Styles of Moral Relativism – A Critical Family Tree

This chapter focuses on the different styles of moral relativism. The history of moral relativist thinking features different branches to the family tree, each representing a different impetus to relativism, and so producing a different style of moral relativist thought. At the root, however, is a broadly subjectivist parent idea that morality is at least in part the upshot of a shared way of life, and shared ways of life tend to vary markedly from culture to culture. The discussions cover the branches of moral historicism, moral reasons, moral truth, and moral plurality.