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🧑‍⚖️ Person with flexible values ⚖️ Not absolute 🌌 Theory of relativity supporter
relativist

relativist

4 8.0
A person who thinks that truth and moral rules depend on the situation or viewpoint
  • noun
  • /ˈrɛlətɪvɪst/
: relativista
  • Are you an absolutist or a relativist, ideal or practical in your worldly posture?
  • cultural relativist
  • ethical relativist
  • relativist position

If you're kind of a moral relativist, then you have this idea that you know what whatever people say is good is what's good.

Examples

  • As a committed relativist, she argued that moral standards vary from culture to culture.

  • Happiness, therefore, has objective content; it is not the relativist construct of individual human beings.

    Academic text (1999)

  • If you're kind of a moral relativist, then you have this idea that you know what whatever people say is good is what's good.

    Chris Williamson

  • A cultural relativist might respond to this tale by commenting on differences in cultural values.

    Academic text (2000)

  • Both the cultural relativists and the liberal universalists seem to have it only half right.

    Academic text (2000)

  • Upon return, feminists encountered cultural relativist justifications at best; at worst, they were quite simply ignored.

    Academic text (2006)

  • An ethical relativist is in the habit of adding relativizing clauses to his ethical judgments.

    Academic text (2000)

  • Many relativists believe that the interpretation of truth depends on individual perspectives.

  • The philosophy class explored the ideas of a relativist who claimed that absolute truths do not exist.

Synonyms

subjectivist
vsrelativist
  • Specialized
1 9.9

A person who believes truth and values depend on personal experience or perception

focuses more on moral or contextual relativity than personal impressions
Protagorean
vsrelativist
  • Formal
1 9.9

Someone who believes truth depends on each person's view

is less individual and allows truth to vary with situations
perspectivist
vsrelativist
  • Formal
9.9

A person who believes truth depends on their point of view

is broader applying dependence to context beyond viewpoint

Antonyms

absolutist
4 8.1

A person who holds strict beliefs and refuses to accept compromise

How Relativist

relativist
4 8.0
perspectivist
  • Formal
9.9
Objectivist
  • Jargon
1 9.1
absolutist
4 8.1

Surface Forms

relativist singular
relativists plural

Morphology

relativist = relative (semi-transparent) = relativ + ist

The suffix '-ist' indicates a person who practices or is concerned with something, but the philosophical context may not be immediately clear.

Etymology

Relativist comes from relative ('depending on') plus -ist ('a person who holds a view'), so a relativist is someone who believes that truth or morals change with context. This explains why a relativist usually avoids saying one rule fits all people or places.