reading University, he's a particularist, so he doesn't think that moral rules, sorry, morality is governed by rules at all. We might have a look later and ask ourselves exactly what he means by that, but here's his argument for it. OK, he claims that all reasons for acting are context sensitive. OK, let's just have a quick look at reasons for acting. I mean, when I ask you to pass me a pen, your reason for acting is that you wanted to do what I wanted you to do and you believed that passing me that pen would be a way of doing it. OK, so those were your reasons for acting. So, whenever we act... Actually, it's not always when we act as we'll see next week that we have reasons for acting, but when we act and we have reasons for acting, these reasons, says Dancy, are context sensitive. And what he means by that is that in some contexts they're reasons for acting and in other contexts they're reasons against acting or they're reasons for not acting, if you prefer. So let's have a look at an example for that. Imagine that your reason for refusing to perform action A, that action might be passing me a pen, for example, but your reason for refusing to perform action A is that in performing action A you would be telling a lie. I'm not going to do that because it would be lying if I did that. That's a perfectly good reason for acting, isn't it? OK. Well, then ask yourself, does this mean that you should refuse to perform any and every act that has the property of being a lie-telling? Does it? So, OK, let me ask you two questions. Firstly, is it often the case with you that you don't act, you don't do something because if you did it, it would be lying? OK, so it's a lie is sometimes a reason for you to act, to put your hand up, or not to act, I should say. I'm going to assume you've all put your hand up here, even if I'm wrong. OK, so the fact that something has the property of being a lie, there's an action that has the property of being a lie, is sometimes at least reason for you to act or reason for you not to act. OK, but it doesn't mean that every time, are there any other times when sometimes you think you ought to lie, that it's your moral duty to lie? Can anyone give me an example? Some people come after a friend who's seen that he wrote you, do they? OK, so if the Nazis come to the door and they say, are there any Jews here? You don't say, yes, actually. Three of them under the bed. You think at that point that it's your moral duty to lie. So it can't be the case that having the property of being a lie telling is always a reason against an action. Fair enough? Or imagine that your reason for performing Action B, for actually doing something this time, is that in performing Action B you would be keeping a promise. OK, so how many of you have done something because in doing it you would be keeping a promise? OK, so all of us act because we believe that keeping a promise is a good thing. But does this mean that we always keep promises, that we would perform and we believe that others should perform each and every action that would be a promise keeping? Do we? No. Can anyone give me an example, an imaginative example of... If you promise to take your children to the cinema and then on the night your wife or brother is sitting here and sitting to the doctor, then it's... Yes, you have to explain to them. And if they're very young they may not quite understand that. But it's your moral duty. Yes, it's a shame to make a promise and you have to make a promise etc. Absolutely. So you promise to take your children to the cinema, but on the night your wife, your husband falls ill and it's more important that you take them to hospital than that you keep that promise. Again, it seems that the fact that an action has the property of being a promise keeping isn't always an everywhere reason to perform that action. That's what Dancy means by reasons for acting a context sensitive. The context that you're in changes your reasons for acting. In some context the fact that something's a lie is reason not to tell it. And in other contexts that it's a lie isn't reason not to tell it. Okay? Good, so that's Dancy's reason for being a particularist. So Dancy believes that no reason for acting is always reason for or reason against performing an action. Every reason for action is context sensitive. Well, so he doesn't think that, well I think actually I'm just about to say this so let me check. Okay, so a particularist believes that no moral rule is always an everywhere true. A particularist believes that moral rules like don't lie, keep promises and so on are what philosophers call rules of thumb. Now a rule of thumb is a rule that you use because it's useful and it's useful most of the time but it's not one that's unbreakable. If you come to a situation where it's clear that this rule isn't going to be useful to follow then you just don't follow it. So moral rules like the ones we've talked about if they're rules of thumb are not absolutely true. They're not moral absolutes. So don't lie is not always an everywhere true. So the question is wouldn't the Nazis have been justified in giving as a reason that they were following orders? Well presumably Dancy would say no because Dancy would think you should follow orders is a rule that in some context is true and in other context is false. Because he thinks that no moral rule is always an everywhere true. So you should follow orders or you should follow rules is not always an everywhere true. And that means the context in which they were deciding should I follow orders or not was a context in which Dancy would say probably or certainly I would say that they shouldn't follow orders in this context that the answer to this question in that context would be no. Whereas if you ordered me now to explain again what I meant by the I might take that as something I should follow perhaps not time would matter. How do you decide that context? It just seems to have a layer to me. No but you don't decide a context you're just in a context. So if the Nazis are at the door you know exactly you don't look so worriedly at me. You are all looking worried. You make this sort of decision all the time whenever you face a moral dilemma whenever your friend says do you like it and you think yuck that provides you with a context in which a moral decision must be made. And in that decision in that particular decision one there are two rules be kind be honest and the question is should you in this context go that rule or that rule or neither? So you're all used to doing this this isn't something all I'm doing is laying it out for you clearly as a philosopher should. Now I'm going to take two more questions because I can see two more but then I'm going to get on. Could Dancy be described as a situationalist as described by Fletcher? I have heard people call particularists that I don't know enough about what being a situationalist is and people say for sure but I suspect the answer yes. Is it interesting to know how it differs if it does? It would be interesting to know how it differs if it does but I suspect it doesn't but I might be wrong. In this context is it not a question of ranking priorities to attempt to act for the greater of two goods or the less evil of two evils? Well if you don't mind I'm going to postpone that question I think I'm going to answer it later so may I do that? But notice that the separate rules that I talked about people making I'm always going to put kindness before honesty or I'm always going to put honesty before kindness that's another sort of rule isn't it? And that's a rule that prioritises other rules so there are lots of different sorts of rules that we might look at. Okay let's get on. Okay I'm just a show of hands how many of you think you're particularists here? Not everyone but nearly everyone. I'm dying to ask why those who aren't particularists aren't but never mind we might come to the reasons why you're not in a minute. Okay I just want to point out that in talking about the things that we've been talking about for the last ten