Thoughts on Moral Relativism

Many people say that our concepts of right/wrong (morality) are merely societal, in other words, our ideas of right and wrong are taught to us by society. There are no objective rules, there is no objective standard, by which anything can be said to be inherently "right" or inherently "wrong" if this is true. Which creates all sorts of problems.

People (even many people who're Christians) in our post-modern society object frequently that morality is relative-you have your morality, I have mine, she has hers, and they have theirs. They will usually object to the idea of an Objective Moral Law bigger and higher than mankind that we can appeal to when deciding issues of morality. But then these people go back on that a hundred times a day without even realizing it.

Every time they say "What right does she have to speak to me like that?" or something similar. Every time they complain about their politicians being greedy and dishonest. Every time they object that some behavior by someone else "isn't fair." When they object to the War in Iraq as being "wrong" or "immoral." When they argue for or against abortion as being "a woman's 'right'" or "murder."  In each of these attempts they are appealing to an unstated higher standard. In all of these cases, they're appealing to what British Christian philosopher and apologist CS Lewis (1898-1963) called the "Moral Law." It might also be called the "law of right behavior" and its existence in each of the scenarios above is unquestioned, simply taken for granted. What is being examined is whether one action or another is a closer approximation to the demands of that law. People accused of falling short of the Moral Law, such as a husband who is rude to his wife's best friend, usually respond with an excuse as to why they should be let off the hook. They don't ever argue that being nice is a false concept that no one should be held responsible for doing, they simply argue as to why, in their case, an exception to the Rule should be made. To quote CS Lewis, very rarely do they ever respond with "to hell with your concept of right behavior." 

This concept appears to be universal to human beings everywhere. To the objection that it’s a societal construct, I would say just think about it. A kid who rudely pushes another kid in Bombay will get exactly the same response as a kid who rudely pushes another kid in Kiev, or Glasgow, or Des Moines, or Buenos Aries. This sense of right and wrong can be found around the world. But some people argue that differing cultures all have different norms of behavior, hence any conclusion about a shared Moral Law is unfounded. But Lewis, a keen observer and student of different cultures called this "a lie. A good resounding lie. If a man will go into a library and spend a few days with the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, he will soon discover the massive unanimity of the practical reason in man. From the Babylonian Hymn to Samos, from the Laws of Manu, the [Egyptian] Book of the Dead, the Analects, the Stoics, the Platonists, from Australian aborigines and Redskins, he will collect the same triumphantly monotonous denunciations of oppression, murder, treachery and falsehood; the same injunctions of kindness to the aged, the young, and thee weak, of almsgiving, impartiality and honesty." As Dr. Francis Collins, PhD, a former atheist, for many years a Christian, and former Director of the Human Genome Project observes "In some unusual cultures the law takes on surprising trappings-consider witch burning in seventeenth-century America. Yet when surveyed closely, these apparent aberrations can be seen to arise from strongly held but misguided notions about who or what is good or evil. If you firmly believed that a witch is the personification of evil on earth, an apostle of the devil himself, would it not then seem justified to take such drastic action?"

Atheistic sociobiologists sometimes like to argue that morality is a product of evolutionary processes. But this can't be right. Because one impulse of the Moral Law is for people to be altruistic, to "do the right thing," as in the case of jumping into a freezing river to save a drowning man, even at the risk of themselves being killed. The Moral Law may lead humans to make great personal sacrifices that lead to suffering, injury, and death, which goes against the idea of natural selection putting desires, drives and impulses in humans and animals that make them stronger, faster, smarter, willing to do whatever it takes to survive and be on top.

How do we explain the Law of Human Nature, Lewis' Moral Law? Because something unusual is going on here. It can only be explained as Lewis did:

"If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe-no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that is just what we do find inside ourselves. Surely this ought to arouse our suspicions?"

