ABSTRACT
One of the central texts in which Ernst Cassirer addresses the topic of relativism is his often-overlooked work Axel Hägerström (1939). Cassirer takes on the topic of relativism specifically in his discussion of Hägerström’s moral philosophy, where he labels Hägerström’s position “complete relativism.” Although Cassirer rejects Hägerström’s complete version of relativism, in this chapter, I argue that Cassirer nevertheless endorses another form of relativism that is grounded on Kantian principles, which I shall label “critical relativism.” Central to his argument in favor of critical relativism is the claim that our judgments in morality are like those in natural science: though they are not absolutely valid, they can nevertheless be objectively valid. For this reason, I focus on how Cassirer develops his account of relativism in the context of his analysis of the symmetry between judgments in natural science and morality. I suggest that pursuing his analysis of this parallel promises to shed light not just on Cassirer’s framework for relativism but also on his theory of morality.
