Ehical Relativism

All my blogs are intended to be contemplations of ethical issues that concern me. I don't intend them as attacks on individuals. I don't present them as perfect wisdom. They are only my own attempts at clarifying and communicating my own thoughts. I put them on the net, because I feel that it is nice to have something to refer to, if I'm communicating with someone on twitter, etc, where length limitations make it difficult to put out a more extensive comment, and where referring to a background argument may make going on at length unnecessary.

Please understand that I am only beginning to write about my views on our brother and sister animals. I may not know all the arguments others have had, and the positions they've taken, especially where words or phrases have developed specific contexts (like compassion). Have mercy on my ignorance.

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Ethical Relativism

It bothers me when, during a debate, someone accuses another of being an ethical relativist as if that was a bad thing. It bothers me because I consider myself an ethical relativist. Some people, especially in the vegan movement, attack ethical relativism as being a sort of post-modernist "anything goes", especially where choice about eating meat is concerned.

On the simplest level, my understanding of ethical relativism is that there is no absolute code of ethics. That different people can have different ethical frameworks. What does this mean, for people making ethical choices? It means that a person trusts their own notion of right and wrong, instead of one that is external, one that is told to them.

Ethical absolutism allows us to argue that someone else is wrong, and use the absolute code we follow as proof. An absolutist needs no more evidence than that. They just assert their view as absolutely true, and their opponent as wrong.

The problem of ethical absolutism is that if there is only one true ethical code, who has that code? As a vegan, I believe that we have no right to kill and enslave animals. As a Buddhist, I believe in non-harming, ahimsa. The people who I hear say there is one truth, one moral code, sometimes say "Thou shalt not kill" (and then turn around and justify all sorts of killing, of people as well as animals). They also may say homosexuality is wrong. Their justification is that there is an absolute moral code from on high, part of the same code that says "thou shalt not kill", and it says homosexuality is wrong, no matter what you or I feel or think. If I disagree, I am wrong, because an absolute ethics is always right, by definition. All of that absolute code is right, not just the bits I like.

That's the catch in ethical absolutes. They say that there is a "true" moral code, and if my inner perception of morality differs, I am wrong. Absolutists have a fixed set of ethics. Absolutist ethics imposes a static view of truth, and of morality, from outside. It denies my/our individual understanding of the truth. It says that my own perception and understanding cannot be trusted. My own sense of right and wrong is incorrect whenever it varies from the absolute code.

Ethical absolutism is ultimately dis-empowering to anyone who believes in it, alienating them from their inner truth. If I am a believer, I can sometimes use the code to push my own agenda, but sometimes the code tells me to do things I don't feel to be right or necessary. If we cannot trust our own understanding of right, we are forced to rely some external source, a book or set of rules. Then we need someone to interpret the book, because each of us, left to ourselves, might interpret the book in our own way. So we get a hierarchy, with some pope with absolute authority to tell us the true path. Of course, there are competing hierarchies, each with a Pope, a Patriarch, an Archbishop, a Master, each claiming absolute truth.

Ethical relativism says to depend on our own sense of right and wrong. The Hindus, and paths derived from Hinduism, like Jaina and Buddhism, argue that each person needs to find the truth within, and therefore truth varies with each person's understanding, and each person's experience: that our understanding can change even within one person, over time. Our understanding evolves. There are Buddhist teachers who eat meat, and can justify eating meat, but my own sense of ethics tells me this is wrong. Ethical relativism lets me trust my own understanding of the truth, in spite of majority opinions.

The strength of ethical relativism is that it validates what we know in our hearts. The weakness is that we must acknowledge that other people have their own truths, their own understanding. Paths based on Hinduism, including Buddhism and Jain Dharma (Shraman Dharma) are ethically relativist. They believe that people evolve. Our understanding evolves from ignorance to wisdom.

Relativist understanding of ethics does not mean that anything goes. Implicit in the idea is that our own understanding of truth, of ethics, changes and improves. Implicit in the understanding of Dharma, a path, is that we actively seek to improve our understanding of truth, actively seek to improve our ethics, and our behaviour. Ethical relativism is a path (dharma) of increasing understanding. Dharma, any dharma, involves actually trying to understand what our ethical path is, and doing our best to live that path.

As a vegan, when people, particularly Buddhists, Jains, and Hindus, argue that they have a different interpretation of ahimsa or non-harming, my approach is to ask if they are really seeking to understand ahimsa. To be really ethical, in a relativist path, means actively questioning myself, my understanding. It means seeking out the wisdom of others. It does not mean blindly following. It does include the idea of self-perfecting.

We cannot do that by sticking to the notions we already have. Who knows where they come from: society, parents, reading, advertising? Ethical relativism certainly does not mean using our mind and reason to throw up obstacles to understanding, so we can continue to mindlessly pursue our desires. It cannot mean simply being "clever" with ideas from ethics and spiritual teachings, to try and argue a case that means we don't need to change. Really following an ethical relativist path is difficult, maybe more difficult than following an absolutist one.

Another major misperception about ethical relativism is that it means we cannot object to ideas different to our own. This is untrue, just like a belief in tolerance does not mean we need to accept the actions of neo-nazis or homophobes. My understanding of truth and ethics doesn't mean I adopt a laissez-faire attitude about things I see as wrong in the world. Quite the opposite: for me, my ethics say that I need to be socially engaged and actively oppose things I see as wrong, actively support things I see as right. There is nothing contradictory for me, in being an ethical relativist and being a vegan abolitionist.

I don't believe that everyone accepts or understands ahimsa. I don't believe ahimsa is some absolute doctrine. My understanding is that by following ahimsa, my connection to all life improves. My devotion to self-cherishing declines, and my openness to awareness improves. More importantly, my understanding leads me to the conclusion that acting-for-others helps me evolve more than acting-in-my-own-self-interest. Ahimsa, not acting in violence, not causing harm to others, is the most basic form of acting for others. If we cannot embrace non-harming, saying we are helping is nonsense.

I believe that vegans who claim non-harming sentient life is a moral absolute need to think about what having moral absolutes means. I do not see non-harming as a moral absolute. My understanding is that if I want to morally evolve, non-harming is a very basic step, so basic that to fail it is to betray my own sense of right and wrong. My understanding is also that non-harming is so basic to the notion of caring about others that nearly every teacher I respect advocates ahimsa. I do not adopt ahimsa because they say so, but it is encouraging to find so many people I respect in agreement on this.

I adopt ahimsa because I believe that to respect others is really impossible if we don't care when we do them harm. That seems completely logical to me. Accepting ahimsa as part of my path, I try to perfect my understanding, and my action, by understanding how my actions can harm others, and how I can correct my actions to cause less harm. Ahimsa becomes a foundation in my path, and to my understanding of what it would take for any sentient being to evolve. Those not following a path of ahimsa are not "wrong" in an absolutist sense. They are ignorant, and they may learn if we speak to their heart. I am an ethical relativist, and that does not interfere in any way with my total conviction that ahimsa towards all sentient beings is the right way to act and be.