Lewis thus believed the Moral Law or Law of Human Nature, was put into us by God. I agree. That's why I don't think Moral Relativism is the answer. As I said above, Moral Relativism holds that everyone ought to act in accordance with the agent's own society's code (or perhaps, with the agent's own personal code). What's right for one society or individual isn't necessarily right for another society or individual. You can find this idea expressed in pop culture, everything from Star Trek: the Next Generation to MSNBC to Oprah Winfrey. "Do what you feel is right." For example, society A might hold that adultery is wrong, and society B that it is morally permissible. Put simply, moral relativism implies that moral propositions are not simply true or false. Rather, the truth values (true or false) of moral principles themselves are relative to the beliefs of a given culture. As an example, "murder is wrong” is not true plain and simply; it is "true" for one society but is "false" for another society. Its not just that there is a certain amount of relativity in the application of moral principles. For example two cultures might both believe that "one should maintain sexual fidelity in marriage," but apply this differently due to factual differences about what counts as marriage (one wife or several wives). Such factual diversity can lead to differences in the way a moral rule is applied. However moral relativism goes beyond this type of diversity and asserts that the truth values of moral principles themselves are relative to a given culture. There's a difference between individual moral relativism (subjectivism) and cultural moral relativism (conventionalism)

Because of the major criticisms against it most moral philosophers and theologians reject the idea of moral relativity. There are several reasons I don't think moral relativism is correct.  Here are five:

First, it is difficult to precisely define what a society is or to specify in a given case what the relevant society is. Imagine a woman from society A above (which says adultery is wrong) having an extramarital affair with a man from society B (which says adultery is morally permissible), in a hotel room in a third society, C, which holds a different view from either A or B. Which is the relevant society for determining whether the act was right or wrong?

Secondly, it can be objected that we are often simultaneously a member of several different societies which hold different moral values: our nuclear family; our neighborhood, school, church, or social clubs; our place of employment; our town, state, country, and the international community. Which society is the relevant one for determining moral standards? What if I'm simultaneously a member of two different societies and one allows but the other forbids a certain moral action? How do I decide which society's rule is right?

Third, moral relativism suffers from a problem known as the reformer's dilemma. Christian Philosopher Dr. JP Moreland explains:

"If normative relativism is true, then it is logically impossible for a society to have a virtuous, moral reformer like Jesus Christ, Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, Jr. Why? Moral reformers are members of a society who stand outside that society's code and pronounce a need for reform and change in that code. However, if an act is right if and only if it is in keeping with a given society's code, then the moral reformer himself is an immoral person, for his views are at odds with those of his society. Moral reformers must always be wrong because they go against the code of their society. But any view that moral reformers are impossible is defective because we all know that moral reformers have existed.

Put differently, moral relativism implies that neither cultures (if conventionalism is in view) nor individuals (if subjectivism is in view) can improve their moral code. The only thing they can do is change it. Why? Consider any change in a code from believing, say, racism is right to racism is wrong. How should we evaluate this change? All the moral relativist can say is that, from the perspective of the earlier code, the new principle is wrong, and from the perspective of the new code, the old principle is wrong. In short, there has merely been a change in perspective. No sense can be given to the idea that a new code reflects an improvement on an old code because this idea requires a vantage point outside of and above the society's (or individual's) code from which to make that judgment. And it is precisely such a vantage point that moral relativism disallows."

Fourth, some acts are wrong regardless of social conventions. Advocates of this criticism usually adopt the standpoint of particularism and claim that everyone knows that some things are wrong, such as torturing babies, stealing as such, greed as such, etc., without first needing criteria to know how they know this. Thus, torturing babies is wrong, and can be known to be wrong, even if society says it is right.

Fifth, if moral relativism is true, its difficult to see how one society could be justified in morally blaming another society in certain cases, such as Venezuelan Pres. Chavez criticizing Pres, Bush and US foreign policy. Or the US criticizing China over human rights violations-if moral relativism is right, human rights don't exist. Thus the US has no "right" to criticize China for human "rights" violations. And in the case of Bush and Chavez, Bush should act in keeping with his society's code and Chavez should act in keeping with his society's code. If morality is relative how can either Bush or Chavez criticize the other's actions as morally wrong? How could any other society criticize the War in Iraq as morally wrong?

To the objection that one society may have its own relative moral code but should criticize acts of, say, murder, wherever they occur, one could respond that this rule further points out the logical inconsistencies of moral relativism. Because if moral relativism is true then society A seem to be in the position of holding that members of society B should, in fact, commit murder, since B's moral code says its right to do so but that society A should criticize society B for murdering because A's code tells them to. Thus relativism tells A to criticize B's acts as immoral while at the same time telling them their acts of murder should be done. But why should society B care what society A thinks anyway? After all, if normative relativism is true, there's nothing intrinsically right about the moral views of society A, or any society. For these and lots of other reasons moral relativism is illogical and should be rejected.