On Moderate Value Relativism

Charles Taylor makes a distinction between weak and strong evaluations and defines them through the concept of desire (Taylor 1985, 18, 34). If a person holds it as better to swim in warm rather than cold water, we are dealing with a weak evaluation.

Taylor holds strong evaluation as an integral criterion for human identity, since identity is not formed in a neutral environment. The selections that form identity demand value-based criteria, and because of this, strong evaluations are also more or less fixed attitudes and beliefs formed in the process that aims for the said valuation. Therefore, strong evaluation can either signify a process or its result.

Independent of the problem of identity, there is still one question to be answered: Are there any ethical constants among strong evaluations - in other words, constants that are independent of culture and/or historical circumstances. Taylor himself sug­gests that one of those constants would be the respect for other people. He admits that there have been, and will be, historical situations where this principle is not fol­lowed at all, but notwithstanding these contingent situations, people in all cultures are obliged to respect others. In this sense, the principle is normative and universal.

However, Taylor does not specify the notion “universal”. The principle of respect for others turns to be either a conceptual necessity or a weakly normative recommen­dation. In the first case, the principle of respect for others is a conceptual criterion for human life, whereas the second interpretation only expresses a recommendation for how things should be in order for everything to be well.

Let us begin with an example parallel to Taylor's principle of respect for others. The example concerns the principle “An innocent man shall not be killed”, which has often been dealt with in moral philosophy. One afternoon, Justus Caritas, an explorer, arrives at a small village somewhere in Latin America. In the market place he sees 20 Indians who have been captured. Pedro, the commander of a small revo­lutionary group, is making a decision about the fate of the prisoners. Seeing Justus Caritas, Pedro wants to celebrate the event and makes a suggestion: If Justus Caritas kills one Indian, the others will go free. If the explorer refuses to do so, all the prisoners will be shot.

There is a genuine moral problem here. Justus Caritas has to make a choice on the basis of extremely scanty alternatives: To kill or not to kill. Let us assume that Justus is faithfully committed to “An innocent man shall not be killed” as a primary principle. By following this primary principle, he would let twenty innocent men be killed. In order to escape from such a cruel duty, Justus has only one option: by killing one, he would save the other 19. However, then he has to violate his basic maxim. This alternative is, of course, also based on a moral principle, but on a radically different one: “Save as many innocent men as possible”. In this case, “An innocent man shall not be killed” is no longer the primary principle. Instead, there are colliding normative principles and the explorer has to weigh between them. This kind of collision will be discussed later in connection with legal principles.

This story has one important point for the present study: Is the maxim “An inno­cent man shall not be killed” to be followed regardless of its actual consequences? Furthermore, is this maxim universally valid as a normative statement? Finally, is it empirically universal or only valid relative to a certain culture, group or individual? Would a moral and rational Chinese person assess the problem in the same way as the European Justus Caritas? In general, the fundamental question is: What is the nature of values?

As far as moderate value relativism is concerned, one way of solving the moral dilemma is of special interest: the way of interpretation.

In Justus' case, the problem concerns the notion of “killing”. He can tell himself that he did not kill any Indians. The killer was Pedro, and in this very situation he could not prevent the killing. In other words, Justus makes a normative exception from the maxim.

It is a social and historical - that is, contingent - truth that a general moral prin­ciple like “An innocent man shall not be killed” easily meets acceptance among different cultures, no matter how far apart from each other these cultures are. It even seems to me that men in all societies, at all times and in all situations would be ready to accept the prohibition of killing an innocent man. Still, this is not the core of the matter.