Philosophy of Humanity

Ethics (Moral Philosophy)

Relativist Theories of Ethics

In the history of moral philosophy, there have been positions whose proponents denied the existence of absolute good, instead interpreting goodness as something derivative of other concepts. Such a position first emerged in Ancient Greece and was voiced by the Sophists. The rise and flourishing of this school coincided with a time when many Greek city-states were at the peak of their economic development, striving to build democratic systems. In a democratic environment, a successful career awaited those who could persuade the masses, for he who won the crowd's favor reaped both political and financial benefits. In these circumstances, individuals emerged whose primary goal was career success, seeking to achieve it even at the expense of truth and morality. These individuals needed a philosophical justification for their stance, and the Sophists provided it. They expressed the belief that absolute truth does not exist; what is true and good for each person is what is useful to them. Consequently, each individual has their own truth and their own morality. The Sophists' ideas resonated with opportunists for whom personal gain trumped all, and among such people, the Sophists found numerous followers. The ethical concept of the Sophists is typically referred to as relativism. This term derives from the Latin relativus (relative) and is used to describe a philosophical worldview that denies absolute truth and goodness, asserting that everything is relative. Relativism manifested most strongly in epistemology, where relativists argue for the relativity of truth, and in ethics, where they champion the relativity of morality. After the Sophists, relativism resurfaced in various epochs in different forms.

A near-contemporary of the Sophists was the philosophical school of the Cyrenaics, founded by Aristippus of Cyrene, a disciple of Socrates. The Cyrenaics were one of the Socratic schools, meaning they were founded by Socrates’ students, and like other representatives of these schools, they sought to answer the questions to which Socrates had not given definitive responses. Socrates had philosophized about the good but had not revealed its essence. Aristippus and his followers argued that the good is pleasure, and that for each person, the good is what brings them satisfaction. This does not mean that the Cyrenaics promoted immorality. On the contrary, some of them claimed that the greatest pleasures come from nobility, decency, and honesty. However, even the Cyrenaics who advocated for a highly moral lifestyle undermined the very foundation of ethics. In their conception, morality is deprived of an absolute basis and is subordinated to pleasure. One should adhere to moral rules because they lead to pleasure, not because they are absolute. This means that when morality ceases to bring pleasure, it should be disregarded. Since the Cyrenaics placed pleasure at the heart of ethics, their position is called hedonism. The term hedonism comes from the Greek ἡδονή (hēdonē), meaning pleasure.

Hedonism was revived in a more refined form during the Hellenistic period, primarily through the teachings of Epicurus. He agreed that pleasure is the good, but he interpreted pleasure as the absence of suffering. Epicurus, like Aristotle, adhered to eudaimonism, asserting that every person seeks happiness, and this pursuit determines their behavior. However, Epicurus considered the happiest person to be one who is free from suffering, that is, someone who does not experience pain, poverty, hunger, or discomfort. Like some other hedonists, Epicurus advocated for nobility, believing that moral virtues could lead to happiness, but only because they free one from suffering. The ideal of moral life for Epicurus was ataraxia (ἀταραξία)—a state of inner peace, tranquility, and unshakable calm. He encouraged people to renounce sin to preserve their freedom from suffering, as every sin, in the long run, leads to pain. Though this call seems noble, Epicurus’ ethics share the same problem as that of the Cyrenaics: it is based on following moral precepts only to avoid suffering, not for the sake of the good itself; if sin caused no suffering, there would be no reason to avoid it.

In modern philosophy, several ethical theories emerged that explained the nature of morality not based on absolute good but as a product of something unrelated to morality, thus relativizing absolute moral values. One such theory is Marxism, a philosophical doctrine established by the German philosophers Karl Marx (1818—1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820—1895). Marxists believed that all human history is the continuous transformation of socio-economic formations. Primitive people owned no property, lived off what they hunted or gathered, and were all equal. Marxists called this social formation the primitive communal system. Once people mastered agriculture and animal husbandry, the first capital appeared—something that could be stored or traded. As soon as capital emerged, humanity divided into classes: those who controlled this capital and those who depended on them. Since, according to Marxists, the poor always strive to claim a greater share of resources, while the wealthy resist giving it to them, a class struggle ensues, shaping the entire history of humanity. Marx argued that people establish rules for communal life, which he referred to as productive relations. These relations regulate how goods are distributed, who performs which role in society, and how people should behave. Productive forces, as Marx called them, continuously develop, and eventually, they become uncomfortable with the existing productive relations. At this point, they rise in revolution, dismantling the old formation to establish a new one. However, in time, productive forces also become dissatisfied with the new system, leading to another revolution. Thus, slavery, feudalism, and capitalism have all been replaced. Productive relations fail to evolve alongside productive forces because the ruling class, who benefit from the status quo, resists such change. To align productive relations with the dynamic nature of productive forces, it is necessary to eliminate the ruling class, and this can only happen when capital, the factor that divided humanity into classes, is abolished. Hence, Marxists called for the eradication of private property. The formation free from private ownership was referred to by Marxists as communism, while the transitional period leading to it was termed socialism.