minutes we've been engaged in moral theorising now that's a very different sort of activity from the activity that we're engaged in when we're actually trying to make decisions about how we should act so when you're thinking shall I be kind or shall I be honest that's one type of thinking about morality but when you're thinking things of the sort that we've been thinking should we be generalists or particularists or should we always follow moral rules or not that's a different type of moral thinking and moral theorising is called second order moral thinking whereas everyday decision making about how we should act is called first order moral thinking and that's because moral theorising is thinking about thinking about how we should act okay philosophers are good at this but do you see what I mean about whether to be kind or we're honest we're thinking about how we should act and when we're asking well should we follow rules like we should be kind we should be honest we're thinking about our thinking about how we should act with me but it says not also creating a rule for something no I haven't created any well I'm creating rules but not moral rules about how to use language I'm saying you should use second order moral thinking for theorising and first order moral thinking for thinking about your actions and that is making a rule but it's not a moral rule is it it's a rule of language okay it might become a moral rule if I think you're disobeying it okay can we sort these questions into either first order practical questions or second order theoretical questions I'm going to give you a minute to think about it for yourself and then we'll go through it together so don't yell out the answers just think about them for yourself actually you've only got 10 seconds so you're not going to get very far okay is lying morally acceptable is that a first order or a second order question let's go over it again shall we okay first order moral thinking is is asking about yourself about how you should act okay and so if you ask is lying morally acceptable aren't you saying to yourself should I feel free to lie or not okay does it first order no you're now making me question it okay shall we leave that one I was going to call that one first order because I thought of it as being about actions to the extent that it is about deciding how to act it's a first order question okay what about should female circumcision be illegal oh Erica no I absolutely refuse to explain that here you don't answer that question what about everyone else is that a first order question or a second order question first we're nearly getting there okay I think that's a first order question for the same reason what about how can we know whether a given or that a given moral judgement is correct seconds you're getting there okay could it ever be right to kill an innocent human being first we are getting there aren't we definitely what makes a moral judgement right or wrong second very much you see that's you're not thinking at all about how to act are you what should I do you're asking here about well what is here's a moral judgement what makes it true or false we're going to be asking this question in a minute what's that well no because right or wrong here actually in fact that's well pointed out yes but what do I mean by right or wrong here and I shouldn't have done this this is a mistake that I've made can anyone point out what the mistake is what should I have written here true or false actually is what I meant do you see what I mean so I that question I mean you're making me see that that was a bit of sloppy thinking on my part so if I can do it that means you can do it very occasionally and certainly not beyond lecture three I should have asked there what makes a moral judgement true or false rather than right or wrong by using right or wrong I confused it with morality I apologise okay what about this one is it wrong to kill embryos that have the genes for Huntington's disease first order or second order first order well done what sort of evidence can we give for saying that something's right or wrong second good okay we need to work on that just a little bit but only a little bit well done you're right to make the distinction between something's being immoral and something's being illegal we're going to look at that in depth next week so I won't look at it here but in order to make something illegal we're usually asking whether either it's right or wrong because we would only want to make illegal something that's not right or it could be a matter of practicalities couldn't it I mean we've either got to drive on the right or the left doesn't matter which it's certainly not a moral question not one I'm not sure about that this one disagrees with his French wife about that for anyone who didn't hear that okay so that's we started off looking at moral dilemmas and I hope that what you've got from looking at moral dilemmas is that quite often in the particular situations in which we find ourselves we find ourselves in a dilemma because we find that two moral rules or possibly more moral rules sometimes come into conflict we can't obey all of them and therefore we have a dilemma it looks as if I mean it's a very difficult dilemma because both things seem to be right and yet we can't do both of them so I hope that's shown as something about rules it's shown the importance do it are rules central to morality or not but now let's look at moral truth this is the second thing we're going to do okay consider the following statements the earth is elliptical the cat is tabby these are straight forward true or false if you looked at my cat Eidipus and I said is that cat tabby you would say yes yes you would say yes I suspect okay what makes those sentences true are facts about in the first case the earth and its shape and in the second case my cat and the fact that it's tabby okay straight forward in philosophy we talk sometimes about the redundancy theory of truth because if you say the cat is tabby and the cat is tabby is true in each case you seem to be giving the same information because if you assert the cat is tabby you are saying in a way the cat is tabby is true aren't you so straight forwardly true I mean there are huge problems I should say with the redundancy theory of truth so we won't get into that here but just to point out that these are very straight forward it even sounds rather silly when I say what makes it true that the cat is tabby is that the cat is tabby it's also scientifically very far yes yes absolutely I should just like to point out that the cat is tabby is true because the cat is tabby notice that here I'm quoting this I'm mentioning this sentence and I'm saying of it that it's true because of this fact obtaining no quotation marks around this so here I'm using the cat is tabby and here I'm just mentioning it very important distinction that I'm sure is going to come up again sometime in these lectures okay but these are straight forwardly true or false and the things that make them straight forwardly true or false are empirically verifiable facts but if we look at statements such as it's wrong to kill human beings or we should always tell the truth well are there facts that make these statements true or false and if there are what sort of facts are they okay now when I asked that first question a lot of you shook your head I said are there facts that make these things true or false and a lot of people went no okay that's interesting to see if there are facts or at least a few people it's certainly true isn't it that if there are facts that make these things true they're not the sort of facts we can touch look at see hear put them in pockets nor can we conduct experiments to see whether it's true that lying is wrong or whatever it was that I used and so some people think that there aren't moral facts and a few people in this room obviously agree with them so whereas the earth is elliptical or the cat is tabby are actually they are true or false and they're made true or false by facts the thought is