Quotes from Scott B. Rae

Second, emotivism is actually a theory of the use of moral language, not of its meaning.13 The emotivist has jumped from a theory of use to a theory of meaning without any justification for that leap.

Third, emotivism cannot account for the place of reason in ethics. Emotivism sets up a false dichotomy, as the following demonstrates: (a) Either there are moral facts like there are scientific facts, or (b) values are nothing more than expressions of our subjective feelings. But there is another possibility; namely, moral truths are truths of reason, or a moral judgment is true if it is supported by better reasons than the alternatives.

Good reasons usually resolve moral disagreements, but for the emotivist, giving good reasons and using manipulation would essentially be the same thing.

It should not be surprising that ethical statements are not empirically verifiable, since right and wrong are not empirically observable qualities. But neither are they simply emotive expressions.

The Old Testament (OT) statement of the demand for individuals and communities to be moral comes in two primary ways—the commands to obey God's law (Ex. 19:5–6) and the mandate to follow the way of wisdom (Prov. 8:1, 22–31).

A second form of relativism practiced today is moral subjectivism, which says that morality is determined by the individual's own tastes and preferences.

A third form of relativism smuggled into the popular culture is called situation ethics. Popularized by Joseph Fletcher in the 1960s and 1970s, situation ethics holds that all morality is relative to the situation in which one finds oneself, and one's moral obligation is to do the loving thing in that situation.

Despite its philosophical shortcomings, ethical relativism does have appeal, particularly to the popular culture. The first appeal of relativism is based on the important idea that morality does not develop in a sociological vacuum.

A second appeal of relativism comes from the way it is presented. Frequently relativism is presented as though it and its opposite, absolutism, are the only two valid alternatives.

Two primary criticisms have been raised of postmodernism.16 The first is to insist that just because one sees the world through a particular set of lenses (or biases), it does not mean that he or she is incapable of rationality or objectivity. It may make being rational and objective more difficult, but it does not make it impossible.

First, in terms of the observations of the cultural anthropologists who developed relativism, the degree of moral diversity is overstated and the high degree of moral consensus is understated.

Anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn has noted the following: Every culture has a concept of murder, distinguishing this from execution, killing in war and other justifiable homicides. The notions of incest and other regulations upon sexual behavior, the prohibitions on untruth under defined circumstances, of restitution and reciprocity, of mutual obligations between parents and children—these and many other moral concepts are altogether universal.17

A third weakness of relativism is that cultural relativism as a normative system cannot be drawn from the observations of the cultural relativist.

Just because different cultures have different moral standards, even if the degree of moral diversity is not overstated, it does not follow that there is no such thing as absolute values that transcend culture.

A fourth weakness of relativism is that it provides no way to arbitrate among competing cultural value claims.

The fifth and most serious charge against relativism is an extension of the fourth weakness. The relativist cannot morally evaluate any clearly oppressive culture or, more specifically, any obvious tyrant.

A sixth weakness of relativism is that it allows no room for moral reformers or prophets.

A final objection to relativism is the charge that its central premise, namely that moral absolutes do not exist, is a self-defeating statement, since the premise itself is an absolute.

Virtue theory, which is also called aretaic ethics (from the Greek term arete, "virtue"), holds that morality is more than simply doing the right thing. The foundational moral claims made by the virtue theorist concern the moral agent (the person doing the action), not the act that the agent performs.