For a long time, there have existed two opposing views in the study of moral and ethical norms of society. The first position can be defined as moral universalism. Proponents of this position believe that the entire international community, and each person separately, can be subjected to a uniform system of values and laws. The second position is represented by moral relativism, the essence of which is the opposite view to the regulation of society. Moral relativism denies the existence of a common moral law for all people, arguing that there are many different cultures and each of them has its own morality and ethic in the world. This duality can be defined as a philosophical problem. It remains relevant since the mid of the 20th century. It is necessary to follow the development of ethics in philosophy and also pay attention to the way morality and ethics govern the modern public relations in order to find out which of these two positions is more correct. Moral universalism has its theoretical basis, but it cannot be used as a real practice as the modern multicultural society exists on the basis of relativistic principles.
Ethics in philosophy and its impact on society. Moral universalism has a long history. Its origins can be seen in the philosophical views of some ancient thinkers; moreover, the moral universalism has its manifestation in many world's religions, e.g. Buddhism (Ingram 14). Since people have the same nature of body and mind, the proponents of this theory argue that the existence of a unified system of regulation of moral laws is correct. Based on these beliefs, the need to take into account the individual qualities of a person and blur the line of cultural identity vanishes. The principle of moral universalism can be traced in the ideology of communism, where there are certain "moral and ethical standards for each member of a multicultural society" (Delanty 36). "Moral relativism completely contradicts universalism, claiming that there is no mandatory moral and ethical standards in modern society" (Muthu 29). In other words, the relativistic principles argue that everyone in the world cannot be governed by one law for everyone with respect to the world and society. As well as universalism, moral relativism was born in the days of antiquity (Ingram 12). However, the main relativism ideas developed during the 16th-18th centuries. It is difficult to imagine any modern society without regard to ethical standards that govern not only moral, but also legal regulations of any state. Ethics has largely determined the state affairs in the world today, and one can say that human development is directly dependent on the moral philosophy. In addition, ethics is perhaps the most important part of the philosophy. From the Greek, the word ethics means a "custom" and it speaks for itself (Muthu 9). The subject of ethics is the study of morality. In other words, ethics can be regarded as moral philosophy, where ethics is the area of knowledge and morality is its subject. The specificity of ethics is that it attaches to the problems of individual human scale and, therefore, the solutions that it offers can be used and distributed to any other individual who is faced with similar problems. Since ancient times, ethics is a very important part of the formation of a civilized society. It finds the place of morality in the system of other social relations, analyzes its nature and internal structure, exploring the origins and historical development of morality, and theoretically justifies its system. As it is known, Aristotle proposed the term "ethics" in the 4th century BC (Ingram 12). He knew it as a special practical science of morals; it was considered a moral virtue in those days. The purpose of virtue, that is, morality, was to teach a person to be kind and happy. The word "Ethics" by Aristotle was formed from the word "ethos", which had several meanings (Muthu 10). Ethos is a usual place of dwelling, a beast's dwelling. Later it came to mean a stable nature of phenomenon, custom, habit, nature, character, and temperament (Muthu 10). It is important to see the two main meanings of the word ethos that are preserved today. First, the ethos is a quality characteristic of the society, i.e., the manners, habits, and customs that have certain ethnic group or the character of the nation, the predefined "place" of its habitat (Ingram 16). This understanding of the ethos is "characteristic of the cultural anthropology and ethnography"; while the second meaning of the word "ethos" is the nature and destiny of the individual (Muthu 9).
Conflict of moral relativism and moral universalism. The conflict between moral relativism and moral universalism can be regarded as a conflict between the universal and the particular. Cultural relativism against moral universalism supposes the "difference against equality or collectivism against individualism (except, in this instance, for strategic purposes)" (Ingram 59). This problem has existed for a very long time and it is still relevant. For example, some researchers believe that ethnocentrism is a product of moral universalism (Ingram 60). Therefore, Universalist ideology is responsible for the most shameful events in European history, namely, for colonial conquest. "A number of the conventional distinctions that are deployed by many contemporary political theorists— for instance, between universalism and relativism, or essential and constructed identities— fail to do justice to the arguments made by Enlightenment antiimperialists, who often treat such supposed opposites as interrelated features of the human condition" (Muthu 3). Several European countries enriched at the expense of everyone else and subjected to exploitation a plurality of peoples under the pretext of proliferation of "civilization", i.e. universal values. According to Muthu, universalism is imperialism, and colonialism is not the only sin of universalism (4).
