A book was written called; moral relativism, Feet planted firmly in midair. In this book there was discussion that I would like to include because it sets the tone for what I want to say and it paints a picture to help you understand what I am about to say.
A man was preparing to go see as doctor in order to get a physical and this is the conversation they had:
“Can I ask your question? I am reading a book on ethics and I would like to know your opinion on something”
“Oh” she said “OK”
“Do you believe that in moral absolutes or do you think people should decide for themselves?”
“What do you mean by morality?” she asked
“Simply put, what’s right, what’s wrong?” I replied
We talked back and forth for few minutes and it became evident to me that she was having a difficult time even comprehending the questions I was asking about moral categories. I thought maybe a clear case example would make the task simpler. A question with an obvious answer like “Who is buried in Bob’s tomb? “
“Is murdering wrong? “ I asked, ”Is it wrong to take an innocent life? “
She hesitated: “Well…..”
“Well what?”
“I’m thinking” She said
I was surprised at her hesitancy. What I’m trying to find out is whether morals, right and wrong are something we make up ourselves or something we discover. In other words do morals apply whether you believe them or not. I waited.
“Can you say that taking an innocent life is morally acceptable?”
“I guess it depends” She said tentatively.
“Depends on what? “ I asked
“It depends on what other people think or decide”
“I’ll make it's really easy” I thought, “Do you think torturing babies for fun is wrong? “
“Well I would not want them to do that to my baby!”
“You missed the point of my question” I said a bit exasperated. “I might not like bird food but giving it to me doesn’t mean it’s morally wrong “
I tried again, “Do you believe there is any circumstance, in any culture, at anytime in history in which torturing babies just for pure pleasure could be justified? Is it objectively one or is it a matter of opinion? “
There was a long pause. We’re talking about a doctor’s assistant; a well educated, well civilized American lady.
Finally she answered: “People should be allowed to decide for themselves. “
This kind of absurd reasoning is classic moral relativism and it is the norm in our culture and modern thought. Moral relativism rejects all universal morale rules and the idea “oughtness”. “Oughtness” says that they are certain things that you ought to do and certain things you ought not to do and human beings intuitively know this in conscience, and it is true whether we believe it or not. The problem, of course, with moral relativism, is that the true moral relativist is no different than someone who has no morals at all. In fact, the perfect a moral relativist would be a sociopath – someone with no conscience. It absolutely baffles me how an educated woman, like the one and my story, can stand there and say “Well, I guess that everybody should be able to decide for themselves. When what we’re talking about is torturing babies. This is the ludicrous, insane place to where we got with this business of moral relativism.
A major tenant of moral relativism is an emaciated version of tolerance. Tolerance is a laudable virtue provided we understand it in its classical meaning. Tolerance, traditionally, is the respect we bring to those holding a different view to our own. I love this country because you can be a Muslim and practice your faith, you can be a Buddhist and practice to faith, you can be a Jew and practice your faith, you can be a Christian and practice your faith and you can hold radically different viewpoints, and yet respect one another. That’s classic tolerance.
True tolerance is only necessary where they are different truth claims. You see, if moral relativism ruled the day there would be no need for tolerance because no one viewpoint would be recognized or held to be superior in its true content than any other view. Moral relativism rejects the idea of an absolute truth. Absolutism holds that a moral of rule is true regardless if anyone believes it or not, what is true is true if nobody believes it, and what is wrong is still wrong even if everybody believes it. Every truth claim, including the claim of moral relativism, excludes every other truth claim. You cannot accuse anyone of being intolerant for believing in something. For example: you can say moral relativism is right or Christianity is right but they cannot both be right. If you are a moral relativist you exclude the position of Christianity. If you were Christian it excludes the position of the moral relativist. If you are an atheist you exclude every “theist”. And by “theist” I mean you exclude every Muslim, every Jew, every Buddhist, everybody who believes anything different than you. The atheist and every “theist” cannot be right at the same time. So Christians are no more intolerant than anybody else. All we’re saying is “Here’s what we believe.” (some just do that poorly)
Again, every truth claim, including the one of moral relativism, excludes every other truth claims. You cannot get off the hook and people are going to have to decide what they’re going to believe. The difference between classic tolerance that respects the rights of others to hold a different view point, and that “so called” tolerance that insists that every truth claim is equally true and that no ideas are intrinsically superior to any other ideas is simply a matter of choice.
