Relativism

Relativism is the concept that everything is relative, no absolutes exist. In other words, there are no "hard facts". Truth, or more to the point of relativism, truths depend solely upon the person's point of view, culture or anything else about the person. It is your own personal brand of truth, if you will. For this reason, there can be more than one truth concerning a specific topic, according to relativism. Basically, there are no black or white areas, only gray.

Consider the following situation. A poor man breaks into the house of another man. The poor man then takes all of the jewelry, expensive electronics and money in the house. However, as he is taking the stuff, the owner catches him. The poor man pleads to the owner, "please don't send me to jail for taking your stuff, I am poor and have a wife and three kids." Now, was what the poor man did right? By no means! Although, he was poor and he needed to support his family, it was absolutely wrong of him to steal from the other man.

Relativism is not a reasonable approach to ethics. There are three reasons for this. First of all, ethics by definition deals with right and wrong. Without those two things, there can be no ethics. The second reason is morals. There is a standard of morals that everyone should obey. This only applies to morals issues, though. For instance, there can be no "best tasting food", because that is solely a matter of preference, not a moral problem. The third reason is the fact that relativism is a self contradicting philosophy. As stated above, relativism states that there is no such thing as an absolute truth. Well, what do you think relativists consider that statement to be? An ABSOLUTE TRUTH. By its very nature relativism is a paradox. It simply cannot exist because it is based on an absolute.