It is necessary to understand that all judgments are relative to the place, time, and context. This moral relativism should not be confused with nihilism or cynicism, because "relativism is recognition of the value, which is accompanied by the consciousness of their limitations" (Delanty 33). Unity and diversity of the human species is equally difficult to explain. People are infinitely varied. They form one kind, but the included groups are very different among themselves. "The question of moral-ethical cosmopolitanism is the question of moral universalism; it tries to explain what it would mean to universalize the scope of moral concern and respect, to accord each and every human being proper consideration" (Ingram 68). Therefore, the values of life of the various groups differ too. The existence of universal values would allow people to judge each other, regardless of borders separating them and alienating them from each other's differences. However, all values are relative and depend on the location and the historical moment of class or race. "Kant’s reflections on history rather seek a basis for thinking that moral action will not be in vain— only a practical matter to the extent that the individual may not be motivated to act at all if she sees the world as hopeless (Ingram 115). If one recognizes the existence of a universal scale of values, how far it can spread? The problem of unity and diversity becomes a problem of universal and relative. It is necessary to give an example, which will provide a better understanding of the moral and cultural universalism. Jean Jacques Rousseau was the first person who questioned the ideas of universalism (Delanty 35). He criticized European travelers, who described other people without taking into account their cultural identity; moreover, Rousseau accused the researchers of other cultures that they saw in other cultures only "distorted images of themselves" (Muthu 12). He was angered by the fact that the researchers of the time described the inhabitants of Asia and Africa as "exotic monkeys" (Muthu 41). The philosopher insisted on the need to try to find the characteristic features of each of these cultures that distinguished them from the Europeans. The opening passages of the first part of Rousseau's work Discourse on Inequality, those meant to "discern natural humans simply from their “physical” side before considering them from the “metaphysical and moral side”, rely greatly upon New World ethnography to provide empirical evidence about the physical prowess of natural humans in the wild" (Muthu 40).
In addition, one should not forget about the concepts such as "humanity" and "state." People are not just individuals who belong to one human race. They belong to different groups, in which they cooperate. According to Ingram, the most important group to which a person can belong in the modern era is a nation (124). The nation, in turn, means a "complete conjunction between the culture and the state" (Ingram 124). Belonging to humanity is not the same thing that belonging to the nation. A man is not the same thing as a citizen, i.e., these are two different concepts. The mismatch between the two identities of the hidden can turn into a sharp conflict in situations when a person needs to choose between the two, i.e., between the respective sets of values. "Such universal and particular categories in their political philosophies not only coexist, but deeply inform one another" (Muthu 10). People are judged on the basis of ethical principles, and citizens act according to the political principles. These two aspects of human life are necessary, and none of them can be converted to another.
Conclusion
An analysis of the conflict between the moral universalism and moral relativism leads to the conclusion that the universal moral laws cannot be used in the regulation of society. Philosophical Ethics gives the understanding that each person is a unique being. In addition, it can be said that modern society lives according to the principles of moral relativism, which is more suitable for the development of humankind, taking into account the cultural, racial, national, and civil differences.
Works Cited
Delanty, Gerard. "Habermas And Occidental Rationalism: The Politics Of Identity, Social Learning, And The Cultural Limits Of Moral Universalism." Sociological Theory 15.1 (1997): 30-59. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.
Ingram, James D. New Directions in Critical Theory: Radical Cosmopolitics: The Ethics and Politics of Democratic Universalism. New York, NY, USA: Columbia University Press, 2013. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 26 April 2016.
Muthu, Sankar. Enlightenment Against Empire. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press, 2003. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 27 April 2016.
"Diderot, Kant, and Herder interweave commitments to moral universalism and moral incommensurability, to humanity and cultural difference" (Muthu 10).
"Diderot’s flexible moral universalism that allows him both to trumpet the freedom and dignity of all humans and to consider a wide array of cultural practices and institutions (of moeurs) in the non-European world as rational, defensible responses to local needs and concerns" (Muthu 76).
Kant and Herder treat humans as "cultural agents and interweave commitments to moral universalism and moral incommensurability in the course of their arguments against European imperialism" (Muthu 121).
"Kant’s most abstract presentation of universalism is thus theorized as fundamentally an expression of moral egalitarianism and social criticism, rather than simply an attachment to rationalism per se" (Muthu 125).
"The distinctive qualities of humanity, as well as its relationship to our capacity to be moral (to treat each other with the respect we deserve as persons with humanity), can be explained further by examining Kant’s discussion of such issues in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793)" (Muthu 133).
In the Religion, Kant discusses some key predispositions that characterize "the human being". These predispositions are "original", he explains, because "they belong to the possibility of human nature” as such; that is, “they belong with necessity to the possibility of this being" (Muthu 133).
"None of this implies moral relativism, for the general will of humanity itself is a universal ethical touchstone that embodies cross-cultural norms of mutual respect and individual freedom" (Muthu 80). Rather, Diderot appears to "balance a commitment to a plurality of cultural values and institutions with a humanistic concern for the equal dignity of all individuals" (Muthu 80).
"Among the more remarkable features of such writings— an aspect that should give pause to those who theorize an intractable conceptual divide between universalism and relativism in moral and political thought— is that an increasingly acute awareness of the irreducible plurality and partial incommensurability of social forms, moral values, and political institutions engendered a historically uncommon, inclusive moral universalism" (Muthu 283).
