Who are the Advocates for Moral Relativism? There cannot be any.
“What may be right to you, may be wrong to someone else. And
what’s wrong to you, might be right to someone else.”
“Who are you to impose your moral beliefs on me?”
“Why are you judging me?”
“I can do what I want.”
I hear statements like this a lot; I think that many of us
have. Particularly, any one in our society who stands for something seen as
old-fashioned, traditional, or as the political term goes “conservative” finds
themselves on the defensive. And I have struggled to defend myself. Because a
lot of what people says makes sense. At least, on the surface. But I’ve given
this a lot of thought. And here it goes: the conundrum that is moral
relativism. The one doctrine that by its very definition cannot defend itself.
And yet, how popularly defended it is.
“You can’t force your religion on me.”
My politics stems from my faith. I won’t deny it. I’m not
sure why I should deny it. In speaking with some of my friends who are agnostic,
this statement was frequent. They did not understand why I thought laws could
be morally based when morality—in their perspective—was a mere matter of taste,
like your favorite dessert. Certainly opinion is not to be legislated.
This brings up three objections on my part….
1. If laws are not morally based, what are they based on?
-People
who think that my views on same-sex marriage represent some sort of intolerance
misunderstand the point. They tell me that I should be tolerant. They say that
I should let people love who they want to love. But most still agree that the
line has to be drawn somewhere. Tolerance to the extreme could rationalize
polygamy, incest, and pedophilia alike. After all, why are we imposing our
moral views on others? Why are we condemning murder, if tolerance of all action
is our standard? Some people respond that you should be free to do anything
unless it causes harm to others. And I ask them…why do you think it is wrong to
harm someone? What is the moral authority for that claim? If laws are meant to
be separate from morality, how can you advocate any behavior at all? I know what the basis of my beliefs are—acceptance
of a moral authority that is God. But the moral relativist faces his first dilemma
here. He rejects God and all moral authority…therefore rationalizing all
behavior, including the beliefs of people like me. Ultimately, he can take no stand
on anything. Some people who support same-sex marriage claim that they are not
moral relativists. They claim that the moral standard is just not to cause harm.
I have yet to learn what, then, is their source of authority for that claim and
why they think it automatically trumps my own view of things. Is it natural law? Because we all tend to
disagree on that. Is it human dignity…but why should we care? The source of our
moral sentiments must come from somewhere. The problem that people who reject
God/absolute moral authority face is that they can offer no rationale for their
own beliefs. As one friend told me, “It is wrong to murder because…well, it’s
wrong.” I agree, but I also think that we have to accept a source for such
beliefs to make sense of anything. Is it general consensus? Is it because we
all believe that murder is wrong? Genocides and Holocausts suggest that is a
faulty, unstable standard. In the end, whether its God or not, the fact is…if
we believe in a functioning society that advocates certain behaviors as good
(such as not murdering), then we must come to accept that there is a moral
authority of some sort. That is the material point. And if there is a moral authority,
then why are trying to exclude it from the laws that we create? That is
senseless. If you do not believe in right and wrong or moral authority, then you
should keep quiet, because there is no possible way to object to my claims—since
they are right to me.
2. Isn’t
liberal democracy a moral imposition?
-The fact of the matter is, we live in a country where the
majority, in most cases, rules. Even people who take firms stances for minority
rights must come to understand that in modern society, the ability of the
minority to be heard depends inherently on the majority opinion. Thus the
majority still rules. This is an important point because it is the actual
thesis of liberal democracy. The country was never meant to be a true
democracy, to be sure (rather it was a republic—which advocates some morally
enlightened elite), but that has been the recent shift in the American
mentality. The problem, then, is that liberal democracy—or the will of the
majority—becomes the moral absolute. While those who are currently seeking to
advocate for the “minority right” of same sex couples may feel that they are
working against a majoritarian current, the truth is that they are working within
it to force their opponents to become the new minority. The idea that everyone
has an equal vote has been twisted into the idea that all opinions are equally
valid and true—unless, of course, you are part of the new minority that still
believes in morally enlightened virtues. Thus modern society seeks to impose
liberal democracy as the new morality. You must be tolerant and pluralistic and
that is the new majority. If you are not tolerant according to the definition of
the majority, then you are not tolerated. Thus liberal tolerance only extends
to the liberal majority—in keeping with the principles of democracy. It is not,
of course, in the principles of a republic. The end result, in this idea, is
that to claim that society must be tolerant with laws separate from morality
avoids the fact that the very system instated is a moral statement in and of itself.
Liberal democracy is a moral imposition. Whether or not that is a good thing is
another debate entirely.
3. The Absolutism of Relativism.
-The final objection, albeit somewhat of a summary of the
above, is the fact that any assertion that there is no absolute truth is…well, an
absolute statement. Thus true moral relativists would be forced to claim “there
is no moral absolutes except relativism,” an exception which discredits their
theory to begin with. The fact is, being annoyed with people who assert
religious moral beliefs means that you believe there is something WRONG with
their perspective, also implying that you think something is RIGHT with yours.
That is not relativism anymore than claiming that marriage is between a man and
a woman. We are both guilty of moral absolutism, and the truth is—we cannot
escape it without becoming passionless, emotionless voids. Unless, of course,
you have come to the conclusion that we are both right—in which you try to preserve
your sentiment of relativism. To which I say…”we are both right? But what is
right, if there are no absolutes? What is right if there is no absolute truth?”
We cannot be a moral relativist and advocate for government or for anarchy because
both views assert a positive moral position, a system of govt that is seen as
the most ideal. “Anarchy best suits relativism”…no it cannot be said because
there is no “best.” There is no good or evil, right or wrong, we are all right
and all wrong, and therefore we have nothing rational left to think on. We have
deconstructed more than rationality—we have destroyed the very purpose of
thought and existence. We have now imposed on ourselves a system of amorality…an
imposition of relativism. The absolutism of relativism. We are captive to it.
And yet, it still cannot defend itself. We are captive to the indefensible and
irrational.
People make judgments. We decide what we think is best.
Moral relativists assume that since they personally decided their decision was
right for them, it must be…yet what if there is a conflict? What if right for
me is killing you and right for you is killing me? We cannot advocate anarchy,
for it would make no sense to advocate anything in a world where all ideas are
equal, but it would LEAD to anarchy because there is nothing to stop us.
Nothing to discipline us. Indeed there is no discipline at all.
So who can stand for moral relativism? Not even a moral relativist,
because relativism is right to him, but wrong to me. He must therefore exit
from the pointless argument and leave be to a world of unadvocated anarchy…because
for a relativist there is nothing left to be said on the matter. There is
nothing that can ever be said on the matter. It is, after all, entirely relative.
Finale: I expect no objection to my claims here—at least not
from a relativist. They are right to me, and that should be good enough for them.
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