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.
