According to Dr.Bezio’s first podcast on ethics, relative ethics is quite literally anarchy, the absence of a governmental body or authority. In this form of ethics, there is no universal good or bad. Instead, each individual person has their own idea of morality, and although this may seem like the perfect example of individualism, I agree that even individuals in the US share at least some common ground. For instance, most people in the US would agree that murder is bad, even if there are some relativists that would say each individual person comes to their own conclusion on murder.
What I find interesting is that relative ethics, as daunting as it seems, could actually be a progressive way at understanding the world around us. As the United States becomes increasingly polarized, with the “left” versus the “right” domineering the political sphere, many would agree that what we’re experiencing is gridlock. No real change occurs unless there is serious consequences for not doing so, and everyone seems stuck in their ways because that’s what they were told to do: fit the ethical mold that’s been set for you. Approaching this problem with through the lens of relative ethics could help politicians, representatives, lobbyists and more understand that what is ethical will forever and always be relative. In that case, maybe they would come to understand that maybe their way of running things is not the only way, and that other people’s ideas could work as well.
I admit this is an extremely optimistic example of how relative ethics could be progressive, but I think that it would be beneficial to recognize the power that understanding others’ points-of-views has. Of course, like Dr.Bezio said, some people may take relative ethics and apply it to the wrong situations (i.e. murder), but there is always a bright side when you think about it.
Although i agree with you that approaching our understanding of the world through relative ethics could help us to be more progressive in our views, I also think it could also have the opposite effect of making things more difficult. For example, in your example of talking about the United states government becoming more polarized, you discuss it from the specific view of consequentialism relativity, meaning that we are evaluating something/changes occur based on consequences. If anyone/politicians were to look at an issue considering Deontism (evaluation of the action itself) and/or Araraeism (evaluating the virtue of the person rather than action/consequences), it seems to me that creating real change would be harder due to the different perspectives of moral truths in our society.
I agree with you, individuals do share common ground on what is moral and what is not. It is very clear that doing a horrible act such as murder is not okay. I would agree with you in terms of relative ethics. However, is there a chance that it could go wrong?
I think it’s important that you mention that its a very optimistic view of relative ethics, but I also think its very valuable to consider a more idealistic possibility, while recognizing that in application it has the potential to have conflict and problems. I think not considering these other approaches to ethics continues to keep us in a sort of gridlock, like you mentioned regarding the political sphere of the US. Yes it is possible that things could go wrong by trying something different like apply cultural relativism universally, but things are already going wrong now, so it doesn’t hurt to at least consider another perspective.