On the one hand, the concept of ethical relativism provides a unique opportunity of finding the middle ground and introducing a compromise into the discussion of a contentious moral issue. On the other hand, ethical relativism incorporates quite a range of contradictions and challenges to resolving moral concerns. Therefore, considering the essential objections to the idea of ethical relativism is vital to the development of a cohesive argument.
The attempt at establishing the idea that no objective truth can be located in any circumstances and that every situation could be seen as ethically ambiguous is the main issue that ethical relativism suggests. The challenge of maintaining some semblance of moral standards and differentiating between the objective good and the objective evil increases exponentially with the incorporation of ethical relativism into the discussion, as s Pojman warns (MacKInnon & Fiala, 2017). Therefore, the continuous focus on ethical relativism may blur the boundaries between right and wrong.
Additionally, ethical relativism may turn out to be self-contradictory after closer consideration of its key postulates. Namely, Pojman explains that the core argument of ethical relativism may imply the creation of a strawman, therefore, leading to a logical fallacy and failing to represent a real-life scenario fully (MacKInnon & Fiala, 2017). Specifically, Pojman explains that the application of moral relativism often implies distorting the opposing perspective, thus, representing the proponents of a specific viewpoint as those on the extreme side of the debate (MacKInnon & Fiala, 2017). Although adhering strictly to a specific ethical position without considering the effort to examine the opposing standpoints does have a distinctive air of rigidity, it still does not approach the notion of ethical extremism, which is why ethical relativism fails to represent the opponents properly. Thus, ethical relativism has a range of dents in its framework, which must be considered closely prior to selecting the theory as the foundation for decision-making.