Marxism had a profound impact on the ethics of the 20th century. Marxists contended that morality is an element of productive relations, meaning that there are no eternal and absolute moral foundations, and every new formation possesses its own morality. According to Marxists, morality is relative. This view of morality gave rise to an immense system of bloody amorality in countries where Marxism prevailed. If each formation has its own morality, then socialism can create its own. Since socialism’s goal is to eliminate the remnants of previous formations, the socialist moral doctrine deemed anything that contributed to this goal as good. The consequence of this understanding of morality was the horrific terror unleashed by communists in all countries where they gained power. Having rejected universal morality, communists faced the need to establish their own moral principles. To this end, the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1961 adopted the "Moral Code of the Builder of Communism," which became part of the party's charter. In doing so, the communists undermined eternal and immutable moral principles and provided a justification for the moral degradation of the peoples who fell victim to the communist experiment.

Another relativist ethical concept was formulated by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844—1900). He asserted that all living beings evolve, and eventually, evolution gave rise to humans. Humanity, however, is not the final goal of evolution; rather, it is destined to advance to the next stage of development—the Übermensch (Overman or Superman). The driving force behind all living things’ development, Nietzsche argued, is the will to power. While in earlier stages of evolution this process was unconscious, humanity is now aware of what is happening. People feel the will to power, urging them to transcend their current state, but they also experience fear and laziness, which hold them back. The result of this internal conflict has been humanity's stagnation in its path toward becoming the Übermensch. Nevertheless, the natural impulse within humans has not subsided; it continues to trouble them. To explain why they are not progressing toward this higher state, people have convinced themselves that God is the Übermensch, and striving for this state is tantamount to aspiring to divine status. Thus, humanity imposed a taboo on further stages of evolution. From belief in God sprang all moral norms, culture, laws, and so on. Nietzsche referred to this as a culture of ressentiment—a culture that imposes restrictions on humanity’s further evolution. He declared himself the prophet of the Übermensch, calling on people to reject religion and the culture of ressentiment and to progress toward becoming the Übermensch.

Nietzsche’s role in moral philosophy is twofold. On the one hand, he called for the rejection of the foundations of morality, thereby advocating immorality. According to Nietzsche, humans must cast aside all that restricts their will to power and move toward their ultimate goal. On the other hand, Nietzsche's Übermensch is described as a being who has shed all human qualities: one incapable of love, compassion, or empathy. From the perspective of the Übermensch, Nietzsche criticized Christianity precisely for cultivating feelings of humanity and mercy. In Nietzsche's view, Christianity’s call for mercy obstructs natural selection: by helping the needy, Christians save those who, according to Nietzsche, should perish; by fostering love and compassion in children, Christians make them human instead of leading them toward becoming Übermenschen. Nietzschean ethics, therefore, is the absence of ethics. He not only condemned morality but also called for its abolition.

Sigmund Freud (1856—1939), the founder of psychoanalysis and depth psychology, also rejected the notion of morality as absolute. He asserted that the human psyche can be divided into three layers. The middle layer is consciousness, or the ego, representing everything of which a person is aware, though it constitutes only a small part of the entire mental complex. The arena of the most active psychic life is the lower layer—the unconscious or id—a complex of instincts that a person does not consciously recognize, yet which fundamentally shape human behavior. The primary instincts, according to Freud, are libido (the sexual instinct) and the fear of death. These two instincts oppose one another: libido seeks maximum satisfaction, while the fear of death endeavors to restrain it to protect the individual from danger. Typically, individuals manage the conflict between these instincts by sublimating libido, that is, by finding partial expressions of libido that do not provoke resistance from the fear of death. To achieve sublimation, rules must be established that define what is permissible for libido, and for such rules to be both set and followed, a corresponding authority is required. This authority is found in the upper layer of the psyche—the super-ego, or superego—a reflection of religious, moral, legal, cultural, and social norms. It is the superego that compels individuals to feel shame for immoral actions, a sense of duty to uphold social norms, a drive to pursue good, and an aversion to evil. Freud viewed morality as the product of psychic processes. If the superego fails to regulate the interplay of instincts and ensure the painless sublimation of libido, neuroses and mental disorders arise. Explaining the nature of neuroses was Freud's primary task as a psychiatrist.

