Michael Kennedy
1 April 2013
Moral Relativity
Imagine a world
where the evil of Hitler, the slaughters under Stalin, and the terror of Saddam
Hussein went unpunished. What idea would
justify this horror of a world? Some truly
believe that these actions were acceptable, in that no actions are unacceptable. This is the idea of moral relativity, and the
dangers of this ideology are too horrible and too numerous to ignore. Moral relativity has no place in our world
and should be opposed. We will discuss
what this idea is, individual relativity, and cultural relativity.
So what is moral
relativity? It is a complex idea which
has gained popularity among scholarly circles in the past couple of years. It is the idea that a person’s belief of right
and wrong is correct, but so is someone else’s to them even if these ideas
disagree with one another. Basically
everyone is right. This also means that
there is no true right and wrong, because ethical convictions are merely
personal opinions. Paul Boghossian said
it best in his article in The New York Times, “If there are no absolute facts
about morality, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ would have to join ‘witch’ in the dustbin
of failed concepts.”(Boghossian) Moral relativity also stipulates that there
are no absolute truths. For instance
some people believe in “Hell” others don’t.
Moral Relativity states that both of these people are right. There are two types of moral relativity. There is individual relativity and cultural
relativity. We will discuss both of
these.
Individual
relativity is the idea that any singular person’s moral views are correct, and
that there are no over arching moral guidelines. This idea arose from a cultural
conflict. Matt K. Lewis in his article
in The Week summed it up, “Liberty America
This
is the more convoluted of the two. The
idea is that different cultures have different opinions on right and wrong, and
therefore there is no overarching moral code.
Peter Kreeft, in his online book about relativism, says it best, “The
claim is that anthropologists and sociologists have discovered moral relativism
to be not a theory but an empirical fact. Different cultures and societies,
like different individuals, simply do, in fact, have very different moral
values. In Eskimo culture, and in Holland ,
killing old people is right. In America ,
east of Oregon ,
it's wrong. In contemporary culture, fornication is right; in Christian
cultures, it's wrong, and so forth.” (Kreeft)
This brings up some practical problems,
for instance the Holocaust would be considered okay, because anti-Semitism was
prominent in German culture. Obviously
killing thousands of people for no reason, but their religion and race, is
wrong under any culture. In some Arabic
countries terrorism is considered acceptable, but crashing a plane into the
twin towers, and killing so many people, is certainly wrong. There is a flaw in this logic, as well as an
outright horror at that kind of actions this would justify. Remember that cultural relativity still
postulates that there is no true right or wrong, yet this form basically states
that it is always right to abide by your cultures morality(Kreeft) as Mr. Kreeft also says in his
book. Kreeft also later makes a very
good point, “Try to imagine a society where justice, honesty, courage, wisdom,
hope, and self-control were deemed morally evil. And unrestricted selfishness,
cowardice, lying, betrayal, addiction, and despair were deemed morally good.
Such a society is never found on Earth.
There are indeed important disagreements about values between cultures.
But beneath all disagreements about lesser values, there always lies an
agreement about more basic ones. “ (Kreeft) He states the argument quite well. While lots of countries do have different
moralities there has never been one that has totally reversed morality. This shows that cultural relativity is not a
fact, and that the world is more absolutist than those scholars think.
We have discussed
the meaning of moral relativity, individual relativity, and cultural
relativity. There are serious flaws in
the idea of moral relativity; it is not acceptable in our world. You don’t have to be a Christian or even
religious to be an absolutist. You just
have to believe in a line that shouldn’t be crossed no matter what you believe
in, or where you’re from. You just have
to have a couple rules that can’t be broken, to avoid the flawed logic and
horrible consequences of moral relativity.
As long as we have right and wrong we can keep the order and stability
of our society, and we can make the world a better place.
PAUL BOGHOSSIAN
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/the-maze-of-moral-relativism/
The New York
Times July 24, 2011
“If there are no absolute facts about morality, “right” and “wrong” would
have to join “witch” in the dustbin of failed concepts.” QBy Matt K. Lewis http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/241871/the-culture-war-was-never-a-fair-fight The Week March 27, 2013
“Liberty
“Of course, there
has always been a tension between virtue and liberty. But at some point, America
Peter Kreeft http://www.peterkreeft.com/audio/05_relativism/relativism_transcription.htm#2 March 12, 2013 10:37 AM
“The claim is that anthropologists and sociologists
have discovered moral relativism to be not a theory but an empirical fact.
Different cultures and societies, like different individuals, simply do, in
fact, have very different moral values. In Eskimo culture, and in Holland ,
killing old people is right. In America ,
east of Oregon ,
it's wrong. In contemporary culture, fornication is right; in Christian
cultures, it's wrong, and so forth.” P
“Just imagine what that would be like. Try to
imagine a society where justice, honesty, courage, wisdom, hope, and
self-control were deemed morally evil. And unrestricted selfishness, cowardice,
lying, betrayal, addiction, and despair were deemed morally good. Such a
society is never found on Earth. If it exists anywhere, it is only in Hell and
its colonies. Only Satan and his worshippers say "evil be thou my
good." There are indeed important disagreements about values between
cultures. But beneath all disagreements about lesser values, there always lies
an agreement about more basic ones.” P
“To
see the logical fallacy in this apparently impregnable argument, we need to
look at its unspoken assumption—which is that moral rightness is a matter of
obedience to cultural values. That it is right to obey your culture's values.
Always. Only if we combine that hidden premise with the stated premise—that
values differ with cultures—can we get to the conclusion that moral rightness
differs with cultures. That what is wrong in one culture is right in another.
But surely, this hidden premise begs the question. It presupposes the very
moral relativism it is supposed to prove. The absolutist denies that it is
always right to obey your culture's values. He has a trans-cultural standard by
which he can criticize a whole culture's values. That is why he could be a
progressive and a radical, while the relativist can only be a status-quo
conservative, having no higher standard than his culture. My country, right or
wrong. Only massive, media, big-lie propaganda could so confuse people's minds
that they spontaneously think the opposite. But in fact it is only the believer
in the old-fashioned natural moral law who could be a social radical and a
progressive. He alone can say to a Hitler, or a Saddam Hussein, "You and
your whole social order are wrong and wicked and deserve to be destroyed."
The relativist could only say, "Different strokes for different folks, and
I happen to hate your strokes and prefer mine, that's all." P
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