One writer says it this way, “All views should get a courteous hearing not that all views have equal merit or truth. “ Tolerance does not mean that we say that everything is equally true. Tolerance says that we respect the views of people and that we want to be courteous with them, but we’re not saying that every view is equally true! They are good ideas, and there a bad ideas. Chesterton was speaking of this perverted notion of tolerance and he said this, “Tolerance is the virtue of those who don’t believe anything”
Professor Alan Bloom, a university teacher, wrote a book a number of years ago called the closing of the American Mind. In his book, he was saying that the students who come to university now have accepted, uncritically or thoughtfully, the idea of moral relativism and are shocked to think that they even have to study to find out what the best ideas are. What doctor Bloom said was that they are so open-minded that they cannot close their mind on anything! This is what he said, “Openness used to be the virtue that permitted us to seek a good idea by using reason but that it now means accepting everything and denying reason’s power.
According to the Barner (misspelled?) report, 66% of the Americans believe that they are no such thing as absolute truth. And of the pool estimates that over 72% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 also reject the notion of absolutes. This kind of moral fogginess has led to what one writer writes “ethical nothingness”. Moral relativism is intellectually lazy and spiritually bankrupt because it leads inevitably to the devaluation of truth. If there is no absolute truth and if no ideas are superior to any other ideas then the purpose of education is utterly lost.
Let me illustrate: to be consistent, moral relativists MUST, if you’re going to be a true more relativist, must accept the racist views of the KKK and Hitler as having equal truth content and credibility as the beliefs of Martin Luther King junior or indeed of God himself because God himself condemns racism as a very bad idea.
Moral relativism filters down to daily life in the form of the oft repeated question, “Who are you to judge?" This is most often tossed out by someone who cannot win a debate and so what they are implying by the question is that you have no right to hold a view. You have no right to impose your particular viewpoint or to assume that your viewpoint is more truthful and has more value than any other viewpoints. This is nonsense to begin with because of the statement itself is a judgment and therefore it is self refuting. Let me explain what I mean by that by using a little conversation that a student had with his teacher. The student said to the professor, “Where are you to judge?” the teacher replied, “I certainly do have the right to make moral judgments. I’m a rational human being who is aware of certain fundamentals of logic and moral reasoning. I think I am qualified.” The answer absolutely shocked the student. The teacher proceeded, "When you say that I have no right to make a judgment that is itself a judgment therefore the statement is refuting.”
Moral relativism crumbles into nonsense when you look at it like that. When we talk about judgments we’re not talking about passing judgment on people or that we’re sending people to hell, I am simply saying that as a human being I have the right to judge between the relative merits of two different ideas. The irony of the moral relativism is that they end up feeling superior for literally having no morals.
Moral relativism is absurd because it is inconsistent, self contradictory and incredibly dangerous. Ideas are not neutral. Ideas have consequences in life and in eternity. Have you seen the movie hotel Rwanda? What happened there was an idea that said “these people are taller and have lighter complexion therefore it is a good idea to kill them”. The moral relativism cannot critique that idea because no one truth is absolute and it’s a choice that people ought to be able to make for themselves. It is absurd. We should not be intimidated by the people on television with all the letters behind their names who say that moral relativism is a good idea. It is not a good idea. It is a dangerous idea and it is the background noise of our culture.
Seek discernment and learn right from wrong. By the way the term “there are no absolutes” is an absolute and is therefore self refuting but I won’t bore you and get into that.
Here is one last illustration of the ludicrous nature of moral relativism. A young couple went to see a pastor for premarital counseling. The pastor sat down with them and explained the Christian view of marriage and why fidelity in marriage was very important. They came back in the next session and told the pastor that they did not want to do premarital counseling with him any longer because they thought the pastor was intolerant. They were telling the pastor that he was assuming that his way was better than any other way. The young couple believed that sex was recreational and that the idea of fidelity just limits the growth of individuals in marriage. They proceeded to tell the pastor that they still wanted him to do the service but that they needed to put off the date. When the pastor asked them why they wanted to put off the date the young couple replied that they needed to wait for the results of their AIDS test to come in because somebody she slept with had AIDS. Here were two people facing their imminent death because of immoral behavior who had the gull to say that their idea was equal in truth and value to the pastor’s idea.
Listen; bad ideas bare bitter fruit in our lives. There is such a thing as a better idea. Who are you to judge? I will tell you who you are to judge; you have a brain and there are real choices with real consequences, and the first and fundamental question, the question of all questions must be; “Is this true and is it a worthy of belief and trust?”