that things like lying is wrong or you should tell the truth or or whatever they're not made true or false by facts so a question arises are they true or false at all perhaps okay well if there are no moral facts then perhaps moral statements are neither true nor false or perhaps we're free to decide for ourselves whether they're true or false perhaps it's just a matter of agreeing with each other that they should be true or false or something like that okay quick straw poll put your hand up if you think that there are no moral facts no don't shout out just put your hand up okay we've got a few moral skeptics and a few people who are waving at me and looking unsure so I think that's fair enough okay if you'd like to learn more about that we're not going to talk about moral skeptics anymore at least in this session we might do later in the series but here's a website that you might use to check up on it and of course you've got this written in your notes so you don't need to write it down and it'll be available with the podcast okay most moral philosophers or most philosophers believe that there are moral facts it is not the case that most philosophers are moral skeptics what sort of fact is a moral fact well here we are here are a few we're going to be looking in this series of lectures what are different theories about the sort of fact that makes a moral statement true or false a virtue ethicist believes that an action is right if a virtuous person would perform it so it's facts about who's virtuous and what they do that make true questions about right or wrong so lying is wrong is true if a virtuous person would accept that lying is wrong and not lie etc okay it's not a fact like cats being tabby is it but it's still a fact isn't it well defining virtue oh yes defining virtue don't worry we're going to have great fun with these theories we're going to devote a week to each of these theories so we'll have plenty of time to talk about that but I just want to point out that it's just possible that when you were thinking about the facts that make true or false moral statements you might have been a bit parochial in your thinking about what a fact is because if you think a fact is the sort of thing you can see or touch or put into your pocket or that sort of thing then you might have missed the fact that there are facts like this okay non-cognitivism says that an action is right if a person with a stable and general perspective would approve of it okay you might think that there's something rather similar here but okay and again you're thinking I can see you thinking what kind of fact is this we'll look at what kind of fact this is later in the series dayontologists say that an action is right if it falls under a rule that prescribes it so let's do a little bit of revision okay I've given you two technical terms earlier today and you can apply one of them to a dayontologist he thinks that an action is right if it falls under a rule that prescribes it so a rule like keep promises or be kind okay is a dayontologist a particularist or a generalist put up your hand if you think he's a particularist okay put up your hand if you think he's a generalist well done okay good we're getting the terminology right a generalist is someone who believes that there are moral rules a particularist is someone who believes that all moral reasons are context sensitive okay a utilitarian different sort of fact to make true a moral statement he thinks that an action is right if it produces the greatest happiness to the greatest number so telling that lie to the Nazis is the right action if it produces the greatest happiness to the greatest number well there are facts about that let me ask you a question dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was it the right thing to do or not if you're a utilitarian you think that it was the right thing if it produced more happiness than it took away and that it wasn't the right thing if it did the opposite well we don't know the fact of that matter but there was a fact there wasn't there so there's a fact that's rather difficult different from the sort of fact that makes Oedipus is a tabby true but it's nevertheless a fact isn't it so four different accounts of the facts that make true moral statements so anyone who adopts any of these moral theories is not a moral skeptic they do think there are facts that make moral statements true but they don't think the facts are necessarily facts that we can check empirically or that we can look at or whatever okay and this is good we're doing well here I'm pleased that we've got this far in this session okay but this is the biggie okay or I think it is in this okay there's one question we're going to take one question before I go on to it Is there another word you could use rather than fact because I would like to think of a fact as something that could be tested improved to be true and I would prefer to see another word used in place of fact in your second place no I absolutely refuse to change my language here because fact is what I mean and I think you ought to change your view of what a fact is because does love exist yes okay most of us here are romantics we believe that love exists is this a fact is this something that can be established empirically yes I would say well actually we could do perhaps we could I mean maybe I've just established that most people in this room believe that love exists but of course they could all be wrong no but there's a way I'm sure there's a way of checking emotion do you see what I mean I do yes but I think you're going to have to persuade me alright here's another question then just because I'm looking forward to persuading you of this um do possibilities exist okay most people think yes is this something that we can establish empirically I would prefer to say do probabilities exist no we're not talking about probabilities we're talking about possibilities here can you know we could if you actualise a possibility then what exists of course an actualised possibility which is not of course a possibility at all it is an actuality what I'm asking you is whether possibilities exist yes are the facts that make true this is possible an empirical fact I'm sorry I should actually I've dug myself a terrible hole here and the reason I've dug myself a hole I should have made a distinction between empirical possibility and logical possibility and what I was actually asking about was logical possibilities um if you like we'll talk about that in question time but I think having dug myself a hole I'm now going to kick sand in it and move on quickly okay um we're going to look at moral truth and whether it's absolute or relative okay firstly I'm going to define both terms because we need to know what we're talking about okay you're a moral absolutist if you believe that there's at least one moral statement that's true absolutely okay an example of that here's a non-moral example of an absolute truth the earth is round I should have said ellipticals shouldn't I anyway just ignore that complication the earth is round is true everywhere for everyone at all times irrespective of what people believe okay so even when everyone believed for perfectly good reasons that the earth is flat I mean they are good reasons aren't they look at it actually this is a bad example isn't it the lecture room slopes even when everyone believes that the earth was flat they were wrong the earth was round then so that's a non-moral example of an absolute truth it's true everywhere for everyone at all times irrespective of what people believe so you're a moral absolutist if you believe that there is at least one now notice that at least one you don't need more than one you just need one moral statement that's true everywhere for everyone at all times and irrespective of what people believe okay that's what moral absolutism is let's have a look at moral relativism you're a moral relativist if you believe that all moral statements are true or false only relative to something now you might be thinking what does