ABSTRACT

This chapter outlines speaker and agent relativism and distinguishes between them. It also outlines the motivations for relativism. The chapter discusses a problem for both speaker and agent relativism. It also shows how issues relating to relativism are also related to discussions of meaning, truth and external reasons. Relativism is possibly the most absurd view to have been advanced even in moral philosophy. The aim of most philosophical discussions of relativism is to establish its manifest falsity. 'Relativism' covers a multitude of sophisticated and widely defended positions. The agent relativist argues that someone's action is right or wrong depending on his or her moral framework. In order for the argument in support of agent relativism to work, all normative reasons need to be internal. According to speaker relativism, a moral judgement is elliptical and can only be judged as true or false in relation to my moral framework.