You Have Your Truth, I have Mine

Some people.. maintain that morality is not dependent on the society but rather the individual. “Morality is in the eye of the beholder.” They treat morality like taste or aesthetic judgments, person relative. 

On the basis of (moral) subjectivism Adolf Hitler and serial murderer Ted Bundy could be considered as a moral as Gandhi, as long as each lived by his own standards, whatever those might be. 

Although many students say they espouse subjectivism, there is evidence that it conflicts with other of their moral views. They typically condemn Hitler as an evil man for his genocidal policies. A contradiction seems to exist between subjectivism and the very concept of morality. 

Louis Pojman, Ethical Theory

Cultural Relativism

Recognizing the importance of our social environment in generating customs and beliefs, many people suppose that ethical relativism is the correct metaethical theory. Furthermore, they are drawn to it for its liberal philosophical stance. It seems to be an enlightened response to the sin of ethnocentricity, and it seems to entail or strongly imply an attitude of tolerance toward other cultures. 

Tolerance is certainly a virtue, but is this a good argument for it? I think not. If morality is relative to each culture, then if the culture in question does not have a principle of tolerance, its members have no obligation to be tolerant. 

Not only do relativists fail to offer a basis for criticizing those who are intolerant, they cannot rationally criticize anyone who espouses what they might regard as a heinous principle. Relativists cannot morally criticize anyone outside their own culture. Adolf Hitler’s genocidal actions, as long as they are culturally accepted, are as morally legitimate as Mother Teresa’s work of mercy. 

There are other disturbing consequences of ethical relativism. It seems to entail that reformers are always (morally) wrong since they go against the tide of cultural standards. William Wilberforce was wrong in the eighteenth Century to oppose slavery, the British were immoral in opposing the burning of widows in India. 

There is an even more basic problem with the notion that morality is dependent on cultural acceptance for its validity. The problem is that of culture or society is notoriously difficult to define. This is especially true in a pluralistic society like our own where the notion seems to be vague with unclear boundaries. 

One person may belong to several societies (subcultures).. if Mary is a US citizen and a member of the Roman Catholic church, she is wrong if she chooses to have an abortion and not-wrong if she acts against the teaching of the church on abortion. 

This moral Babel.. has lost its action-guiding function. 

Louis Pojman, Ethical Theory

Taking Beauty Seriously

If all experience of beauty is merely subjective, we find ourselves in a position in which some people like rice pudding and other people do not like rice pudding, which is then the conclusion of the matter. In short, it would mean that no two people have ever differed or ever can differ on a question of beauty. When one person says the Philadelphia City Hall is more beautiful than the Parthenon and another person denies this, they are not, on the subjectivist theory, arguing at all.

One man is telling about his insides and the other is telling about his insides. If someone wishes to contend that the works of a contemporary leader of a dance band are aesthetically superior to the works of Beethoven, there is, subjectively speaking, no suitable rejoinder.

This situation, however, is too absurd to be accepted by thoughtful critics as the last word on the question. The fact is that people do argue about aesthetic judgments, and the subjectivists argue as much as anybody else.

Regardless of their philosophical position, those who take beauty most seriously tend to hold that those who fail to see what they see really ought to see it, and with sufficient clarification of sight would see it.

Kant goes beyond the mere rejection of the familiar maxim and points out the imperative note which is essential to aesthetic judgment, a note similar to that which we found in moral judgment. To assert that a thing is beautiful is to blame those who do not agree. If I am right, they are wrong.

It would be laughable of a man to justify himself by saying, "This object is beautiful for me."

Elton Trueblood, Philosophy of Religion