AHLAKİ RÖLATİVİZM ELEŞTİRİSİ. (Turkish)

A CRITIC OF ETHICAL RELATIVISM. (English)

Ethical relativizm is an aproach which deny objectivitiy and universality of moral truths and rules and which argues for their relativity to individuals or societies. This approach is maintained by many peoples and seen obviously true by them. The most common two arguments provided to support ethical relativizm are the argument from individual or cultural disagreements on ethical issues and argument from the opinion that relativizm supports tolerance. In this work we tried to argue for that ethical relativizm is not justified by showing that these arguments which are presented to support relativizm aren't sound or cogent and by pointing the other problems that ethical relativizm will confront. Ethical relativizm, as a theory about sources of moral principles and truths, imply that the sources of these principles and truths are person or society/culture. So ethical relativizm argues that these principles and truths don't have objective and universal validity, they have only a validity relative to a person or society. In this case there are two basic kinds of relativizm, as subjective relativizm and cultural relativizm. One of the most famous arguments in favor of this approach is argument from disagreements between people's and society's moral codes and practices. The other famous argument is argument reasoning from the view that ethical relativizm will make better results in terms of tolerance. There are different versions of first argument. When this argument is presented as an argument reasoning from the presence of different moral beliefs and practises between persons or societies to the conlusion that morality is relative directly, it is obvious that this argument is not sound. Because it is obvious that the presence of different beliefs on a subject doesn't prove by itself that there isn't any objective truth on this subject. Moreover, it can be said that this argument is exaggerating the diffirences between people's and society's moral beliefs and practices, thus it missed the fact that people and societies are in fact agreeing on many moral beliefs and practises. The other version of this argument is reasoning from the view that the best explanation of the presence of these moral differences is provided by ethical relativizm. It can be said that this version of the first argument is not cogent. Because the presence of these different moral beliefs and practices can be explained on an objective ethical theory. In addition, for evaluating a moral theory's success, it is more reasonable to investigate a theory's capability of explaining many of moral facts, not its capability of explaning only one fact. In this regard it can be said that ethical relativizm can't explain many moral facts whose being is intuitively clear and that ethical relativizm is not succesful. Another argument offered in favor of ethical relativizm is reasoning from the view that ethical relativizm makes better results in terms of tolerance to different moral beliefs and practices; that objective approaches will make bad results in terms of tolerance. However, ethical relativizm doesn't guarantee the tolerance and it can not reasonably argued that an objective moral approach will necessarily or more probably lead to intolerance. Because a relativist might try to insist his beliefs on others for different reasons and an objectivist might take tolerance as an universal virtue and so might be tolerant to different moral beliefs and practices of others. In addition to unsoundness or uncogentness of the arguments provided in favor of ethical relativizm, there are other problems this approach might face. For example: ethical relativizm would assume the infallibility of person or society which it sees as source of moral principles, so would accept everything approved by this person or society as morally acceptable. This means that person or societies are uncritizable. But it is obvius that this idea is not reasonable. Moreover, for ethical relativizm, ethical truth will be relative to time as well as to person and society. So the same thing will have different moral values with the change in the attitudes of people or society, without any change in its inherent factual characteristics. But it is not reasonable that the same thing would be morally right some time ago and became morally wrong after some time according to attitudes of person or society without any factual changes. In addition, ethical relativizm can not sufficiently explain normativity of moral beliefs and codes, in other words it can not explain their capability of giving good, morally justifying reasons for actions. Because any action which is done only because of arbitrary acceptance or approvement will not be justified. If it is argued that this acceptance or approvement is not arbitrary but there are morally justifying reasons behind them, then it would be accepted that there are moral truths independent from acceptance or aprovement of person or society. But this acceptance would not be coherent with ethical relativizm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ahlaki rölativizm ahlaki doğru ve ilkelerin objektifliğini ve evrenselliğini reddeden, bunların bireye veya topluma göreli olduğunu savunan yaklaşımlara verilen genel isimdir. Bu çalışmada ahlaki rölativizm lehinde sunulan argümanların çok sağlam ve güçlü olmadığını göstermek ve rölativizmin karşılaşabileceği diğer sorunlara işaret etmek suretiyle, bu tür rölativist yaklaşımların haklı olmadığını savunmaya çalıştık. Ahlaki rölativizm lehinde ileri sürülen en meşhur argümanlardan birisi kişilerin ve toplumların ahlaki kabul ve pratiklerinin farklılığından hareket eden argümandır. Bu argüman ahlaki konulardaki farklı kabullerin varlığından hareketle ahlakın rölatif olduğu sonucuna doğrudan giden bir argüman olarak sunulduğunda, onun sağlam olmayacağı açıktır. Zira bir alanda inanç farklılıklarının var olmasının tek başına bu alanda objektif doğrunun olmadığını kanıtlayamaz. Diğer taraftan söz konusu argümanın ahlaki konulardaki farklılık ve anlaşmazlıkların varlığının en iyi açıklamasının ahlaki rölativizm olduğu görüşünden hareket eden şekli de çok güçlü gözükmemektedir. Zira bu tür farklı ahlaki inançların varlığı objektif bir ahlak anlayışı ile de yeterince açıklanabilir. Ahlaki rölativizm lehinde ileri sürülen başka bir argüman farklı ahlaki inanç ve pratiklere hoşgörülü olmak açısından rölativizmin objektif yaklaşımlardan daha olumlu bir sonuç doğuracağı fikrinden hareket etmektedir. Halbuki rölativizmin hoşgörüyü garanti etmesi söz konusu olmadığı gibi, ahlak alanında objektif bir yaklaşımı benimsemenin zorunlu olarak veya kuvvetle muhtemel olarak hoşgörüsüzlüğe götüreceğini savunmak da kolay değildir. Zira rölativizmi benimseyen bir kişi benimsediği doğruları değişik nedenlerle başkasına dayatmaya çalışabileceği gibi, objektif anlayışı benimseyen birisi de hoşgörüyü evrensel bir değer olarak alıp, başkalarının farklı kabullerine hoşgörü ile yaklaşabilir. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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