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Protagoras was apparently disputing the views of Parmenides of Elea. Parmenides' view was: What is, is; what is not, is not; and since the mere seeming of sense perception falls short of full being, it can have no reality at all. Against this, Protagoras understandably wanted to defend the reality of sense perception. But according to Plato's account, Protagoras wanted to extend his defense of appearance beyond perceptual feelings to other kinds of seemings, such as beliefs. If I believe that the world is a certain way, then that's how the world seems to me, and so that's how the world is (to me). If you have a different belief, then that's how the world appears, and therefore how it is, to you. From this Protagoras concluded that error and false belief are absolutely impossible.(3) For a belief says only how thingsseem things seem to someone, and how they seem to anyone is always how they are (to that person). This view, in fact, is not so far from Parmenides' own, since by inflating the "appearance" side of the appearance/reality distinction to the point where it completely excludes the "reality" side, he too is denying there is room for a difference between appearance and reality.
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But for this very reason, it could be argued that in such a world there would be no place at all for the idea of "truth". Truth applies only to judgments about a shared world, which can be either as someone believes it is or otherwise than it is believed to be. For the possibility of saying or believing something true goes hand in hand with the possibility of saying or believing something false; in a world where there is no possibility of ever calling a belief or assertion "false", there would also be no use for the word "true". In such a world, however, there would also be no use for the word "belief". For beliefs aim at truth, and to believe that p is exactly the same thing as believing that p is true. If I can't apply "true" to my thoughts or speech acts, then none of my thoughts could count as a belief. And since to assert that p is no different from asserting thatthat p is true, nothing anyone says in that world could count as an assertion.
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What this suggests is that Protagoras' view isn't true in our world. But perhaps relativism couldn't be true in any world. That is what Plato thought. He argued that Protagoras' relativism isis necessarily false, because it refutes itself.(4)
The problem arises as soon as Protagoras tries either to assert assert relativism or believe it. If Protagoras asserts relativism, then he asserts that relativism is true, and that those (such as Plato) who deny relativism say and believe something false. But relativism denies that anyone can say or believe anything false. Hence to be consistent Protagoras must concede that the denier of relativism says and believes something true. Consequently, relativism is committed to saying that its own denial is true, and in this way it refutes itself.
Protagoras might try to escape the problem by saying that relativism is true for the relativist, while the denial of relativism is true for for the non-relativist. He might even try to say that when he asserts a proposition, he isn't asserting that the proposition is (absolutely) true (since the notion of absolute truth is what a relativist wants to get rid of) but only that it is true for him. But the problem with this is that it is simply not clear what "true for" means here. We do say things like this: "For me it is true that Reagan's social policies were racist, but for you it is true that they weren't." What this means is: In my opinion, it is (absolutely, objectively) true that Reagan's policies were racist; in your opinion it is (absolutely, objectively) true that they weren't. Or again, we say things like this: "For me it is true that the eighties were financially disastrous, while for you it is true that they were financially good." This might refer to our respective opinions about the eighties, but it might also mean that it is (absolutely, objectively) true that my my finances did badly in the eighties while yours did well. But none of these uses of "true for" succeed in getting rid of the notion of (absolute, objective) truth; on the contrary, when we spell out what they mean, we see that this notion is indispensable to what they mean. Relativists must think they are using "true for" in some different sense, that doesn't depend on the notion of (absolute) truth. But what do relativists intend to say about a proposition when they say that it is "true for" them?
When asked this question, they usually say that p is "true for me" if I believe that p. But this answer is no help, because believing that p is no different from believing that p is (absolutely) true. If relativists say that this isn't what they mean when they assert a proposition or believe it, then they are apparently using the terms "assert" and "believe" in a new and mysterious sense. Since they have yet to explain the meanings these words have for them, we can't be sure what (if anything) they are really saying when their mouths make noises that sound to us like assertions of relativism. Understanding their words in the usual sense, if you try to assert or believe that there is no (absolute) truth, it has to follow that you can't believe anything at all (not even relativism), and so nothing can be true eveneven for you (not even relativism). Relativism is self-refuting simply because it has no way of using or making sense of the expression "true for me" without relying implicitly on the notion "(absolutely) true," the very notion relativism wants to reject.
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Even with this retreat, moreover, relativism becomes just as self-refuting as it was before as soon as the relativist tries to apply the notion of relative truth to what anyone believes. In order to assert that anything is true for someone, the relativist has to say that something else besides relativism is true absolutely. For instance, if the relativist holds that "p is true for Socrates" means "Socrates believes that p", then in order to assert that p is true for Socrates, the relativist has to assert that it is true true (absolutely) that Socrates believes that p. But then "Socrates believes that p" is an absolute truth other than relativism, which entails that relativism is absolutely false.
