It is compatible with moral absolutism in the sense that an individual can carry out some of his moral commandments under any circumstances, but it is also compatible with moral relativism in the sense that the truth of moral claims is relative to the attitudes of individuals. Unlike many other variants of moral antirealism, it is a cognitivist theory because it asserts that ethical propositions, while subjective, are nevertheless the kind of things that can be true or false, depending on the consent of who is being discussed. This contrasts with moral realism (under which ethical statements are independent of personal attitudes). There is a debate as to whether moral realism should continue to demand metaphysical thesis and therefore ethical subjectivists should be considered moral realists. [11] Geoffrey Sayre-McCord argues that moral realism should not require independence of mind, since there are morally relevant psychological facts that necessarily depend on the mind, which would make ethical subjectivism a version of moral realism. This has led to a distinction between robust moral realism (which requires all three theses) and minimal moral realism (which requires only the first two and is therefore compatible with ethical subjectivism). [12] The problem with subjectivism is that it seems to imply that moral statements are less important than most people think – this can of course be true without making moral statements meaningless. There is some debate among philosophers about the use of the term “ethical subjectivism,” as this term has historically referred to the more specific position that ethical statements are merely accounts of one`s mental states (saying killing is wrong only means you disapprove of murder). [22] While this is an ethically subjective position (the truth of your statement depends on your mental states), it is not the only one. Because of this ambiguity, some philosophers have argued that the general position discussed here should be called non-objectivism. [22] Ethical subjectivism asserts that there are no objective moral qualities, and that ethical statements are in fact arbitrary because they do not express immutable truths. Instead, moral statements are made true or false by the attitudes and/or conventions of observers, and each ethical sentence involves only someone`s attitude, opinion, personal preference, or feeling. Thus, if a statement is considered morally correct, it simply means that it is received with the consent of the person of interest.

Another way to look at this is that judgments about human behavior are shaped by, and in many ways limited to, perception. Many forms of subjectivism go a step further and teach that moral statements describe how the speaker thinks about a particular ethical issue. Ethical subjectivism is a form of moral antirealism that denies the “metaphysical thesis” of moral realism (the claim that moral truths are ordinary facts about the world). [7] Instead, ethical subjectivism claims that moral truths are based on the mental states of individuals or groups of people. The moral realist is attached to a version of the following three statements:[8][9] Some forms of subjectivism generalize this idea in order to achieve this: This makes ethical subjectivism a form of cognitivism (because ethical statements are the kinds of things that can be true or false). [4] Ethical subjectivism is opposed to moral realism, which asserts that moral statements refer to objective facts, independent of human opinion; [5] the theory of error, which denies that any moral statement is true in any way; and non-cognitivism, which denies that moral propositions express statements. [6] Ethical subjectivism, however, is problematic in that it does not offer the parties involved in the ethical debate the opportunity to resolve their differences, but simply requires that each party practice tolerance by acknowledging the equally factual truth of the perceptions claimed by opponents. This effectively circumvents the kind of dilemmas that ethics is trying to solve, namely deciding what is the right thing to do. Another problem is that feelings and attitudes often change over time as knowledge, experience and circumstances change, which is not a good basis for ethical decisions. Ethical subjectivism has the advantage of providing a simple and reasonable explanation of what morality is. Even though ethical views often have the inner appearance of objectivity (one feels like making an objective statement or trying to make an objective statement), they wouldn`t do it that way: it would only mean that people believe they are explaining facts, due to the assertive nature of most ethical statements.

This is further complicated by the fact that ethical claims very often have implicit factual implications (for example, “Mary is a good person” is probably, but not necessarily, based on certain facts about the good things Mary tends to do). Although these positions are often held together, they do not involve each other. [17] For example, someone who claims that whatever his king wants is morally right for everyone would be an ethical subjectivist (good and evil are based on mental states), but he would not be a moral relativist (good and evil are the same for everyone). [18] Conversely, a moral relativist might deny moral subjectivism if he thought it was morally right to follow the written laws of your country (this morality is relativistic, since “the laws of your country” choose different laws for different individuals, but not subjectivist, since it depends on written laws that are not in anyone`s head). [19] Some universalist forms of subjectivism include the ideal observer theory (which claims that moral statements are about attitudes that a hypothetical ideal observer would take). Cultural relativism, when I say that stealing is wrong, it is only true if theft is not acceptable in my culture) or is indicated to an individual (individualistic relativism). [15] Ethical subjectivism, on the other hand, asserts that the truth or falsehood of ethical claims depends on people`s mental states and attitudes, but these ethical truths can be universal (i.e., the mental states of a person or group can determine what is right or wrong for everyone). [16] An ethical subjectivist would argue that the statement “Stalin was bad” expresses a strong aversion to the kinds of things Stalin did, but it does not follow that it is true (or false) that Stalin was actually bad. Another person who disagrees with the statement for purely moral reasons (although he agrees with all the non-evaluative facts about Stalin) does not make an intellectual error, but simply has a different attitude. This page is best displayed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. Although you can view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience.

Please consider updating your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. There is no sin and there is no virtue. There are just things that people do. Subjectivism teaches that there are no objective moral truths. And this may ultimately lead us to this conclusion about moral truths: moral antirealism is the negation of at least one of these claims. [5] Ethical subjectivists dispute the third claim, arguing instead that moral facts are not metaphysically ordinary, but rather depend on mental states (the individual`s beliefs about what is right and wrong). [3] Moral non-cognitivists deny the first claim, while error theorists deny the second. [10].