I’m reading an article in Harper’s about Mitt Romney. The article is fine, not too interesting, yet. But it includes a sentence about Romney running against his enemies, such as “Hollywood, France and Moral Relativism”.
Let’s not even touch Hollywood or France – they’re enemies that are so far out there, I think most sane Americans probably don’t buy into them actually being significant threats – Mayor Quimby’s comments about the French (and the subsequent deployment of missiles by France) aside. But moral relativism – an IDEA, a philosophy, if you will – is somehow a threat.
Individuals who believe in, or even try to follow moral relativism, are often painted as sanctioning any human behavior. I think it’s important to note that moral relativism is a practice – it’s intention is to refrain from judging people or behavior. This is a fantastic practice to have in an intellectual arena and one that does not hold up – and I don’t believe any one would say it does – in a practical, law-abiding sense.
But what the moral relativist is attempting to do is point out that in this world, our perceptions color the way we view other people and their behavior. Since we, as individuals, cannot possibly see the world the way that person does, we cannot escape our own filters, and any judgment we make is ultimately flawed – at least on a moral basis.
I cannot judge your heart. I can judge your behaviors, certainly. If you hit me or yell at me, I’ll respectfully disengage myself from your presence asap. But that’s not a judgment except one for my own safety. If you cause someone else documented pain (which they did not agree to) or restrict their rights, I think the state has a right to step in. And the moral colors regarding people’s behaviors – the different shades that people see depending on how they were raised, their religion, their world view – I think those should stay out of the law.
Now, what I dont understand is this: at the heart of most every religion is the underlying ideal that God (Gods?) is the only judge we must face. That as we humans are inherently flawed and cannot conceive of the universe, it is God and only God that can pass judgment fairly. Correct me if I’m wrong here, as I’m not much of a religious scholar, but doesn’t that mean to be a truly religious person, you ought to be a moral relativist?
That doesn’t mean you don’t have morals. I have plenty of morals. I think they’re pretty great morals. But they’re mine. and I can choose to be friends with people who value the same things as me, and not to be friends with people who don’t. But I respect that other people have different world views and have the right to express them – even if I find them offensive. That’s moral relativism. It’s acknowledging that your way of life is not the only way there is; that you are not the only person on earth. Pretty extraordinary, I know.
So how is it a threat? It doesn’t mean you can’t be the person you want to be – in fact, moral relativism guarantees that. It doesn’t mean you can’t acknowledge that someone’s way of life offends you. It doesn’t mean that the government becomes powerless.
Maybe it’s threatening because it requires critical thought. But it doesn’t have to. You can be a moral relativist by focusing on acting how you believe you should, and ignoring the rest of the world. It can be that easy.
K.
The contents of this blog entry may not reflect the views of the Webmaster of Doom, Michael.
2 Comments
I’ve had the moral relativism argument with fundamentalist religious people before, and there’s a very basic difference in the way they and we see morality.
I see morality (as, I imagine, do you) as a set of negative directives. In other words, I am free to do whatever I please, as long as my actions are not immoral. My moral limits are where I place them — dishonesty, emotional harm to others, &c; and the government should likewise place legal limits based on “lowest common denominator” morality — dishonesty before a court, physical harm to others, etc.
But fundamentalist religion — and one can argue extensively on whether this is actually supported by scripture — tends to make morality into an affirmative directive. In other words, it is your job to be moral, whatever that may mean, and it is an active pursuit to be undertaken.
I was in a fairly extensive debate recently on the subject of gay marriage. Over the course of the debate it became obvious that my religious fundamentalist (and extremely intelligent) opponent was disinclined to support gay marriage because he felt it would corrupt an existing moral institution. To me, this is a ridiculous argument, because I see everything that is not immoral as moral. But to him, morality is a real (if somewhat nebulous) concept, one which is constantly being bombarded with threatening changes by people like me.
He wanted to argue with me about whether being homosexual is an innate phenomenon or the result of a broken psyche, about whether we should allow homosexuals to adopt children, etc., etc. I could not explain that I considered these things to be different issues. I could not convey my point, which is very simple: I support gay marriage because I can produce no evidence of objective harm to anyone involved. But if you consider that my concept of morality is entirely foreign to him, it’s not surprising that we couldn’t communicate effectively.
Personally, I don’t see how an affirmative concept of morality is sustainable in a society that values individual differences. There are a very few moral concepts that cross nearly all cultures, and that are obviously good ideas, and the rest of what you believe is, as you said in your post, just your opinion.
Is forcing your opinions on others morally defensible?
I get what you mean about viewing morals as affirmative/negative. But even if you do view morals as affirmative, it shouldn’t prevent you from exercizing moral relativism, and I don’t see where it does. I say to myself all the time, I think that behavior is immoral/despicable/rotten and I don’t believe it’s my place to step in and stop it so long as no one is being harmed.
Hell, sometimes someone is being harmed and I don’t step in – say someone is hitting their kid or wife at the store, or maybe they haven’t belted their child into the cart – I respect that people have the right to choose which behavior they partake in – and even if I view it as wrong, it’s not for me to say anything.
Having affirmative morals doesn’t give you the right to be the all-knowing judge for everyone in the world. That’s a twisted notion, but maybe people don’t understand that until they belong to a group that’s not in power.
Only when you have power do you gain the rights to judge others behaviors and that should scare everyone. Because power is a fleeting thing, and I think that’s what scares fundamentalists of any religion most of all. When they no longer have power, they lack the resources to enforce their moral imperatives, and they will subsequently lose their abilities to believe and express their morals. It should scare everyone into moving towards moral relativism, so that when our situation changes, we’ve protected our right to say and to believe and to act in the manner we see fit.
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