Ethical Relativism: A Cautionary Tale
I have blogged before about the importance of teaching ethics to youngsters and college students. There are so many activities that occur in our lives that challenge us to distinguish between ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ We need a framework to deal with such situations.
Someone I interact with online and an internet buddy, Archie Carroll, who is world renowned for his work in ethics, CSR, and more, once responded to a blog I wrote years ago that addressed the question, “Can Ethics Be Taught,” with what I think is as astute an observation as I have ever found. It’s direct and to the point”: “If ethics can be learned it can be taught.” He ‘hit the nail on the head.’
In other words, while we can teach ethics, and I have done so for the 40 years, that doesn’t mean students will learn the lesson. First of all, they have to be open to new ideas—and ideas that deal with ‘right’ versus ‘wrong.’ I have found over the years that many students believe that their ethics are their ethics and no one can tell them what’s right or wrong.’ This is an approach to teaching ethics based on relativism. It means that we define right and wrong for ourselves in each particular situation.
Ethical Relativism
The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University has put together a good description of ethical relativism. Here is what they say:
“Ethical relativism is the theory that holds that morality is relative to the norms of one’s culture. That is, whether an action is right or wrong depends on the moral norms of the society in which it is practiced. The same action may be morally right in one society but be morally wrong in another. For the ethical relativist, there are no universal moral standards — standards that can be universally applied to all people at all times. The only moral standards against which a society’s practices can be judged are their own. If ethical relativism is correct, there can be no common framework for resolving moral disputes or for reaching agreement on ethical matters among members of different societies.”
I don’t disagree with this description although I wonder whether bribery would be ethical in a culture that not only accepts it but promotes it–at least in some situations. I’m thinking about a country like India where bribery is illegal, no doubt, but may be an accepted practice, nonetheless. For example, this can occur in international business. There may be a situation where bribing an official gets you favored treatment. For example, you may have to bribe a customs official to offload products that have been purchased from another country. This gets back to the culture dimension of bribery. In other words, bribery is wrong, but it is tolerated in part because it’s seen as a cost of doing business.
Returning to the excellent piece written by Santa Clara University, “perhaps the strongest argument against ethical relativism comes from those who assert that universal moral standards can exist even if some moral practices and beliefs vary among cultures. In other words, we can acknowledge cultural differences in moral practices and beliefs and still hold that some of these practices and beliefs are morally wrong. The practice of slavery in pre-Civil war U.S. society or the practice of apartheid in South Africa is wrong despite the beliefs of those societies. The treatment of the Jews in Nazi society is morally reprehensible regardless of the moral beliefs of Nazi society.”
Teaching Values to Students
We should begin teaching ethics by inculcating values in students. This is extremely important because our society has morphed into one that is based on self-interest, not the interests of the broader community. Just think about how divided the U.S, citizenry is today. Members of political parties do what they think, or what they are told to do in the best interests of the party, and not the country. In accounting, this is antithetical to the public interest dimension of the work of an accountant and auditor.
We need to teach values to students at the earliest age possible. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen in most schools and, if it does, ethical relativism is the teaching device.
Values are things that have an inherent worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor. Moral values are the standards of behavior determined through principles of right and wrong with regards to proper conduct. It is related to a virtuous, ethically upright, principled way of doing things.
It’s not just any values we should teach. To do so just adds strength to the notion that it is alright to promote any values—the moral relativists’ view. Just imagine if the pursuit of self-interest is an acceptable standard of behavior. Can there be any doubt that wrongful behavior will occur—at least sometimes–and be sanctioned as acceptable? It is moral values that are important including honesty, integrity, respect, responsibility and so on.
Here are some tips for teaching ethics. They are drawn from a writing by the group, Capsim, that addresses a variety of teaching methods.
- Focus on relevant situations: place your students in specific ethical dilemmas they may encounter in their personal lives and in the workplace.
- Identify the stakeholders in each dilemma; those potentially affected by the decision or action being contemplated.
- Highlight reasons and impacts to expand ethical conversations beyond right or wrong and delve deeper into how specific ethical decisions or actions impact all the stakeholders involved.
- Expose students to a variety of ethical reasoning methods, not just one. This provides them with the tools to handle a variety of situations.
- Challenge your students by adding complexity by introducing them to situational pressure such as unethical coworkers and managers.
- Give students the confidence that they can resolve ethical dilemmas they might face.
- Teach students critical thinking skills so they can analyze ethical dilemmas and decide on a course of action.
- Create an environment to teach ethics in more than one single class. Ethics should be integrated throughout the curriculum to make it clear ethical dilemmas are in many areas of life and many academic disciplines.
- Ethics is about more than teaching students ethical reasoning skills. It is to develop future leaders in society. We need it more now than ever before.
- Model ethical behavior!
There is a lot more to say about teaching ethics that I will address going forward. Feel free to contact me if you want to ask a question or get guidance on teaching ethics.
Blog posted by Steven Mintz, PhD, Professor Emeritus at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, on October 27, 2025. To learn more about Steve’s activities visit his website at: www.stevenmintzethics.com.