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People who think they are relativists are often trying to express one (or more) ideas different from relativism and not threatened with self-reflltationrefutation. Here are four such ideas:
I. Skepticism: All beliefs are uncertain; no belief is justified.
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Some relativists seem directly to equate relativism with fallibilism; when you deny relativism (or assert that there is such a thing as absolute truth), they can interpret this only as a denial of fallibilism. But this is a confusion. When you assert that p, you take the risk that you will have to take the assertion back if it is shown to be wrong; at the same time you assert that p, you commit yourself to the claim that you aren't in fact mistaken in your assertion thatthat p, and you risk having to take that back too. But in asserting that pyou aren't thereby committing yourself to saying that your assertion that p is infallible and couldn't possibly be proven wrong in the future. If p turns out to be false, you don't have any claim of infallibility to take back because you neither made nor implied such a claim when you asserted that p. Not only is fallibilism perfectly consistent with holding beliefs about what is (absolutely) true, but fallibilism itself makes sense only if you are prepared to make some assertions about what is absolutely true, since unless you do this there is nothing at all for you to be fallible about.
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In ß 2 we tried (unsuccessfully) to save relativism from self-refutation by exempting relativism itself from the claim that all truth is relative. We might have better luck if we try admitting that most beliefs (especially scientific or purely factual beliefs) are true or false absolutely, but holding that relativism is nevertheless correct for some limited class of beliefs. Since relativists are often interested in applying their view chiefly to ethical issues, we might try this on ethical relativism: There is no absolute truth about ethics, but only relative truth. What I believe is right is right for me, and what you believe is right is right for you. If I think abortion is wrong, then it is true for me that abortion is wrong; if you think abortion is all right, then it is true for you that abortion is all right.
The natural question is: Why pick on ethical beliefs in this way? The answers most often given are two:
A) People never agree on ethical questions.
B) There is no way of knowing any absolute truth about ethics.
Critics of (A) and (B) often say that there is more agreement on ethical questions than (A) admits: for instance, when you take account of the differing circumstances and factual beliefs of different cultures, it is not so hard to account for their differing ethical customs and opinions on the basis of a common set of fundamental ethical principles. They also claim that (B) is a wild exaggeration: For who, outside the artificial atmosphere of a philosophical discussion, would seriously claim they doubt that it would be wrong to torture a child to death before its parents eyes just for the fun it?
But even granting both (A) and (B), they don't entail ethical relativism and ethical relativism isn't the only (or even the best) way of accounting for them. (B) seems to assert ethical skepticism, which would provide a natural explanation for (A) as well, since if no one knows anything about a subject, then that explains why people have widely differing opinions about it.
When we limit relativism to ethical beliefs, relativism itself no longer has to count as only relatively true, so it looks as if it has been rescued from the threat of self-refutation. But this will turn out to be so only if:
i) Ethical relativism itself is not an ethical belief.
ii) Ethical relativism does not share the features of ethical beliefs which make them only relatively true and not absolutely true.
But the relativist's main reason for thinking that ethical beliefs can't be absolutely true is that they are endlessly controversial, and ethical relativism shares this feature with ethical beliefs: people don't agree about ethical relativism either. Moreover, ethical relativists often want to treat ethical relativism as an ethical belief: for instance, they think ethical relativism endorses an commitment to tolerance of people with ethical beliefs different from our own (however, see 6 below.) Therefore, both (i) and (ii) are doubtful. But if either (i) or (ii) is false, then ethical relativism must regard itself as only relatively true, and so it would be self-refuting after all.
In any case, ethical relativism still inherits some serious problems faced by unqualified relativism. They still haven't explained what (if anything) they mean by "true for me". And since an ethical relativist doesn't believe that it's true (absolutely) that killing is wrong, then the ethical relativist doesn't believe that killing is wrong, and so it can't be true for the ethical relativist that killing is wrong. Thus ethical relativists can't consistently have any ethical beliefs of their own.
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Ethical statements predicate moral properties ("right," "wrong," "good, "evil," "just," "unjust") of people or actions or social institutions, etc.; but (according to the ethical nihilist) the world does not contain any of these properties; the belief in them is an error or a superstition, like believing in gods or black magic or the bad luck which will happen if you spill the salt. As Nietzsche puts it: "There are altogether no moral facts. Moral judgments agree with religious ones in believing in realities which are no realities. Morality is merely an interpretation of certain phenomena -- more precisely, a misinterpretation."(8) Ethical nihilism and ethical relativism both deny that any ethical beliefs are absolutely true, but ethical nihilism doesn't sugar coat this denial by adding the mysterious qualification that these beliefs are all nevertheless "true for" the person who holds them. Ethical nihilism does have one problem problem in common with ethical relativism: if you are an ethical nihilist, then you are committed to having no ethical beliefs at all, not even beliefs like the one about torturing children cited in the previous paragraph.