this mean can anyone think of another example of an area of discourse of language where statements in that area of discourse are true only relative to relative to something or other there are some very very common ones let's see if you can think of some put your thinking caps on that's quite a good one yes the house is big because big in relation to what to other houses presumably it's not big in relation to a skyscraper yep so okay that's a good one any others that someone's clever yes clever in relation to what they might be clever in the domain of this classroom but not clever outside this classroom or something like that okay can anyone think of a slightly different sort of example here's an obvious one your French wife does she go to France often and does she ring you up and tell you it's five o'clock well let's say she does she could would you argue with her and say no it's not it's six o'clock or four o'clock or whatever it is well actually we do have an argument because I would insist on the time of the sun right okay well those of us who don't insist on the time of the sun would they have an argument would they have an argument with a French friend who told them it was five o'clock when looking at their watch in England it was never is it going to be four o'clock or six o'clock four o'clock thank you no you wouldn't why wouldn't you because statements about time so there's an area of discourse temporal statements statements about time where the truth of all those statements is relative to and what it's relative to is a time zone isn't it okay so we are used to the idea of truth being relative to something rather happens often and I'll give you a couple of other examples in a minute but here are some non-moral examples of different types of relativism so you can believe that moral statements are true only relative to cultures so for example here's a non-moral statement a meal consists of meat and two veg well in relation to my father's generation and culture that was true my father would certainly have believed that for him it was true my generation not so much I shouldn't think there are many people in this room for whom that would still be true but then it was true prayers are said five times a day that's another non-moral statement that's false in our culture but there are cultures in which it is true so that's cultural relativism so there are statements the truth of which are relative to cultures you can believe that moral statements are true only relative to individuals so you madam what's your name yes in the nice green civil do you like sardines no how can you not like sardines sardines are delicious I love sardines sardines are tasty is true for me and false for civil straightforward we're not going to argue about that because what makes it true sardines are tasty for me is a personal preference isn't it what makes it false sardines are tasty is true for civil is another personal preference civil doesn't like sardines I do sardines are tasty is true for me and false for civil again perfectly standard no I said these are non-moral examples so red is the most beautiful colour what's your name ffalka do you like red best I'm very glad about that I do so red is the most beautiful colour is true for me and false for ffalka so again now these are statements that are true relative to individuals and you're a moral relative if you believe that moral statements are true only in relation to individuals so abortion might be right for me but wrong for you you might say or you can believe that moral statements are true only relative to situations so lying is wrong is true in some context and false in others I'm using context and situation there interchangeably so that's perhaps reason to think that again you were right to think the same thing but yes it's cold here well that might be true here but not true where you are okay so lots of different types of moral relativism there are also different types of absolutism but we haven't looked at any yet we will in a minute okay let's do another little put up your hand if you're a moral relativist call me right okay that's nearly all of you there are a couple who didn't have their hands up that doesn't surprise me okay now I want to know why please ooh you've suddenly gotten quiet right okay there's Erica's answer does anyone else have an answer good question and I'm going to give you two answers the first one I'm going to give you now and it's looking at the way I've defined it which I said that an absolutist hang on I broke my thumb recently and the one thing I can't do is turn pages okay an absolutist at least one moral statement is absolutely true relativist moral statements are true only relative to something or other okay so you tell me look at the logical words here you're doing philosophy now so you've got to look at the logical words at least one and all so you're an absolutist if you believe at least one moral statement is absolutely true and you're a relativist if you believe that all moral statements are true only relative to something or other so can you be both a moral absolutist and a relativist no not so far we'll have a look later on at why it's so tempting to want to be to say that you might be both it would be like saying everybody in this room is clever and then later on I say Fulker isn't clever sorry forgive me this is okay I've contradicted myself haven't I I must have done because if all of you are P then it can't be the case that one of you isn't P can it right good let's establish that nothing like a bit of logic right we still haven't got any answers from you though I'm just about to carry on moving okay why come here you're all clear that you're moral relativists I want to know why right okay so you're arguing from exhaustion you've had a look at all the moral statements you can think of in your mind you can't see any of them that are absolutely true and therefore you're inclined to think you're probably a relativist none of them pass the test none of them pass the test okay I should imagine that quite a few of you think exactly that any other arguments for moral relativism of some kind good you use the word instances would you change it for one of two other words that we've used in this context I'm putting you on the spot here and that's rather not very fair okay situations or context exactly so so usually would say it's wrong to kill but you can imagine you're saying context or situations in which it wouldn't be wrong to kill and I think we probably could all imagine such situations so do you see that you're using dancy's argument actually aren't you to say that the rule don't kill is not a moral absolute good okay so you're going something for situation relativism aren't you you're saying that moral rules are nowhere always and everywhere true because there are always situations in which they're false okay what is the case it's not wrong to kill or is that another reason to do it it could be it's wrong to kill it can't be both wrong and right to kill and if you're in a situation where it looks as if you ought to kill someone it looks as if that's a situation where it's not wrong to kill that person doesn't it well if you have where have I put my pen we've often got different reasons for doing the same thing but if you say okay this is the class of actions that are killings each one of these is a killing if you say all killings all killing is wrong then you're saying of each of those that it's wrong okay then you come to this one and you think ooh actually I ought to do this unless I kill Sibyl a bomb is going to go off that'll kill everybody in continuing education or worse everybody in Oxford University I mean obviously she's got to go hasn't she um doesn't this mean that even if all these are still wrong this one is a killing that isn't wrong or okay you wouldn't necessarily well maybe you would say it was right you could say that it's wrong but we could actually use priorities here couldn't we yeah and it's what you described before as a consequence more happen is for people there was one