What is the backbone of ethics? In one’s basic ethic course one of the first things that is taught are the three approaches one can take to ethics. These approaches describe what moral law is like. The three are: Subjectivism, Relativism, and Objectivism.

Subjectivism maintains that there really is no actual moral law. The only thing that really exists is people thinking there is moral law. Since no one can point to a source of moral law and no two people agree on what is morally permissible and what is not, it seems to follow that there is no actual binding moral law. Moral law is really a method of creating order that is better for human survival. The important thing to know about Subjectivism is that:

Subjectivism holds that there are no moral laws, people just think there are moral laws.

The point of Subjectivism is to study how the particulars of this belief much like a sociologist studies the particulars of societies.

Relativism holds that there is actual moral law, but moral laws are relative to the communities that hold moral agents. It is the communities that create the laws and laws do not apply from one community to the next. Everyone seems to think that it is wrong to murder just because all the communities happen to have the same law about murder. The most important think to know is that:

Relativism holds that there are actual moral laws. They just vary from community to community.

The different flavors of relativism suppose different levels of community that are the definers of moral law. They posit religious, national, community levels that define moral law for their members. The level of society can be as refined to the individual level.

Objectivism on the other hand, says that there is a universal set of moral laws. The different branches of Objectivism have different means of figuring out the laws and posit different sources of the universal set of laws. The variance of moral laws from culture to culture, person to person is a result of erroneous reasoning, or is morally mute, a result of different customs. What is most important to note is that:

Objectivism holds one set of moral laws that do not vary from community to community.

When it comes to which one is more accepted in the world and the field of Ethics, Objectivism has a heavy hand. A formal rebuttal is fodder for another post; but, put briefly, everyone has a sense that murder is actually wrong, so Subjectivism is not left much room. Besides, if there are no moral judgments, that leaves Ethicists with a lot of thumb-twiddling time.

Murder also appears to be wrong regardless of what society I am a member of. This intuition seems to leave Relativism with some explaining to do.

What does seem to be the case is some set of universal moral laws. Murder and stealing seem to always be wrong, given the same circumstances.