toward it; hence right and wrong va

toward it; hence right and wrong vary from person to person. Ethical statements, it is said, refer to the feelings and emotions of men and not many objective facts or realities. There are no true principles of morality and no objective standards.

The ethical relativists do not merely say that what certain persons think of as right in one place is thought to be wrong by some other persons in, another place. That is quite obvious. What they claim is that what is right at one place is wrong at another place, because there is no standard beyond human thinking'and feeling. In support of their claim. the ethical relativists are likely to appeal to the great variety of codes and practices found in the past and the present.‘ They attack absolutism and authoritarianism and attempt to show that morality is relative to human needs. That morality'is relative to human needs appears to be true; that there is no standard or basis for a morality that is applicable to all men appears to be false.“

The ethical relativists find it difficult to reconcile the development'and historical relativity of morals with the claim to any objective validity. They seem to assume that if moral judgments change they do not have any objective validity and are, therefore, subjective. We must realize, however. That if moral judgments are related to human needs, and if there are needs which are common to all men, there will be objective demands and some standards applicable to all. If the conditions of life undergo change and if there is progress in man's knowledge of himself and the world, there will be changes in his moral codes.

The author, while rejecting both authoritarianism and moral relativity, believes that there is an intermediate position which does justice to the element of truth in each of these more extreme positions. We live in a changing world where there are objective demands upon us. It is not a matter of opinion only that certain things disrupt personal and social life and are therefore condemned. And that certain other things enhance life and arerespected and almost universally approved. To be moral is to observe the conditions of-personal and social welfare as they are being progressively discovered. We shall return to these questions after we have outlined some of the main types of ethical theory.


The Ethical Standard
SINCE the time of the early Greeks and Hebrews, men have been reflecting on the principles and problems cf right and wrong. Ethical thought has ex-