ABSTRACT
Some forms of ethical relativism are trivially true, for instance relativity to circumstances. Relativism is a theory which takes very seriously what the author have called the legal model, holding in effect that moral principles and norms do exist, but in very much the same way as laws do, with only some simple and easily explained differences. Absolutism as a philosophical theory, rather than a primitive and unreflective attitude, comes after relativism; as a philosophy, it must share with relativism the rejection of an uncritical attitude to customary morality, but it retains the substance of the uncritical assumptions. The solution, inevitably, will be to abandon the sharp and simple contrast the people have so far been working with, between an unqualified realism and an unqualified relativism. The trouble with unqualified relativism is that it leads to an unacceptable ‘Anything goes’.
