A Study on the Effect of Physical Relativity on Ethics

Until the late nineteenth century, Newtonian physics was accepted as the only undisputable physics in the world of science. According to Newton, location, time, movement, and body mass were absolute and there was no relativity in them. However, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the first sparkles of relativity and Quantum physics brought about uncertainties against Newtonian physics. Meanwhile, some philosophers of science and physicists of the twentieth century who were under the influence of the two revolutions of relativity and Quantum in modern physics claimed that by fall of the Newtonian classical physics which is assertive of certainty and determinism within the nature’s system, not only free choice and option of human is assured but also moral values about human activities will be subordinate to time and location and these values will lose their certainty and inclusion. As a result, like the modern physics, ethics will be a relative category. The present paper is an attempt to explain the relativity in physics and ethics, and also to explicate the relationship between these two categories and finally, we have attended to rejection and criticism of the abovementioned claim.