I would like to end with this; within the context of what I have been explaining, go ahead and judge!. You’re supposed to. If you don’t, it could cost you your life in time and in eternity.
I know that I was a little academic and lengthy but this issue is the issue of our times.
The problem with that opening scene is that it tries to knock down relatavism because it is unpleasant.
Remember, relatavism or absolutism are opposing viewpoints. Morals are either absolute, in some way, or relative, in some way. Therefore, one side is right and the other is wrong.
But that opening scene has nothing to do with right or wrong. It simply makes out relatavism to be unpleasant. Now, no matter how unpleasant the truth is, it is still the truth, and you cannot attack a position like that when you are trying to say it is wrong, just because it is not very nice. That, indeed, is the tone of the whole posted piece- it's not objective. It finds relatavism distasteful, and so tries to make out it must therefore be incorrect.
As it happens, I am an absolutist, but sinking to the level of 'relatavism isn't nice, so I won't even consider whether it is correct or not' is pathetic.
__________________
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Last edited by Ushgarak on Apr 18th, 2006 at 09:18 PM
IMO, "absolute moral relativism" smacks of Mind thinking itself enlightened and free of all cultural shackles from the past. "We've learned from past mistakes." It implies some kinda pinnacle of moral development...and frankly, looking around, I don't see us at any kind of pinnacle.
Absolutes exist: physically, biologically, psychologically (and perhaps spiritually as well). Our ignorance of this likely stems from our preponderant tendency to overthink the simplest matters until we end up with absurdity passing as philosophical wisdom.
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We are never all the time wrong or all the time right. This is not the point of this thread IMO. The intended point of the thread is to demonstrate that we are all moral moral absolutist
Gender: Unspecified Location: With Cinderella and the 9 Dwarves
I think there is a little misconception. I, as a moral relativist, believe there is no moral difference between actions, that they are all equal....neutral so to say.
That doesn't mean that I can't hold a subjective view on morals and what I prefer. I don't want children to be tortured (okay, I am kind of neutral on the issue, but still) not because it is absolutely wrong to torture children (it isn't imo), but because I like to lead myself to believe that all humans have rights, that I don'T want to cross and that no one else should cross. So basically you need to make a difference between absolute morals which don't exist, and subjective morals which certainly exist.....in many ways.
Morality, in the strictest sense of the word, deals with that which is regarded as right or wrong.
(From wikipedia)
"that which is REGARDED..." I can't subscribe to absolute morals, because WHO has declared them absolute??
Obviously humankind seems to have had ideas about wrong or right since the dawn of time, universally cultures view killing, theft, robbery, rape and assaults against humans as wrong. But how many cultures have upheld these all the time?
Wars are prime examples were killing, theft, robbery, rape and assaults have been committed against others.
At one time slavery was deemed okay. Later it was outlawed. At one time racism was just a way of life, later it was seen as wrong.
__________________ "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
-Voltaire
"That includes ruining Halloween because someone swallowed a Bible."
"I just thought you were a guy."
"... Most guys do."
Perhaps we should also distinguish between...
1) Moral absolutes (as a point of debate, if nothing else).
2) That your morals may not be those absolutes.
3) Morals (relative or absolute) are often ignored for selfish/nefarious purposes.
__________________
Shinier than a speeding bullet.
You guys are right...IF there is no God then there are no absolute and people decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong BUT you see from my story the problems with reletivism.
God gave 10 commandments, not 10 suggestions. Even if you do not beleive in God that is okay but you have to agree that the commandements are good for us to follow. Unless you are evil which again there is really no evil if there are no absolute and what a sad world that would be. Actually many people live like that and look at the state of things
Gender: Unspecified Location: With Cinderella and the 9 Dwarves
Even if there is a God, there can't really be moral absolutes, can there?
Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie, and thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than you.
George Carlin's 2 Commandments seem just as good.....
Anyways, I wouldn't even say that all the 10 Commandments are that good...and necessary to follow. But moral relativists don't necessarily believe that there shouldn't be Laws or Etiquette, but that those Laws and Etiquette are not absolute....which makes sense.
KMC Community Forums
Apr 18th, 2006 09:02 PM
smacks of Mind thinking itself enlightened and free of all cultural shackles from the past. "We've learned from past mistakes." It implies some kinda pinnacle of moral development...and frankly, looking around, I don't see us at any kind of pinnacle.
