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FACTUAL RELATIVISM If the preceding considerations are correct, it is implausible to construe relativism about a given domain either as the claim that the propositions of that domain are unexpectedly relational in character or as the claim that, while its propositions aren’t, its truth-conditions are. In a sense, a difficulty with such construals of relativism should have been evident from the start, prior to a detailed investigation of their prospects. The point is that it is hard to see how an adequate formulation of relativism about a given domain could, in the first instance, be a claim about the contents of theWhatis Relativism? 19 sentences of that domain. Any such formulation, it seems to me, would leave open a possibility that any real relativism should foreclose upon. I shall illustrate this point using the propositional construal, but similar remarks apply to Harman’s truth-conditional suggestion. Onthepropositional construal, to say that moral relativism is true is to say that typical moral sentences like (10) do not express such absolute propositions as: (15) It is morally wrong of Paul to steal Mark’s car but, rather, such unexpectedly relational propositions as: (16) In relation to moral code M, it is morally wrong of Paul to steal Mark’s car. Now, the trouble is that, on such a view, moral relativism is merely a view about what typical moral sentences mean. It is merely a claim about the nature of the discourse as we have come to develop it. And that claim would appear to leave it wide open that—out there—there are perfectly objective absolute facts about what ought and ought not to be done, facts that our discourse, as we have come to develop it, fails to talk about, but which some other possible discourse, that we have not yet developed, could talk about. In other words, this propositionalist construal of moral relativism seems consistent with something that one would have expected any real relativism to foreclose upon, namely, that there are objective moral facts out there waiting to be represented by our language and which we have uptonowsomehowmanagedtooverlook.² A correct construal of relativism about a given domain, D, cannot locate the unexpected relationality in the contents of D’s sentences. It must locate it, rather, in the facts. Relativism cannot properly be seen as correcting our view of what our sentences mean; it must rather be seen as correcting our view of what the facts are. In other words, the relativist’s project must be seen to be a reforming project, designed to convince us that we should abandon the absolutist discourse we currently have in favor of a discourse which accommodates his conviction that the only facts in the vicinity of that discourse are certain kinds of relational fact. Thus, in the case of motion, the relativist must be seen as urging us to abandon talk of something’s merely moving in favor of talk about its moving relative to a variable frame of reference. And in the case of mass, he must be seen as urging us to abandon talk of something’s having mass in favor of talk about its having mass relative to a frame of reference. And so forth. If we collect our various observations together, we get the following picture of a relativistic view of motion: ² I heard Kit Fine make a similar point in an oral presentation on John MacFarlane’s rather different formulation of relativism. There will be a problem, of course, about how we are to express those missing facts, given the relativist’s thesis about the meanings of ordinary moral terms, but there are obvious strategies for getting around this difficulty.20 Paul Boghossian (a) The sentence ‘‘The Earth moves’’ expresses the proposition The Earth moves which is true if and only if the Earth has the monadic property of moving. (b) Because nothing has—or can have—such a property, all such utterances are strictly speaking untrue. (c) Theclosest truths in the vicinity are relational truths of the form: x movesrelative to frame of reference F. Therefore, (d) If our motion utterances are to have any prospect of being true, we should not makejudgmentsoftheform: xmoves but only judgmentsof theform: x movesrelative to F. Finally, (e) No one of these frames is more correct for the purposes of determining the facts about motion than any of theothers. This last clause, emphasizing that there is nothing that privileges one of these frames over any of the others, as far as determining the facts about motion is concerned, is important because without it, it would be possible to satisfy clauses (a) through (d) by supposing that the relativist is insisting on relativizing facts about motion to some particular privileged frame of reference, say, the center of Earth. So understood, then, a relativism about motion consists of three central ingredients: a metaphysical insight—that there are no absolute facts of a certain kind but only certain kinds of related relational fact; a recommendation—that we stop asserting the absolute propositions that report on those absolute facts but assert only the appropriate relational propositions; and a constraint—on the values that the relativization parameter is allowed to assume (in the case of the motion, there are no constraints). Generalizing this picture, we can say that a relativism about a monadic property P is the view that: (A) ‘‘x is P’’ expresses the proposition xisPwhich is true if and only if x has the monadicproperty expressed by ‘‘P.’’ (B) Because nothing has (or can have) the property P, all such utterances are condemnedtountruth. (C) Theclosest truths in the vicinity are related relational truths of the form:Whatis Relativism? xisPrelativetoF where ‘‘F’’ names some appropriate parameter. 21 (D) If our P-utterances are to have any prospect of being true, we should not makejudgmentsoftheform: xisP but only those of theform: xisPrelativetoF. (E) Thereare thefollowing constraintson the values that F may assume: … ThefewerconstraintsthereareonF,themoreextremetherelativism. In light of its reforming nature, we may dub a relativism based on such a template ‘‘Replacement Relativism.’’ MORALRELATIVISM Let me nowturntoexamining what sorts of theses Replacement Relativism leads to when it is applied to the sorts of domains—morality for example, or epistemic justification—which have most interested philosophers. I will concentrate on the moral case, but everything I say could easily be adapted to the epistemic case. Applying the template just developed, we get the following Replacement view of moral relativism. i. An ordinary assertion of ‘‘It is wrong of Paul to steal Mark’s car’’ expresses the proposition that It would be wrong of Paul to steal Mark’s car, a proposition which is true if and only if Paul’s stealing Mark’s car has the monadic property of being wrong. ii. Because nothing has or can have the monadic property of being wrong, all such assertions are condemnedto untruth. iii. The closest truths in the vicinity are related relational truths of the form: It is wrong of Paul tosteal Mark’s car relative to F, where ‘‘F’’ names some appropriate parameter. (iv) If our moral assertions are to have any prospect of being true, we should not makejudgmentsoftheform: It would be wrong of Paul tosteal Mark’s car. but only those of theform: It would be wrong of Paul tosteal Mark’s car relative to F.22 Paul Boghossian (v) Therearethefollowingconstraints on the values that F may assume: … In outline, anyway, this seems to capture fairly well what most moral relativists have intuitively wanted to hold. An important question is: what should we take F to be? To what does the moral relativist propose to relativize ordinary moral judgments? The almost universal answer, given by friend and foe alike, is that the moral relativist proposes to relativize moral judgments to moral codes or frameworks.As Harmanputsit: For the purposes of assigning truth conditions, a judgment of the form, it would be morally wrong of P to D, has to be understood as elliptical for a judgment of the form, in relation to moral framework M, it would be morally wrong of P to D. Similarly for other moral judgments.³ Adapted to my terminology, the idea is that we are to see the moral relativist as recommendingthat wegiveupasuntrueallpropositions of the form: It would be wrong of PtoD andreplace them instead with propositions of the form: In relation to moral framework M, it would be wrong of P to D where ‘‘M’’ names some appropriately salient moral framework, typically the speaker’s own.⁴ Why is it so natural to construe the relativist as urging us to relativize moral judgments to moral codes or frameworks? The answer is that it is a natural elaboration of the central thought behind moral relativism—namely, that different people bring different moral standards to bear on the morality of a given act and that there is no objectively choosing between these different standards. A ‘mora code’ is just what codifies these standards. Hat is why it is the relativization parameter of choice. MORALCODESASPROPOSITIONS So far, so good. Now, however, we face the question: what could moral codes be such that they could perform the function that the moral relativist expects of them?Let ussplit this question into two: A. Whatisamoralcodeorframework? B. What is it for P’s doing D, to be ‘‘prohibited relative to a particular moral code M?’’ ³ Harman and Thomson, p. 4. ⁴ An analogous view, with epistemic systems in place of moral frameworks—systems that specify how different kinds of information bear on the epistemic justification of different kinds of belief—captures what many have wanted to call a relativism about justification.Whatis Relativism? 23 Starting with the first question, there are two possible conceptions of moral codes: as sets of general propositions or as sets of imperatives. I will begin by discussing the propositional construal deferring until later in the paper an examination of the imperatival construal. When most people think of moral codes, they think of them as sets of general propositions which encode particular conceptions of right and wrong, of moral prohibition and permission, with different societies accepting different sets of such propositions and so adhering to different moral codes. Thus, Harman,indescribing the moral diversity which he finds in the world at large, says: Members of different cultures often have very different beliefs about right and wrong and often act quite differently on their beliefs …. Some societies allow slavery, some have caste systems, which they take to be morally satisfactory, others reject both slavery and caste systems as grossly unjust.⁵ Or consider the following characterization, picked more or less at random fromtheweb,duetoanorganizationcalled ‘‘ReligiousTolerance.org’’: The purpose of this essay is to show the wide diversity of moral codes that exist today and in the past. …The result of this diversity is that one group of people may consider an action moral, while another group will regard it as morally neutral, and a third group may decide that it is profoundly immoral. Each will be following their own moral code. Of course, it may take a certain amount of reflection for a person to be able to formulate the beliefs which constitute his moral code. In that sense, moral codes might exist more as tacit beliefs than as explicit ones. But that is no reason not to take themtobeatbottompropositional attitudes. Not only is it in general very natural to take moral codes to be sets of propositions; there are special reasons for the relativist to insist on this construal and this brings us to the second question. Recall that the relativist urges us not to assert that: It would be wrong of Paul tosteal Mark’s car but only that: In relation to moral code M, it would be wrong of Paul to steal Mark’s car. But what could ‘‘in relation to moral code M’’ mean if not ‘‘is entailed by moral code M?’’ How else are we to think of a moral code ruling on the correctness of a potential infinity of particular moral judgments except either by entailing them or byfailing to entail them? If there is, indeed, no alternative to this picture, then the propositionalist picture of moral codes is forced, for that is the only way in which we can make sense of moral codesas standing in entailment relations to particular moral judgments. ⁵ Harman and Thomson, p. 8.24 Paul Boghossian The answer to our two questions, then, is this: moral codes are sets of general propositions specifying alternative conceptions of moral right and wrong. These codes entail particular moral judgments about specific acts. According to moral relativism, then, we should speak not of what is and is not morally prohibited simpliciter, but only of what is and is not prohibited by particular codes. I will call any relativistic view that is characterized by this pair of features—the relativization parameter consists of a set of general propositions and these propositions stand in entailment relations to the target proposition—a Fictionalist brand of Replacement Relativism. (Compare truths about fictional characters: there are no truths of the formSherlock Holmes lived on Baker Street, but only ones of the form According to the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes lived on Baker Street.)