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jectively true, then it is merely an assertion of the subjectivist's
feelings and can lay no claim to philosophical acceptance as an
ethical theory. If it is objectively true, then the relativists "contradict
their own position, which is a denial of any universal
truth in moral matters." (Footnote 11: C. H. Patterson, Moral
Standards, p. 63.)
Nor is there any escape in terms of the suggestion that the
state- [[238]] ment of the theory is not an ethical statement: for
every alleged true statement is actually ethical in character.
When I say that a proposition is true, I mean that a rational man
ought to believe it because it is supported by rational evidence.
Truth, in other words, is among the values that would be made
subjective by a relativist theory. Consequently, it turns out that
if relativism is taken as objectively true, it is false by its own
assertion---which is self-contradictory.
(b) Second, the same point may be set in a slightly different
context. If values are wholly relative to the individual valuer,
there is no way of explaining how two persons can differ concerning
an ethical question, or any other question, for that matter.
The fact is that men do dispute such problems: even the
relativist himself is disputing ethical problems in propounding
his theory. But that ethical problems may be thus disputed assumes
that ethical statements do have objective reference to an
ultimate end which is intrinsically valuable: otherwise, debate
would be impossible, just as it is impossible to debate with a
man who says: I like carrots. (Footnote 12: Cf. D. E. Trueblood,
The Logic of Belief, pp. 167, 168.)
If the hedonist and the humanist, in ethics, disagree about
the nature of the good, it is not that either of them "intends
something else in using the term 'good' but that, addressing
himself t the intrinsically desirable, he reads the nature of it differently.
Otherwise, no debatable issue would lie between these
points of view." (Footnote 13: C. I. Lewis, An Analysis of
Knowledge and Valuation, p. x.)