The demand to act : ethical relativism and the call of conscience

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the problem of deciding how to act, in an ethical climate which is torn between the universalism of human rights and the respect for cultural distinctiveness that is demanded by relativistic ethics. Arguing that vulgar relativism precludes the possibility of action, becoming a harder position to espouse when faced with stark moral dilemmas, it attempts to chart a safe path through the problems posed by such a vulgar relativism whilst avoiding a strictly objectivist universalism: It concludes by making use of Derrida's discussion of the playing of a role and Man Ruti's recuperation of universal a priori norms in order to argue that the descriptive approach to ethics involves a category mistake: as a call to action, ethics does not concern what is true or false, but the call of conscience, which must, nonetheless, be obeyed.