Ethical Relativity and Political Theory

Abstract

'T IS a cunous and disconcerting fact that theories of ethical relativity have been used to justify both totalitarianism and democracy. The logical , ipositivists who incline towards relativism in ethics have been accused of encouraging moral nihilism and of thus providing a basis for fascism. On the other hand, writers like Kelsen, Radbruch and others both in England and America have argued that the real justification for democracy lies in the idea of toleration, and this implies, in their view, an empirical and relativist outlook both in the theory of knowledge and in ethics; while the authoritarian attitude finds its natural support in what is described as an absolutist view of knowledge and morals. It is this somewhat paradoxical situation that I would like to consider in this lecture. Historically there seems to be little justification for either claim. The defenders of democracy have not, on the whole, been ethical relativists. The philosophical radicals in England, for example, were adherents of an empirical theory of knowledge and, no doubt, they claimed to base their ethical theory on the basis of experience. But they cannot be called ethical relativists, since they certainly sought to establish general principles of conduct which were to be the basis alike of moral and legal rules. They believed in democracy because they believed it to be the forrn of government most likely to conduce to general happiness. Neither Green, nor Hobhouse, nor Mill, who must be regarded as the best exponents of liberal thought in England, can by any stretch of imagination be considered ethical relativists. On the other hand, it would not be difficult to point to philosophers who favoured a Positivist view of knowledge and morals who were on the side of absolatism in their political views. Such, for example, were Auguste Comte and Hobbes. Again, while it is true that much in Nazi and Fascist literature employs the language of ethical relativism, it is equally true that those who originated logical positivism in its modern form and their supporters in England and America are very far