one utilitarian this is a consequence of what just happens well it's true that no utilitarian is going to accept that because a utilitarian won't accept because he would think that if a killing produced the greatest happiness and the greatest number as I'm sorry Sibyl this one would um then it wouldn't be wrong um but I'm still I think you could still think whether you can think something is wrong and still do it is a question that we're going to be looking at later in the and still think you should do it sorry is a question we'll be looking at later when we do can't yes I'm not sure child incest incest so you're inclined to absolutism you think that you think that we shouldn't have sex with children is a moral absolute okay I mean there might be some people who are inclined to agree with that um but whether it's an absolute is another question one more and then I'm moving on the word usually is important isn't it well usually there can be a general rule but some well argued reason for breaking that general rule well again let's go back to the distinction I made earlier between a rule of thumb and an absolute an absolute is a rule that is unbreakable you don't break it in any situation it holds in every situation a rule of thumb is a sorry this is my broken thumb a rule of thumb is one that when you get to it usually you would follow maybe you would follow it every single time in your life but you can imagine that a time would come when actually it wouldn't hold and when you should break it and if you believe that then you believe it's a rule of thumb not an absolute okay so if you think you usually shouldn't kill people then you don't think all killing is wrong you're not an absolutist about killing you have a rule of thumb or at least I hope you do that killing is wrong on the whole you wouldn't kill anyone but you can imagine a situation where maybe killing would be the right thing to do perhaps the simple one is the one in point okay you still haven't given me many arguments but luckily I prepared a few myself earlier okay here are some arguments for moral relativism some people believe that we should be relativists because all moral views should be respected so if you believe that abortion is right and I believe that abortion is wrong I must respect your view and think that abortion is right for you and wrong for me so that's why we might be relativists or we might think well different people differ in their moral beliefs so you think abortion is right sorry this is getting a bit of a hackneyed example isn't it you think killing is right and I think killing is wrong and it's entirely up to you so you carry on believing what you believe so we become individual relativists at this point or we think that different cultures differ in their moral beliefs so the Somalians I understand believe that female circumcision is right in England we tend not to think that but who are we to say that the Somalians are wrong they're right for them we're right for us and so on and the last one that you did give me different situation make different moral demands on us so these are all arguments people have given me at different times for being moral relativists let's have a look at each of them okay the first argument is actually self-defeating it's logically self-defeating it tries to derive moral relativism from a moral absolute so for example all moral truths should be respected therefore moral relativism is true you've got a problem here haven't you because if you think of that as always and everywhere true then that's false and if you think of that as true then that's not always and everywhere true is it so one or the other of those has to be false and you've defeated yourself in this argument you may have heard of a philosopher called Bernard Williams he calls this vulgar relativism and he has a very short very pithy piece that if you want to read email me and I'll pass it on to you but it's he calls it vulgar relativism you cannot go from the belief that all moral beliefs should be respected all moral truths should be respected I should have put beliefs in there that's really irritating in all your handouts would you cross that out and put beliefs rather than truths because I'm angry with myself for putting that there otherwise it is the argument known as vulgar relativism okay so that's the first argument here's the second argument different people differ in their moral beliefs well yes but this assimilates moral statements the statements of personal preference so um it was Sibyl who doesn't like sardines strangely and I do um you know she has one personal preference I have another but if Sibyl said to me well I don't like kindness I would think hey I think oh she's trying to be clever here or something like that I wouldn't actually believe her or if I did believe her I'd shun her and so would you because actually morality matters to us far more doesn't it than whether people like sardines and so on vulgar you and I may argue over the painting of a room um so you don't want it red and I obviously do it being the most beautiful colour um but unless we're painting a room together you're quite happy to let me have red as my favourite colour I assume thank you um the other thing is that if you say um well okay I think abortion is wrong you think it's right um actually if I think abortion is wrong and you think it's right your belief contradicts mine they cannot both be true um one or the other of them must be false so um I'm sorry one or the other must be false unless we're going to relativise truth but why should we relativise truth just because we don't want to say that other people are wrong and isn't that again going back to to this all moral views should be respected all moral truths sorry beliefs should be respected we'll have a look at that again in a minute presumably it would be impossible to run society under this scheme it um well let me give you a good example of that because I was just about too anyway tell me what would happen if you couldn't expect most people to tell the truth most of the time what would happen if you couldn't think okay Erica says chaos why would it be chaos if you couldn't expect most people to tell the truth most of the time why would that be difficult why couldn't you run society sorry you're all shouting at once now sorry you're all shouting at once now did you it would break down completely because in fact all insurances if any of you could put an insurance claim to the whole society would break down it would break down and it would break down because we couldn't trust each other so if I say to what's your name Jane what's on the cinema tonight and you say the king's speech and I think oh jolly good and I think well hang on do I trust Jane well in the first case if she's told me the truth then I've saved my time and energy haven't I I don't now have to look it up on the web myself if I suddenly lose trust in her I've actually wasted my time and energy by asking her haven't I there was no point in asking her because if I can't trust what she says to me and think about this as well lying is parasitic truth telling in order to lie successfully to you I've got to get you to trust me haven't I it's absolutely essential that you believe me if I'm to lie successfully to you so if I'm a dishonest person I'm not going to go around lying all the time on the country it's in my interest to tell the truth as much as I possibly can so that you build up a trust in me the difference between someone who's dishonest is that the dishonest person is constantly waiting for an opportunity where telling you something untrue would be of benefit to them and they won't be found out that's the difference I didn't hear that and I'm not going to ask for it to be repeated but I'm glad you all enjoyed it okay so the difference between a dishonest and an honest person is not that one tells the truth all the time and the other doesn't I think that answers your question about that's why society so personal preferences don't really matter I mean that's why we call them personal