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Accordingly, a moral judgment such as "Joe's killing Sam was wrong" would be like the judgment "It is raining" in that both have implicit reference to a context which determines their objective truth. "It is raining" always means that it is raining at a certain time and place (e.g. in Peoria at 6 pm on September 12, 1994). "Joe's killing Sam was wrong" means that Joe's killing of Sam was wrong in a certain culture at a certain time (e.g. in white Anglo-Saxon Protestant Eastern seaboard American culture in the mid l990s, where acts like Joe's act of killing are widely disapproved). Cultural relativism then holds that what a culture believes about an act determines the truth about its objective rightness or wrongness in something like the way that spatio-temporal location determines the truth about the weather conditions obtaining then and there.
*Cultural relativism and the affirmation of cultural diversity.* Much of the appeal of cultural relativism has come from the perception that different cultures have different moral standards and moral practices from ours, but nevertheless get along at least as well with their standards and practices as we do with ours. This perception is often conjoined with the idea that it is wrong for Western culture to be intolerant of other cultures and impose its ways on them. But this idea does not imply cultural relativism, and is probably even inconsistent with it. Probably the intended connection between cultural relativism and cultural tolerance is based on an argument of the following kind:
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Relativism is anti-authoritarian only in the sense that it takes away any reason you might have for considering the opinions and arguments of others in forming your beliefs (for instance, the opinion of someone better informed than you are). For relativism says that your beliefs are all true (for you) no matter what anyone else may say or think. Relativism thus undercuts any reason anyone might have for being critical about their own beliefs. As we have already noted, relativism implies that you are always infallible in whatever you believe. The closed-minded arrogance of this view is not diminished by saying, in effect, that everyone else is infallible too. This merely adds to my own dogmatism the proviso that it is all right for everyone else to be just as dogmatic as I am.
Tolelrance Tolerance is the willingness to let others be different from us, especially to let them disagree with us, even if they are wrong. Relativism cuts way down on the need to be tolerant, since it denies that anyone is ever wrong. But this doesn't make the relativist tolerant (for exactly the same reason that successfully fleeing from danger doesn't make you courageous). It is as if relativists can't even conceive of actually tolerating those they think are in the wrong, and the closest thing to this that they are capable of imagining is the principled refusal ever to admit that anyone could ever be wrong about anything. But relativism does not altogether eliminate the need for tolerance because people can be intolerant not only of those whose beliefs they think are wrong, but also of those who differ from them in other ways (in skin color, customs and folkways, or emotional sensibilities) even when the difference involves no disagreement in beliefs. And when the need for tolerance does arise, relativism provides no reason at all for being tolerant rather than intolerant. If I believe it is wrong to hate people who differ from me, relativism tells me that that belief is true (for me); but equally, if I believe in persecuting others, then relativism tells me that this belief is also true for me. In short, relativism is just exactly as likely to encourage intolerance as it is to encourage tolerance. But this is precisely what we should have expected. In saying that every belief is true for the person who holds it, relativism is absolutely neutral between all pairs of opposed beliefs. But that entails directly that relativism is absolutely neutral between the belief in tolerance and the belief in intolerance.
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You don't have to attack the very notion of objective truth in order to challenge traditional ideas about what it is, where it is to be found, or whose views have to be taken into account in looking for it. On the contrary, it is only by presupposing that there is such a truth that you can legitimize challenges to mistaken ideas about what it is and how it should be sought. In fact, since absolute truth is not truth for anyone in particular, this implies that everyone'ss standpoint needs to be taken into account in searching for it.
Relativism as an intellectual defense mechanism. It is reallyreally relativism that commits you to ignoring the opinions of others, since relativism says that whatever you believe is true for you irrespective of anyone else. In effect, relativism marginalizes everybody's standpoint except your own. But just this may constitute the appeal of relativism. When I begin the study of philosophy, I may suddenly discover powerful arguments and theories I never considered before which challenge the opinions I have always taken for granted. This can be very disturbing, and make me feel intimidated and insecure. Relativism comes to the rescue by protecting my opinions (making them all "true for me"). Because relativism is absolutely neutral between all particular opinions, it enables me to remain above the fray, taking the high ground away from those who, by lobbying for their particular version of the absolute truth, make it all too obvious that they have an axe to grind. As a relativist I never have to bother with the frustrating details of any philosophical dispute because relativism explains to me ahead of time not only why the dispute will never get resolved, but also why this is perfectly all right. I can agree that inquiry, reasoning and argument are fine (if someone happens to feel like paying attention to them), but I can rest assured that they need never seriously threaten my own beliefs (which remain true for me however the arguments come out).
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