• Relativism, the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration, or relatively, as in the relative value of an object to a person

• the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute.

(1) They all assert that one thing (e.g. moral values, beauty, knowledge, taste, or meaning) is relative to some particular framework or standpoint (e.g. the individual subject, a culture, an era, a language, or a conceptual scheme).

(2) They all deny that any standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others.

• There are two distinct forms of moral relativism. • The first is individual relativism, which holds that

individual people create their own moral standards. Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, argued that the superhuman creates his or her morality distinct from and in reaction to the slave-like value system of the masses.

• The second is cultural relativism which maintains that morality is grounded in the approval of one's society - and not simply in the preferences of individual people. 

The first clear statement of relativism comes with the Sophist Protagoras, as quoted by Plato, "The way things appear to me, in that way they exist for me; and the way things appears to you, in that way they exist for you" (Theaetetus 152a). Thus, however I see things, that is actually true -- for me. If you see things differently, then that is true -- for you. There is no separate or objective truth apart from how each individual happens to see things.

share a single unifying theme: that absolute morals do not exist, and what is “right” or “wrong” is entirely a product of human preference.

THE GOOD

1. You are free to create your own meaning of life and be an individual

2. You create your life/your future

3. You decide what is important 4. The small stuff does not

matter5. You are going to die so just live 6. You make your life

special/matter

THE GOOD THE TRUTH

1. You are free to create your own meaning of life and be an individual

2. You create your life/your future

3. You decide what is important 4. The small stuff does not

matter5. You are going to die so just live 6. You make your life

special/matter

1. You life really has no meaning

2. Your future does not matter because you do not matter, never did – never will

3. Your decisions have no point, they don’t matter and nothing is important

4. Nothing matters5. You are going to die, you are

already dead.6. You are not special and your life

never mattered

You choose You are who you want to be

I. Existence precedes essence reality is only what one creates and experiences

II. Absurdity to exist is absurd III. Nothingness is one's own existence, but since

one lives without anything to structure this existence, it is nothingness. If nothing is something, then something is nothing and nothing is nothing. IV. Moral Individualism one must choose one's own way. the individual must decide which situations are to count as moral situations.

V. Choice and commitment is thefreedom to choose and to accept the risk

VI. Dread and anxiety is the the confrontation with nothingness

VII. Subjectivity is personal experience and acting on one's own convictions are essential in arriving at the truth.

i. bleak world-rational understandings of events don't work; religion doesn't

offer any answers: no inherent meaning ii. rather than give in to despair we create our own

meaning iii. no set guidelines except to act in good faith, by

which Sartre meant that we need to acton our own, not just following the crowd or deciding something based on guidancehanded down from an institution

iv. what happens when we act on our own; create our own meaning through our action

a. individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives not gods

b. no god means we are free c. there is no purpose at the core of existence d. we define our own meaning e. people make decisions based on what has

meaning to them rather than what is rational

i. the good life is one of wealth, pleasure, of honor

ii. social approval and social structure trump the individual

iii. accept what is and that is enough in life iv. science can and will make verything better v. people are good by nature, ruined by society

or external forces

If something worth living for is worth dying for, what about something not worth dying

for? Did man create God to have a reason to live? Does society make women and men different

or do we choose our roles? Would living forever add meaning to life? How do you really act in private? Without love, without people, what is a

person?

• -the word absurd in this context does not mean "logically impossible," but rather "humanly impossible"

• -human beings as subjects in an indifferent, objective, often ambiguous and absurd universe, in which meaning is not provided by the natural order, but rather can be created, however provisionally and unstably, by human beings actions and interpretations

. . .the absurd is born out of the confrontation between human need and want for logic and order and the reality of an illogical and random world

. . .by describing the absurd condition: much of our life is built on the hope for tomorrow yet tomorrow brings us closer to death; once stripped of its common romanticisms, the world is a foreign, strange and inhuman place; true knowledge is impossible and rationality and science cannot explain the world; their stories ultimately end in meaningless abstractions from the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all.

• -Sisyphus is the absurd hero. This man, sentenced to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain and then watching its descent, is the epitome of the absurd hero according to

• Camus. In retelling the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus is able to create an emotional sense the body of the intellectual discussion which proceeds it in the book. We are told that Sisyphus is the absurd hero "as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. Sisyphus is conscious of his plight, and therein lies the tragedy. For if, during the moments of descent, he nourished the hope that he would yet succeed, then his labor would lose its torment. But Sisyphus is clearly conscious of the extent of his own misery. it is this lucid recognition of his destiny that transforms his torment into his victory.

• -his is the ultimate absurd, for there is not death at the end of his struggle. All is not choas; the experience of the absurd is the proof of man's uniqueness and the foundation of his dignity and freedom

• -the absurd hero gains victory by focusing on his freedom, his refusal to hope, and his knowledge of the absurdity of his situation.

Blaise Pascal- first to anticipate the major concerns of existentialism

Soren Kierkegaard-founder of modern existentialism-stressed the ambiguityand absuridity of the human situation.

Friedrich Nietzshe-proclaimed the death of God Martin Heidegger-argued that humanity finds itself in an

incomprehensible and indifferent world. Human beings can never hope to understand why they are here; instead , each individual must choose a goal and follow it with passionate conviction, aware of the certainty of death and the ultimate meaningless of one's life.

Jean-Paul Sartre-first gave the term existentialism; he declared that human beings require a rational basis for their lives but are unable to achieve one,and this human life is a futile passion.