Distinction between Moral Relativism and Moral Nihilism
Student Name
Institutional Affiliation
Distinction between Moral Relativism and Moral Nihilism
Introduction
Meta-ethics has evolved over time in pursuit of attempting to explain why things happen the way they do. Different meta-ethical views have come up; moral relativism, moral nihilism, moral realism. The course work seeks to explore the distinction between moral relativism and moral nihilism.
Distinction between Moral Relativism and Moral Nihilism
Moral relativism view holds that people or individuals within the community or society are governed by various cultural values and ethics. Proponents of this theory argue that moral relativism acknowledges the society’s moral values; thus people follow a certain path or culture because there are values which have be set and must be follow as so. Even though moral relativism endorses the moral values, it denies that the values are grounded in an objective realm (Alvaro, 2020). Therefore, the proponents view that moral claims, when true, are made true by the beliefs, views, feelings, and attitude of the cultural groups.
On the other hand, moral nihilism holds that there are no moral values or ethics at all, which implies that individuals have social actions that can be freely rejected. The proponents of this meta-ethical view argue that human beings can be left free to choose the direction they wish to follow without having to look at what culture or traditional beliefs hold. The proponents hold the view that all moral claims are false. Thus, there is nothing wrong or right and nothing is good or bad (Pölzler, 2015). According to this argument individuals can do no wrong nor do right but only depends on the position or the angle with which one is standing.
References
Alvaro, C. (2020). The Incoherence of Moral Relativism. Cultura International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology, 17(1), 19-38.
Pölzler, T. (2015). Climate change inaction and moral nihilism. Ethics, Policy & Environment, 18(2), 202-214.