Why I am a relativist. (Philosophy & Ideas).(Transcript)

WHEN JESUS CHRIST was brought before Pontius Pilate, He said that He had come into the world to give testimony to the Truth. Pilate replied with the now famous question, "What is truth?", and as Francis Bacon pointed out, the Roman governor did not actually wait for an answer from Christ, but went to the Jews and said, "Well, he seems harmless enough to me. A bit of a nutter, with this truth palaver, but he's not exactly Osama bin Laden." Now why didn't Pilate wait for an answer? Probably because he didn't think there was any Truth, as such. Maybe he was an out-and-out sceptic. But that would be a crass sort of opinion to attribute to a wily man like Pilate. I prefer to think of him as someone more subtle, more refined. I like to think of him as being a bit like me--a relativist.

I have not had a chance to do this before. The opportunity I have been given this evening is a valuable one. I have the chance, finally, to come off the fence and out of the closet, stretch my philosophical wings, nail my colours to the mast, and proudly declare: I am a relativist; je suis un relativiste; ich bin ein Relativist. Like Pilate, I too think the whole idea of Truth with a capital T is a big mistake, the greatest wrong turning in the history of philosophy. If you look for Truth, you will never find it. Opinions, ideas, viewpoints, positions, perspectives, angles, impressions--now these I can handle. They are to be found in abundance, and they're virtually free, so why not help yourself to them?

Relativism is the only honest and consistent philosophical doctrine about truth. In short, what the relativist says is: "Absolute truth? That's absolute nonsense. There is no absolute truth, it's all relative." Relative to what? you may ask. I admit, relativism breaks up into all sorts of varieties; there is no one single theory which counts as relativism among philosophers. But that's fine, because what kind of relativism you're discussing is, quite simply, relative--to which philosopher you're talking to.

So what I propose for the purpose of tonight's talk is to defend a very general sort of relativism, of the kind most relativists would subscribe to in one way or another with the odd caveat here and there. I don't want to get bogged down in controversies about this detail or that sub-clause. Relativists of goodwill differ, as do our enemies the absolutists, the ones who foolishly think they can find the Absolute Truth somewhere or other. Let them go on their wild goose chases. We relativists can sit back, relax, and enjoy our knowledge that, when the final argument has been fought and the last disagreement is but a distant memory, it was obvious all along that everything is relative.

Acting now as a kind of representative of my fellow relativists, I will argue that everything is relative to one's personal circumstances or opinions, or to one's society or culture; sometimes even to human beings as a species. Protagoras the sophist declared to Socrates the famous proposition: "Man is the measure of all things; of what is that it is; and of what is not that it is not." This is held to be the classic ancient statement of relativism, but I actually find it far too dogmatic and absolutist. Man is the measure of all things? Is what Man says the absolute truth? Does Man determine what is and what is not? What about sheep and horses? What about Martians? Don't they have legitimate perspectives on things? Don't their viewpoints count? So, adopting the broadest kind of relativism, I claim that everything is relative to some standard or other, and usually to many different standards at the same time. When a person makes a dogmatic claim of the form "So-and-so is such-and-such", my and my fellow relativists' immediate reaction is, "According to what standard or measure?"

LET ME ELABORATE by starting with the easy cases, before we move to the harder ones. Think about morality--the principles of right and wrong, good and bad. We relativists have known for centuries that this is the absolutists' Achilles heel, so I intend to give it a good kick immediately. It is notoriously difficult to argue conclusively about the rightness or wrongness of anything. People disagree extensively, the concepts of right and wrong are so slippery, there don't seem to be any hard and fast rules on which we can rely.

Take polygamy, for instance. In the ancient world, in modern Islam, in Africa, in many cultures throughout history, the having of multiple wives (at the same time, let alone serially) has not been considered morally wrong. In fact, one of the wisest kings who ever lived, and probably the second-greatest, King Solomon, enjoyed the company of some 700 wives, not to mention 300 concubines. (He followed the example of his father, King David, who we are told had many concubines and wives, and who was the greatest king who ever ...