The Metaphysics and Ethics of Relativism

Relativism is a hotly contested doctrine among philosophers, some of whom regard it as neither true nor false but simply incoherent. As Carol Rovane demonstrates in this analytical tour-de-force, the way to defend relativism is not initially by establishing its truth but by clarifying its content. The Metaphysics and Ethics of Relativism elaborates a doctrine of relativism that has a consistent logical, metaphysical, and practical significance. Relativism is worth debating, Rovane contends, because it bears directly on the moral choices we make in our lives. Three intuitive conceptions of relativism have been influential in philosophical discourse. These include the idea that certain unavoidable disagreements are irresolvable, leading to the conclusion that "both sides are right," and the idea that truth is always relative to context. But the most compelling, Rovane maintains, is the "alternatives intuition." Alternatives are truths that cannot be embraced together because they are not universal. Something other than logical contradiction excludes them. When this is so, logical relations no longer hold among all truth-value-bearers. Some truths will be irreconcilable between individuals even though they are valid in themselves. The practical consequence is that some forms of interpersonal engagement are confined within definite boundaries, and one has no choice but to view what lies beyond those boundaries with what Rovane calls "epistemic indifference." In a very real sense, some people inhabit different worlds--true in themselves, but closed off to belief from those who hold irreducibly incompatible truths.

About the Author :
Carol Rovane is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University.

Review :
This is an excellent readable and informative book discussing a particularly interesting kind of "relativism." Perhaps the most important contribution of the book (but by far from the only one) is its careful explication of the relevant sort of relativism as an instance of what Carol Rovane calls "multimundialism," the thesis that one person might reject another's beliefs without supposing that the other beliefs fail to be true. Along the way there is much useful discussion of potentially relevant ideas in the history of philosophy through such twentieth-century figures as Rudolf Carnap, W.V. Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Richard Rorty, and Donald Davidson. This is the best discussion of relativism that I know of. In recent years, the issue of relativism has been hotly discussed by the philosophical community, and a number of good books have been dedicated to the issue. However, to my knowledge no thorough general and methodical analysis has been offered of what the content of this doctrine exactly is. Carol Rovane's The Metaphysics and Ethics of Relativism finally fills this relevant gap in the philosophical literature. This is a thoughtful, original, and very deep book. In the next decades it will very probably represent a milestone in the debate on relativism. Rovane breaks new ground in an otherwise-tired debate between ‘relativists,’ ‘objectivists,’ and ‘absolutists.’ One of the book’s signal achievements lies in clarifying the nature of relativism, whether in its metaphysical or ethical guise. People (especially, but not only) from different cultures inhabit different ‘worlds.’ The author calls this ‘multimundialism,’ and it leads to one of her principal substantive theses: a person/people can reject the beliefs of another/others without claiming that the rejected beliefs are false. Ethics, thus, is more than a matter of taste and sentiment. Furthermore, people occupying different ‘worlds’ can rightly reject others’ claims and stay committed to their own without judging those of others to be false. Along the way, Rovane engages with leading contemporary philosophers, including G. Harman, D. Davidson, R. Rorty, and J. Raz…Rovane’s book deserves a careful reading; it is thoughtful, thorough, substantive, clear, and challenging.