Freud's interpretation of ethics, which can be considered a byproduct of psychoanalysis, like the ethical theories of Marx and Nietzsche, denied the absoluteness of morality. For Marx, ethics is a construct of society; for Nietzsche, it arises from a culture of ressentiment; for Freud, it is a function of the psyche. The rejection of absolute moral principles in these thinkers stems from their critique of religion. Each thinker who denied the existence of God, as the ultimate foundation of morality, was compelled to find an explanation for the nature of morality—that is, to answer the question: where does the moral sense within humans come from if there is no one to instill it?

The critique of the absolute status of morality is most directly expressed in the ethical theory of decisionism. Its foundations were laid by the German jurist Carl Schmitt (1888—1985), who formed his views during the political and economic crises of the Weimar Republic, a period in German history between the two World Wars. During this time, the German people experienced political chaos, and against this backdrop, ideas arose that Germany needed a strong ruler, who, even through repressive measures, would restore order. Such ideas were supported by some German intellectuals of the time, among them Schmitt. He developed theoretical justifications for these popular sentiments. Schmitt found an article in the Constitution of the German Empire that granted the president of the empire almost unlimited powers in cases of exceptional necessity, with the goal of restoring the normal functioning of the country. These powers extend beyond the norm. Schmitt compared the role of the president to that of God: just as God does not violate the laws of nature under normal circumstances but performs miracles in times of special need, so too must the president, in cases of emergency, step beyond the norm and assume extraordinary powers.

Schmitt's vision of a strong leader, who would restore order to the country through harsh methods, found its realization in the figure of Adolf Hitler. When Hitler rose to power, Schmitt believed that this was the man who would save Germany, fully supported the new regime, and even became one of the ideologues of Nazism in the realm of law, legitimizing the government's actions. The central dilemma Schmitt faced was the relationship between his ideas and morality. If a president has the right to transcend legal norms and establish rules as he sees fit, then he has the same right to override existing moral norms, abolish them, and create new ones. Schmitt and his followers went further, claiming that all moral norms were established at some historical moment by a decisive leader. This gives future leaders the right to change these moral norms. Hence the name of this ethical theory: "decisionism" comes from the Latin "decisio" (decision), indicating that moral norms are the result of decisions made by rulers.

At the core of decisionism lies the belief that moral norms were established by individuals with broad authority. This theory represents an extreme form of reducing morality to a product of human activity. There also exists a more moderate form of this theory, known as the theory of consensus or the theory of discourse. Its roots trace back to Hume's Paradox. The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711—1776), who operated within the framework of the English Enlightenment, when empiricism—the belief that human knowledge is derived from experience—dominated epistemology, posed the question: why do people operate with general knowledge when experience provides information only about individual facts? This question of Hume’s became a problem for epistemology. But Hume did not stop there; he extended this problem into the realm of ethics. He observed that there is no basis for deriving apodictic judgments (judgments that describe what ought to be) from assertoric judgments (judgments that describe what is). Experience, through which people acquire information about individual judgments, cannot provide them with knowledge of moral norms, which are universal. If, as empiricists claimed, there is no other source of knowledge besides experience, then the knowledge of universal truths (including moral norms) is impossible. This problem entered the history of philosophy as Hume's Paradox, or Hume's Guillotine, as Max Black (1909—1988) called it, indicating that Hume made too radical a distinction between the world of facts and the world of values. Hume's Guillotine remains a significant challenge for moral philosophy, and resolving it is a relevant task for philosophers today.

Hume argued that the source of universal knowledge and moral principles is habit. People developed the habit of thinking in universal concepts, and this habit manifested itself both in general cognition and in ethics. What humanity recognizes as moral norms is determined by constant interpersonal discourse. This means that as people communicate and jointly create institutions for collective life (state, family, etc.), they also form moral values. In twentieth-century philosophy, these ideas were further developed by German philosophers Jürgen Habermas (b. 1929) and Karl-Otto Apel (1922—2017). They argued that the source of moral norms is the consensus (agreement) reached among people in conversation (discourse). Thus, the name of this ethical theory: the theory of consensus or discourse theory. Proponents of this theory do not acknowledge the absolute and unconditional nature of moral norms but explain them on the basis of human agreement: what people have agreed to recognize as obligatory rules of behavior must be adhered to; if people had not chosen these norms as obligatory, they would not be moral rules.