Let us analyze these moral relativistic arguments that come to us through popular media.

1) The argument of pleasure states that what brings pleasure is Right and what doesn’t bring pleasure is wrong.

• The difficulty with this position is that
• not all pleasures are good (erg., sadism),
• not all pain is bad (erg., warning pains)
• It does not specify what kind of pleasure
• And then, should our gauge be pleasure for the individual, the group, or the race?

2) The argument of public consumption states that what is morally right is determined by the public culture to which one belongs The difficulty with this position is

• Simply because someone is doing some-thing does not mean one ought to do so.
• Then racism, rape, cruelty, and murder would automatically be morally right.
• Further, if each individual/community is right, then how do we resolve conflicts between different individuals/communities.
• It would give rise to a “might-is-right” world.
• Finally, if morals are relative to each individual /social group, then can opposite ethical imperatives be viewed as right. Everything cannot be right, certainly not opposites.

3) Similarly, the difficulty with the argument of popular opinion

• The whole human race could be wrong. ( it is still logically possible)
• What if the majority of the human race decided that suicide was the best “solution” to the world’s problems? Whole communities, like Jonestown, have committed mass suicide.
• Today we like to think the race has a better moral standard and people opt for better choices. But better implies a best or an objective standard outside by which the progress can be measured.
• If morality is a matter of popular opinion then, as Marshall McLuhan has suggested, ethical norms could be established by a computer which would record simple majority decisions.

4) The argument of individualism states that the morally right thing to do is what is morally right for me. The difficulty with this position is that

• · It implies that an act can be right for someone even if it is cruel, hateful, or tyrannical.
• It would then render society inoperative
• If everyone literally “did his own thing,” chaos would result. ( Imagine what would the traffic be like in a world like this)
• The very fact that we appoint judges and courts points to the fact that we are not happy with the idea that everyone should make their own rules about what is right or wrong.