preferences people are entitled to their own personal preferences but morality really matters without people following rules like don't lie don't kill etc society would collapse I mean we still haven't said anything about whether they're absolutely true or only rules of thumb at that point but the rules are necessary and also it ignores the possibility of moral error the fact that okay Sybil's wrong to not like sardines obviously and you might be wrong to think abortion is right or is wrong or whatever it was okay let's look at the third argument which different cultures differ in their moral belief this ignores the possibility that different circumstances might generate different beliefs have we got any biologists in the audience not a one okay never mind I don't think this question is going to be difficult for even non biologists if I have two genetically identical seeds and I put one in John in his number three seed compost or whatever it is and I water it just the right amount and I put it on my windowsill but I shield it from the direct sunlight and so on and the other one I stick in some garden soil and put in the airing cupboard and water it just enough to keep it alive but I don't do anything else are they going to look very alike after about six weeks they're not going to look alike at all are they does this stop them being genetically identical no of course it doesn't because nature and nurture go together to make up what the plant looks like after six weeks in the same way you might have different circumstances the Inuit I believe there was a time when they believed that their elderly should be gently put to death just allowed to slip under the ice well we don't believe that we keep ours alive as long as possible you might think that we're wrong in this but anyway perhaps if we lived where they lived when they lived there we would think that they were doing that we should do what they do in other words we can understand what they're doing is there a higher order value perhaps that we can see the Inuit observing that we too observe do you see what I mean but in different circumstances generate very different behaviours so respect the elderly perhaps care for the elderly or whatever might come out in two very different behaviours in very different circumstances and again the possibility of error is a problem if you're going to say that the fact Somalians believe that female circumcision is acceptable and we believe it isn't but they're right and we're rights relativism holds that means we can't turn around to a culture and say you're wrong because you can't if you can only be wrong within your own culture it makes no sense to say of another culture that it's wrong if cultural relativism holds and just there's another the second third arguments might rest on a confusion between P and believing P and I do like to get logical blenders out of the way so let me give you a demonstration okay what's your name? John the last two times I've asked who's called John and nobody has put their hand up it's son's law that there should be a John sitting in the third row this time okay John believes that Marian is wearing black is that true? okay notice that there's one sentence embedded in another sentence okay Marian is wearing black is one sentence that's the embedded sentence and John believes that Marian is wearing black is an embedding sentence okay and going back to look at facts that make it true what's the fact that makes the embedding sentence true John believes that Marian's wearing black no it's his belief it's a fact about John isn't it that makes it true that John believes that Marian's wearing black we don't know what sort of fact it is this is difficult stuff but it doesn't matter we can just say it's because John believes that Marian's wearing black that sentence is true what makes the embedded sentence true Marian is wearing black as people said okay now let me ask you is it possible that that's true and that's false yeah okay John might have a false belief it might actually be dark blue or it might be that the lighting's weird here or something like that okay could they both be false yeah maybe he doesn't hasn't formed any beliefs he meant to come to this lecture but actually didn't so he hasn't formed any beliefs about what I'm wearing and I'm not wearing black because it's actually dark blue okay so they could both be false could they both be true actually that's probably the current situation isn't it it's true that John believes Marian's wearing black and it's also true that Marian's wearing black and now I can't remember which the fourth possibility that would be false and that would be true okay is that possible of course it is because John might not have come here today he may have decided and so he's formed no beliefs at all about what I'm wearing but it's still true that I'm wearing black okay so the important thing to realise is that the truth value of the embedded sentence and the embedding sentence value complete sorry very completely independently of each other now let's have a look at okay if I say if I now say Marian is wearing black is true for John okay that's ambiguous it could just mean John believes Marian's wearing black or it could be that Marian's wearing black is true for him actually we don't like to think of that because whether I'm wearing black seems to be an objective fact about the world not anything that could be made true by his believing it but so P is morally acceptable for S is ambiguous it could mean S believes P is morally acceptable or P is morally acceptable for S let's have a look at a couple of examples mugging elderly ladies is morally acceptable for Fred okay that could mean fFRED believes that mugging elderly ladies is morally acceptable or it could mean that mugging elderly ladies IS morally acceptable for Fred now the first of these Fred believes that mugging elderly ladies is morally acceptable well that is unremarkable isn't it I mean poor old fFRED Mae'r flynydd geisio'r llwydde pharm� finally gyda'r llwydde. Odau ar y cyfnod am hyn tobi'r rhannol donau oherwydd yn ddefnyddio cael ei bod yn psychosonol. Mae'r blom adegwyd gyda'r llwydde y gwerthoedd y peth ar y ddweud yng Nghymru. Ond mae'r llwydde yn ymdill pan amser yn y dyfno, mae'r llwydde i'r llwydde yn d 화ed yn ysbryd, ond mae'n r�ian ymddill ar hynny. Felly mae'n gweithio'r llun i'r llun. Felly rydw i ddim yn ei wneud, ac ymdweud ymddydd Fred Mugs yn y Llyfrgell Llyfrgell, rydw i'n ddim yn ymdweud, fel y byddwn yn ei wneud, efallai mae'r Llyfrgell Llyfrgell yn ymddydd fel ymddydd Fred yn ymddydd. Felly, rydyn ni'n gweithio cyfnod o'r argumentau o'r ddau'r Sardin, byddwn yn rhaid i'w meddi meidio, yw'r sardin efo ddau ac a'r feddyll e. Felly, rydyn ni'n gweithio cych wedi ei Llyfrgell hef ymddydd fel ymddydd, ac fyddwn yn fawr, fyddwn ni'n gweithio ymdwадно a'r Y Llaydd munعr, fyddwn ni'n fwrdd i'n pepperon gan gofyn fitfyrd o'r expertanc gairaint o prosesau cyst-rint ans Casriol Y Llyfrgell. is okay, the truth of mugging elderly ladies is okay, is relative to individuals. So it might be true for you, for me and false for you, and that's how it is. Not just you believe it's okay, it is okay. Very different kettle of fish. Now I think I had another example, no I didn't. The other example I was going to use was a cultural one. For the Aztecs, killing children is morally acceptable. Does this mean that the Aztecs believe that killing children is morally acceptable, or does it mean that killing children is morally acceptable for the Aztecs? Surely it only means the first. It doesn't mean the second. It doesn't mean that they were okay to kill children when they did it. It just meant that they believed, which is nothing very interesting. Well, I'm sorry, it is interesting, especially if you're archaeologists and so on, anthropologists. So what I'm asking is, should we believe that mugging elderly ladies is morally acceptable for Fred simply because we believe that Fred believes that mugging elderly ladies is morally acceptable? Blindingly, obviously, we