Fodor (1983) claims that the modularity of mind (the relatively encapsulated, insulated, special-purpose nature of the psychological mechanisms of perception) helps undermine relativism in various forms. I shall show first, that the modular vision of mind provides insufficient support for the rejection of (most forms of) relativism, and second, that an alternative (‘neural constructivist’) mode...

Relativism and realism are often held to be in conflict. It is not obvious what the exact nature of the conflict is supposed to be, because it is not obvious what the two doctrines amount to. But that there is some kind of conflict between moral realism and moral relativism is evidenced by the fact that some take moral relativism to be the straightforward denial of moral realism. David Brink, f...

Most happiness researchers use semantic differential or Likert scales to assess happiness. Such conventionally used scales are susceptible to scale renorming (interpretation of scales differently in different contexts) and can produce a specious relativism effect (e.g., rating a low-income person happier than a high-income person in situations where the low-income person is not happier). Buildi...