ABSTRACT
Existentialist writers often begin with the idea that there is no God and argue that people therefore must create their own ethical facts. Conventionalism in ethics isn’t a thesis about language. It does not assert that ethical language is under the control of someone’s say-so; it says that the ethical propositions are made true or false by someone’s decision. Ethical conventionalism asserts a substantive thesis, not to be confused with trivial semantic conventionalism. Ethical conventionalism holds that ethical propositions are very different from most other propositions. Ethical relativism enjoyed a fair amount of popularity in the social sciences during the twentieth century. As Western social scientists improved their understanding of other cultures, they often came to feel considerable respect for those cultures. Sartre’s thesis about the responsibility of individuals to shape their own lives is important.