shouldn't. Instead, we should say Fred is wrong. This is the argument we can then make against stoning adulterers. We can certainly say that stoning adulterers is wrong, you mean? Yes. Yes, absolutely. We don't say stoning adulterers, you know, where you believe stoning adulterers is okay, we don't believe stoning adulterers is okay, but morality is culturally relative so that's okay. You carry on, mate. Cultures believe that it's acceptable to stoning adulterers, but I guess most of us here wouldn't. I've always found it difficult to make that argument, but this is the argument you now can make against that. Well, perhaps I'll come back to what you're saying later on. We're actually running out of time. Let me move on, but I think I will address that. Just want to move on. We've looked at the first three arguments for moral relativism. Now let's look at the fourth. Do you remember that was different situations make different demands? The fourth argument assumes that the only form of moral absolutism on offer is what I'm going to call lower-order absolutism. And here, the only form, candidates for moral absolutes are every day moral rules like don't lie, tell the truth, etc. Actually, there are three types of absolutism, so-called lower-order absolutism, higher-order and token absolutism. Let's have a look at them. I think that's fairly straightforward. Here's higher-order absolutism. Ops. Yes, okay. If you're a particularist, you deny lower-order moral absolutism. You don't think that things like don't lie, keep promises are everywhere and always true. You think they're rules of thumb. Okay, higher-order absolutism is the belief that moral absolutes are rules like this. Produce the greatest happiness to the greatest number. That's the utilitarian rule. Or treat others as ends in themselves. That's the down to logical moral rule. We'll be looking at both of these later on. But can you see these are completely different sorts of moral rules? Whereas don't lie, keep promises are very good school rules, aren't they? These are lousy school rules. I mean, you wouldn't have those up in the halls saying everyone's got to obey those because you'd have everyone going, eh? As somebody said earlier, in connection to virtue theory, well, what is a virtuous person? Well, you might ask... Well, you might ask anyone unsuitable for a school to treat others as ends in themselves. Well, because there's not many 11-year-olds who would know what it would be to be an end in themselves. It's not all age range, doesn't it? I mean... Yes, but you don't want set rules that are only going to be obeyed or understood by the sixth formers. Anyway, the higher order absolutism is the belief that these are moral absolutes. And token absolutism is the belief that moral absolutes are imperatives about token actions. Okay, type token distinction. If I wrote on the board, let me do it. Where's my pen? The name of a well-known pop group, well-known to anyone of our age, anyway. I apologise to anyone who's younger. Okay, how many letters have I written down here? You could answer four or you could answer two. And if you answer four, you're looking at token letters. And if you answer two, you're looking at type letters. Okay? I pinched that example from Peter Millican, by the way. Another famous philosopher Oxford University. Okay, you can do it like this, too. I'm a token human being. Okay, there's a type of thing, a human being. I'm a token, you're a token, you're a token, you're a token. Okay, there are lots of chairs in this room that are all of a type, but that's a token, one of those chairs. Okay? So you can be a token absolutist. It would be wrong to tell that lie, you might think. Or you must keep that promise. So you're not an absolutist about all lies, but when it comes to a particular lie, you are. So let's move on. Higher-order absolutism and token absolutism go together. If it's absolutely true that we ought to produce the greatest happiness, the greatest number, or treat others as ends, then it's going to be absolutely true in any given situation that we should perform whichever action produces the greatest happiness, the greatest number, or treats others as ends. So the Nazis are at the door. Where are the Jews, they say. You could tell them where the Jews are, but you think, actually, my job is to produce the greatest happiness, the greatest number. In this situation, it will only produce the greatest happiness, the greatest number if I say there aren't any Jews here. So telling that lie, there aren't any Jews here, at this occasion, in this context, in this situation, is the right thing to do. Do you see what I mean? Higher-order absolutism and token absolutism go together. Even if don't lie is nothing more than a rule of thumb. And higher-order absolutism and token absolutism together may explain firstly why lower-order rules are not absolutely true and also why lower-order rules are important. Here's the first one. Lower-order rules are not absolutely true because if telling a lie in a given situation wouldn't promote the greatest happiness, the greatest number, or respect others as ends, then we ought not to tell it. But if it would promote the greatest happiness, the greatest number, or respect others as ends, then we ought to tell it. So why is don't lie nothing more than a rule of thumb? Why is it sometimes true and sometimes not true? Answer because the thing that's always and everywhere true is we should produce the greatest happiness, the greatest number, and sometimes, or mostly lying, doesn't produce the greatest happiness, the greatest number, but in this situation it does. Therefore, we should tell this lie. So higher-order absolutism plus token absolutism explain why lower-order absolutism is false. Lower-order rules are important because if we see many situations in which token lies are absolutely wrong, mostly lying is wrong, isn't it? Only a few where they're absolutely right then don't lie becomes a useful rule of thumb, doesn't it? Where we go wrong is in thinking that it's absolutely true, not in thinking that it's generally true, usually true, that is true. Sorry. And another reason we might think of lower-order rules is important is that when we were children we were all taught lower-order moral rules as if they were absolutes. Tell me why. It makes life easy, doesn't it? We don't say darling. What you've got to do is produce the greatest happiness, the greatest number, what we've got to do is darling. Don't tell lies. And of course, when your child catches you lying, the first time it says, Mummy, you just lied. At that point you sort of backpedal, don't you? Quite quickly. And you explain to the child that lower-order moral rules are da da da da. So our discovery that the rules we were taught as absolutes aren't absolutes causes us to think that the standard view, the knee-jerk view, the view of authority, if you like, is that the lower-order moral rules are absolutes rather than just that that's what we were taught when we were children for obvious and very good reasons. So not only might we be absolutists while accepting that lower-order moral rules are not absolutely true, we also might think that absolutism explains why lower-order moral rules are not absolutely true. At this point, we've got five minutes left and I'm quite tempted to just finish there and have five minutes for question. What I was going to go on to do is distinguish two different types of absolutism from different types of relativism, and then I was going to give what I think is a psychological process by which people come to believe that they're relativists. But I can do that or I can have a question-and-answer session. Who would like the question-and-answer session? Do put your hands up, don't be... Or just signal to me like that if you don't want to put your hands up. Okay, who would like me to go on? Oh right, I'll go on then even though I can hardly speak any more. Right. It would bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number, okay. It's important to distinguish token absolutism