TP has written a very thought-provoking follow-up to a conversation that we had in the comments section of my abortion post:

To return to Alex's example, the fact that Joe and Jack have different moral compasses should be entirely uncontroversial given their differences on the nature and source of their own moral beliefs. Joe probably understands full well that Jack does not share his ethical beliefs. Given that, why does it follow that it is 'reversely hypocritical' for Joe to conclude that he must act in a certain way, but that Jack is not bound to act in that way? Why can Joe not say, with no 'reverse hypocrisy,' that only those who already agree with his moral beliefs must act according to their dictates? Why can he not acknowledge that those who reject his beliefs, like Jack, are under no obligation to act according to them?

Here's what I wrote about Joe and Jack:

It also ties in to what I call reverse hypocrisy: the belief that something is wrong for me to do, but not necessarily wrong for others. If it's wrong for you, then unless there is a distinct difference in situation, it's wrong for someone else to. If Joe is a recovering alcoholic, then it's right for Joe not to drink but say that it's okay for Jack to drink. On the other hand, if Joe doesn't drink for moral reasons (say he's a Mormon or Pentacostal), but then says that it's morally okay for Jack to drink because he's an atheist, then Joe is being whatever the opposite of hypocrisy is.

The question, I guess, comes at the root of Joe's opposition to alcohol consumption. Joe's views are informed largely by religion: what he considered God's way. God (or God's representative) has said that alcohol (except the Blood of Christ, in some cases) is unholy and wrong. If God is God, then this applies to everybody.

Even outside of God, though, sincerely held morality ought to be applied to everyone. Hypocrisy isn't bad because the person is doing something "wrong" so much as it is bad because he's issuing a double standard. Well, "reverse hypocrisy" is a double-standard, too. It's applying a moral system based purely on someone's attitude or state of mind. Murder is still wrong, even when it's committed by someone without the mental competence to know what they are doing is wrong. We may be more forgiving of the culprit (as well we should be), but that doesn't change the rightness or wrongness of the action itself.

TP defines two different forms of relativism. The first (cultural relativism) is the observation that different cultures have different moral codes. Here is the second:

Ethical relativism is normative; it is the belief that determining right action ought to be relative to the subject, or the culture, or another referent, not simply that morality is culturally relative.

It seems to me that ethical relativism ought to be divided into subtypes. Holding different people to different standards because they're in different situations is one thing, doing so because they are different people is another.

The question of Joe and Jack may well come down to which category you put it in to. The First Joe was an alcoholic, therefore the situation is different than for First Jack, who isn't. Think of it this way: if First Jack were to tell First Joe not to drink, but Jack himself drank, would he be a hypocrite? I don't think he would because Jack is not a recovering alcoholic. So Joe holding himself to a different standard makes sense. Now, with Second Joe and Second Jack, it's a bit different. Joe may be religious and Jack not-religious, but that does not necessarily constitute a different situation in itself, though it does constitute different subjects.

I am a little more lenient, I think, to different situations than I am different subjects.

Subjects, to an extent, play a significant role in determining who they are and what they do. To an extent, what they do defines who they are. Therefore to argue that Second Jack is not under the same moral obligations as Second Joe simply because Second Jack chooses not to embrace a particular moral code is to argue, to an extent, that none of us are obligated to follow any moral code. At the base of it, it encourages immorality (however morality is defined).

Situations are more often the product of our actions than we consider them to be, but often they are not. Or, at the very least, we often play a much less conscious role in putting ourselves in situations where otherwise immoral acts may be committed out of desperation or as the least bad of a swatch of bad outcomes. If Jim take a particular narcotic to deal with an illness, but refuses to take it when he is not ill because he doesn't believe he should, he is not necessarily being morally inconsistent and may be doing the right thing in both circumstances. If at two different times under a similar set of circumstances (he's not ill) he takes the narcotic, then he is being morally inconsistent. Therefore if you have two people under a similar set of circumstances (they're not ill) and one person is doing what the other believes is wrong, then either the taker or the non-taker is wrong. It's either okay to cloud your mind with narcotics to "smooth the edges" after work (for instance) or its not.

Now all of this deals with morality. There are other reasons that what is okay for Joe is not okay for Jack. For instance, if Joe doesn't drink because his religious wife would disapprove, then there's no inconsistency with him telling Jack that it's okay to drink. It's not a matter of morality with Joe as much as it is practicality. What works for one person may not work for another. If Aaron is a stoic and Alan theatric, it's not necessarily wrong for Aaron to tell Alan that though he believes it bad to lose his temper, it's different for Alan because it provides him a pressure-release while all it does for Aaron is get him more wound up. But this is more means than ends.

On a side note, a lot of what I have said may sound pretty self-righteous. Who am I to say what is right and what is wrong, after all. Well, if there is one thing I've learned this past couple of years it's moral humility. Because I view morals in a more wholistic manner than relativistic, I am increasingly non-prone to sweeping moral judgments. Knowing that something applies not only to me but those I love as well has given me a new appreciation for situational differences and the fact that even when I believe something, I could be wrong. On the other hand, I tend to move forward with what beliefs I have (even if I am unsure) because I believe that one must at least have an operational moral code in order to function above the least common denominator.

In that sense, actually, I am frequently a reverse hypocrite. I cut others slack that I don't cut myself because I am not sure enough to hold them to my standards, though the surity threshold for me is not quite so high. I still see things in a more black-and-white manner than most, and I'm probably more judgmental of others than most, but probably not quite as much as I often sound.