Folk Moral Relativism
Open accessAbstract
It has often been suggested that people's ordinary understanding of morality involves a belief in objective moral truths and a rejection of moral relativism. The results of six studies call this claim into question. Participants did offer apparently objectivist moral intuitions when considering individuals from their own culture, but they offered increasingly relativist intuitions considering individuals from increasingly different cultures or ways of life. The authors hypothesize that people do not have a fixed commitment to moral objectivism but instead tend to adopt different views depending on the degree to which they consider radically different perspectives on moral questions.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
There is reason to doubt that the results depend on idiosyncratic undergraduate relativism.
“So there is reason to doubt that these results depend on idiosyncratic undergraduate relativism.”
From Faultless Disagreement as Evidence for Moral Relativism (2022) · cites this paper as Sarkissian et al. 2011
Study 2 and its Discussion report that a Singaporean student sample showed the same pattern as the American undergraduates, giving reason to doubt that the results reflect an idiosyncrasy of contemporary American culture. The paper does not establish that the pattern extends beyond students, so it does not fully address undergraduate-specific relativism. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredSarkissian, Park, Tien, Wright, and Knobe (2011) and Khoo and Knobe (2016) investigated ordinary speakers' attitudes towards faultless moral disagreement.
“In a pair of recent studies, Sarkissian, Park, Tien, Wright, and Knobe (2011) and Khoo and Knobe (2016) investigated ordinary speaker's attitudes towards faultless moral disagreement.”
From Faultless Disagreement as Evidence for Moral Relativism (2022) · cites this paper as Sarkissian, Park, Tien, Wright, and Knobe (2011)
The results show quite clearly that respondents take cultural distance to be relevant.
“However, these results show quite clearly that respondents take cultural distance to be relevant.”
From Faultless Disagreement as Evidence for Moral Relativism (2022) · cites this paper as Sarkissian et al. 2011
The results suggest that ordinary speakers endorse the possibility of faultless moral disagreement, at least in contexts involving extreme cultural distance.
“But prima facie, they suggest that ordinary speakers endorse the possibility of faultless moral disagreement, at least in contexts involving extreme cultural distance.”
From Faultless Disagreement as Evidence for Moral Relativism (2022) · cites this paper as Sarkissian et al. 2011
Sarkissian and colleagues (2011) tested the Invariantist-friendly Hypothesis and did not find evidence to support it.
“This is because Sarkissian and colleagues (2011) tested this hypothesis, and did not find evidence to support it.”
From Faultless Disagreement as Evidence for Moral Relativism (2022) · cites this paper as Sarkissian et al. 2011
Participants' attitudes in fact differed sharply across the two questions.
“However, participants' attitudes in fact differed sharply across the two questions.”
From Faultless Disagreement as Evidence for Moral Relativism (2022) · cites this paper as Sarkissian et al. 2011
Both studies found a striking relation between cultural distance and intuitions of faultlessness.
“Importantly, both studies found a striking relation between cultural distance and intuitions of faultlessness.”
From Faultless Disagreement as Evidence for Moral Relativism (2022) · cites this paper as Sarkissian et al. 2011
In these studies, the same-culture group tended to reject faultless disagreement, the other-culture group tended to suspend judgement, and the extraterrestrial group tended to endorse faultless disagreement.
“While the first group (same culture condition) tended to reject faultless disagree-ment, the second group (other culture condition) tended to suspend judgement, and the third group (extraterrestrial condition) tended to endorse faultless disagreement.”
From Faultless Disagreement as Evidence for Moral Relativism (2022) · cites this paper as Sarkissian et al. 2011
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
No references could be resolved yet.
Research works printed but not linked: 22
- Appiah, K. A. 2008: Experiments in Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Blackburn, S. 1984: Spreading the Word: Groundings in the Philosophy of Language. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Brink, D. O. 1989: Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Egan, A., Hawthorne, J. and Weatherson, B. 2005: Epistemic modals in context. In G. Preyer and P. George (eds), Contextualism in Philosophy: Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth. New York: Oxford University Press, 131-70.
- Gibbard, A. 1992: Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Goodwin, G. P. and Darley, J. M. 2010: The perceived objectivity of ethical beliefs: psychological findings and implications for public policy. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 1, 1-28.
- Greene, J. D. 2008: The secret joke of Kant's soul. In W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), Moral Psychology Volume 3: The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Disease, and Development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Harman, G. 1975: Moral relativism defended. The Philosophical Review, 84, 3-22.
- Hsee, C. K., Loewenstein, G. F., Blount, S. and Bazerman, M. H. 1999: Preference reversals between joint and separate evaluations of options: A review and theoretical analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 576-90.
- Joyce, R. 2001: The Myth of Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Knobe, J. and Nichols, S. 2008: An experimental philosophy manifesto. In J. Knobe and S. Nichols (eds), Experimental Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 3-14.
- Mackie, J. L. 1977: Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. New York: Penguin.
- Nahmias, E. forthcoming: Intuitions about free will, determinism, and bypassing. In R. Kane (ed.), The Oxford Handbook on Free Will, 2 nd edn. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Prinz, J. 2007: The Emotional Construction of Morals. New York: Oxford University Press, USA.
- Railton, P. 1986: Moral realism. The Philosophical Review, 95, 163-207.
- Shafer-Landau, R. 2003: Moral Realism: A Defence. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Singer, P. 2005: Ethics and intuitions. The Journal of Ethics, 9, 331-52.
- Sinnott-Armstrong, W. 2008: Abstract + Concrete = Paradox. In J. Knobe and S. Nichols (eds), Experimental Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 209-30.
- Smith, M. 1994: The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Wong, D. B. 1984: Moral Relativity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
- Wong, D. B. 2006: Natural Moralities: A Defence of Pluralistic Relativism. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Wright, J. C., Cullum, J. and Schwab, N. 2008: The cognitive and affective dimen- sions of moral conviction: implications for attitudinal and behavioral measures of interpersonal tolerance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1461-76.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Mourali, M., & Drake, C. (2022) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/34831 · Cited by 55 · see citing works
Signaling (in)tolerance: Social evaluation and metaethical relativism and objectivism
Moss, D., Montealegre, A., Bush, L. S., Caviola, L., & Pizarro, D. (2025) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105984 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Faultless Disagreement as Evidence for Moral Relativism
Denning, P., & Philosophy Documentation Center (2022) · Thought: A Journal of Philosophy · doi:10.5840/tht202341718
- Authors
- SARKISSIAN, H., PARK, J., TIEN, D., WRIGHT, J. C., & KNOBE, J.
- Affiliations
- Baruch College (US)
- Duke University (US)
- National University of Singapore (SG)
- College of Charleston (US)
- Yale University (US)
- Corresponding author
- SARKISSIAN, HAGOP
- Venue
- Mind & Language
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2011-09
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 482-505
- ISSN
- 0268-1064 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2124797438
- Cited by
- 184
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 4.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- philarchive.org
- Locations
- Mind & Language (publishedVersion)
- PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation) (submittedVersion)
- National University of Singapore (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophical Ethics and Theory
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Cultural Differences and Values
- Keywords
- moral relativism, moral objectivism, moral intuitions, cultural distance
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
