Duplicate this page before you start, and write your answers into your own copy.
Last lesson you found that ethical reasoning can be better or worse even when nobody can say which answer is right. Today somebody is going to tell you that is nonsense, and that it is all just opinion.
Six statements. For each one, decide where you stand from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Write your number before anybody moves.
Then, for each statement in turn, the class stands on a line across the room, with 1 at one wall and 5 at the other. Look at the shape of the line before you sit down, and note it in the last column: packed (almost everyone in one place), split (two groups), or spread (all over the room).
✍️ Write here, on your own.
| Statement | My number | The class line |
|---|---|---|
| Telling a friend their outfit looks good when you think it does not is fine. | ||
| It is wrong to break a promise to a friend. | ||
| Lying to the man at the door was the right thing to do. | ||
| Eating meat is wrong. | ||
| Slavery was wrong, even in 1750, when it was legal in many places and widely accepted. | ||
| Torturing a baby for fun is wrong. |
✍️ Write here, on your own.
Somebody watching the line has an argument for you.
Premise 1: People disagree about moral claims. Look at the line.
Premise 2: There is no measurement that can settle who is right.
Conclusion: So no moral view is better than any other. It is all just opinion.
This is a version of moral relativism: the view that moral claims are only true or false relative to a person or a culture, so no single view is correct for everyone.
✍️ Write here, on your own.