from both individual relativism and situation relativism. Okay, what do I mean by that? Let's have a look. And instantly, I just want to say, if your mind is buzzing now, for a start it's not buzzing any more than mine is, and secondly, that's entirely to be expected. I can't teach you these things. All I can do is put them in front of you. You've now got to go home and do the thinking for yourself. Okay, you've got to go back. Have a look at your notes, think about what I've said and see why what I've said makes sense. You might disagree with what I've said and that's absolutely fine. But you need to go and do the thinking for yourself before you're in a position to see whether you agree with me or not. But let's distinguish these things. Okay, mugging Mabel Smith at 5.30 on Tuesday, the 6th of December 2009 was wrong. That's a token moral statement. It's a moral statement about a token action. See what I mean? Token absolutism says, if this statement is true, it's true absolutely. Okay, anyone who thinks it's false is wrong. Okay? So, if you believe that, you believe it as an absolutist. Okay? Sorry, an individual relativist believes that even if this statement is true, it's only true in relation to individuals. So there might be people, Fred, for example, for whom it's false. And this doesn't just mean that there are people who believe it's false, but that there are people for whom it is false. Perhaps the person who mugged Mabel Smith did ar did ar. Maybe we should let him off. Because if we accept individual relativism, then it wasn't wrong for him to do it. And what right have we got to punish him for something that wasn't wrong? So that's token absolutism. That's individual relativism. Don't confuse the two because if you do, you might think that you're an individual relativist, whereas what you actually are is a token absolutist. And, of course, it's very important, as you know, to get these things right. I don't know why you're laughing. It's huge. Okay. Distinguishing token absolutism from situation relativism, token absolutism claims that lower-order moral rules are only rules of thumb. Okay? Lying is wrong. Perfectly good rule. It's one that I use myself all the time. If I see an action, I see it's a lie, I am inclined to think it's wrong because I think that most lies are wrong. So as a token absolutist, if I am, I'm not telling you that. I'm just putting it to you. There are only rules of thumb. So even if most lies are wrong, there can be token lies, perhaps that the Jews are not here, that are right. Lying in situation relativism claims that lower-order moral rules are true only in relation to situations. So in situation S, lying is wrong, whereas in situation S star, lying isn't wrong. It's actually difficult to know what that means. Does that mean you can tell any lie you like in situation S? Here's a situation that is characterised by the fact that lying in this situation isn't wrong. It isn't that lying to say that the Nazis, sorry, the Jews aren't here, isn't wrong. It's to say lying isn't wrong in this situation. Something odd there, isn't there? Again, I'll leave you to think about that. Here's the process. Now you're getting very jerky about your parking meter, aren't you? I'll try and move quickly. I think that our knee-jerk moral relativism is a combination of several of the errors that we've examined and often the result of the following process. This is the process and I'm going to go through it, so I'm not going to give you time to read that, but I am going to discuss each of those briefly. Abortion is wrong is controversial, isn't it? I mean we all accept that. Some people believe this, some people don't believe this and so on. Best explanation I believe of this is that abortion is wrong is a rule of thumb. It's generated by beliefs about whether abortion promotes the greatest happiness, greatest number or treats others as ends and so on. But the fact is it is controversial. Some people believe it, some people don't. You might think well actually nobody needs to believe it as an absolute, perhaps we can all believe it as a rule of thumb. Anyway. Respect for each other leads to reluctance to disagree. Oh dear, Sybil thinks that abortion is wrong and I think it's right. But dear old Sybil, she's a nice old bat. Sorry, that's what I used to call my mum. It was meant very affectionately. Well, hang on a second. We've got here what seems to be vulgar relativism. Because actually I don't think that disagreeing with somebody is a sign of respect. If you say P and I believe not P, I show my respect for you by saying, oh, that's interesting. You believe P, I believe not P. Maybe I'm wrong. Why do you believe P? Tell me your reasons and I'll tell you my reasons for believing not P and maybe we'll both discover that we're wrong. Or maybe we'll discover that you are right and I am wrong. So how can it possibly be disrespectful to disagree with someone? It may be disrespectful, but we may agree with them in a way that disrespects them. But it doesn't disrespect somebody just to disagree with them, does it? So that's the second move in the process. Third one is that, okay, having done this, having said, well, I respect Sybil, therefore I'm not going to argue with her, abortion must be right for you and wrong for me. Or the other way around. I can't remember what I said before, but it doesn't matter. The logical blunder threatens. Now I'm thinking that, well, okay, Sybil believes that abortion is wrong. I believe that abortion is right, but that's merely a statement about what we believe, not about the truth of our beliefs. So why do we go the extra step and in doing so become individual relativists? Third move, we accept lower order relativism. Abortion is wrong is true only relative to individuals. Okay, so we go from the unremarkable belief that I believe abortion is wrong, you believe abortion is right to the relativistic belief abortion is wrong for you and abortion is right for me. And actually, if you think about it, both of these are hugely controversial because even if I accept that abortion is right for me, I would certainly think that there are times when it wasn't right. If I choose to have an abortion at eight and a half months because I want to go on holiday, is abortion right for me then? Surely not. It seems as wrong for me then as I would think it is for, or Sybil might think it is for other people. And we might then go from lower order moral relativism to the belief that all moral truth is relative. Either because we're ignorant of or because we're ignoring the possibility of higher order or token relativism. So do you see what I've done is I've taken us through a psychological process by several, quite easy and easily explained steps by how we get to beliefs in relativism that are actually not justified at all. Now, this is not to say, and I think I've finished that. Okay, we'll come back to that in a minute. This is not to say that moral relativism can't be a much more sophisticated position that has a fighting chance of being right. I mean, I don't think it's right, but then that's me. But there are other good philosophers who think that moral relativism is true but not in these crude forms. Okay, what I want you to do if you can, if you've got time, if you haven't, it doesn't matter, go home, look at your hand out, work through what I've said and see if you can see where the errors come in. That'll do you, that's all you need to do. Okay, I'd just like to take a straw poll here because half the room, well over half the room said that they were relativists. Who now thinks they're a relativist? Oh, goodness, still quite a lot of people. Okay, I think I might ask that question again at the beginning of next week. There's the reading for next week's, oh, this is for this week's lecture. Okay. Yes, it is. And if you'd like to test your understanding, ask yourself whether you can do those questions. And if you'd like to do some reading for next week, there's some reading for next week. That's it. And thank you for listening. I'm sorry.