Relativism

Years ago, I taught a moral leadership class at William Penn University’s College for Working Adults. My students were routinely in their mid to late twenties or older. Seldom did I have a student who was fresh out of high school.

These men and women were settled in their opinions and judgments, especially as it related to morality. Overwhelmingly, they were moral relativists who had little time for absolutes. A live and let live attitude pervaded their collective conscience.

I have never been a moral relativist. I have always recognized that moral absolutes exist and they don’t originate with me. Perhaps this comes from my Christian upbringing and my unquestioned devotion to the divine inspiration of the Bible. I believe God is loving, but he’s also a lawgiver and the judge of the universe.

The Bible is not the story of humanities’ encounter with divine advice. It is the history of the collision of opposing forces – the will of God and his laws verses the rebellion of his lawless subjects. In this battle there is no room for relativism. There is only right and wrong and only one side can be right.

Yet my students couldn’t see it this way. They believed they had a right to interpret the rules of life as they saw fit with no reliance on objective reality like God. They were in effect a rule unto themselves, and they were proud of it. They were gratified they weren’t shackled by archaic attitudes about morality. They’d been liberated to view life more holistically without regard to the restrictive judgments of the narrow minded.

Their attitude about morality didn’t mean they were void of simple principles of social etiquette. They still believed in the value of being considerate. And in their defense, my students were good people with good hearts. Generally, they sought to do the right thing for the right reasons.

But when it came to deeper issues of morality, it was as though whatever capacity their consciences had for judging right from wrong vanished into thin air. Nothing was left that could guide them consistently and logically to the right conclusions.

Moral relativism does that to people. Its end is always chaos, although its beginning is as benign as a puppy. It seems everyone loves moral relativism until the relativity affects their lives in a negative way.

For example, when discussing the looting that took place in New Orleans following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, many students felt the looters were justified in taking food and clothing if they had lost all their possessions in the hurricane’s aftermath. Since food was essential, then looting the food was permissible. Yet, when asked about how they felt about the looting of sports equipment, televisions, microwaves, and other small appliances from big box stores their sentiment was less sympathy and more bewilderment.

While they were inclined to consider this kind of looting as morally wrong, they wrestled with it because in my example the looting occurred in the stores of large retail giants, and these businesses could afford to suffer the loss. However, when confronted with the scenario of looters looting their small businesses, then their romanticism with if it feels good do it faded away and they were left with self-righteous indignation.

Pragmatism is moral relativism’s handmaiden. An act can be wrong in one setting while being right in another. It all depends upon the end whether the means to that end are justified.

This was most clearly observed when discussing sexual morality. In this domain the students believed that nothing could constrain the actions of two people who freely consented to sexual intimacy. Nothing was so sacred that it could get in the way, not even marriage vows. Sure, a married man having an affair could destroy his marriage, but there could be extenuating circumstances that might excuse such an issue.

Moral relativism creates within the adherent an absolute right of moral autonomy. The relativist exists by himself – alone – in a world void of moral judgments. It is an attitude driven by a get out of my way mentality. It is a middle finger posture towards the culture, especially against those who think they have the authority to impose their will on another.

The end result of relativism is chaos. There is no glue to hold society together. No common ground exists upon which to build families and communities. No shared agreement on what is acceptable behavior. Every man decides for himself what is right and the rest of us be damned.

The live and let live attitude encapsulated in moral relativism saturates American society today. If you don’t like something turn the channel or turn the other way, but don’t tell anyone they can’t do what they’re doing. In fact, the faster you get over your disdain for unbridled freedom the better for all of us. Then maybe we can stop hearing you whine about moral absolutes and right and wrong and God! Those killjoys are best left out of any discussion about human self-determination. Otherwise, according to the relativist, we’ll be left without any freedom at all.

In my view nothing could be further from the truth. Only when we are enlightened and guided by objective parameters for human behavior can we truly experience freedom. Ironically, it’s moral law that promotes and secures moral freedom, and it’s the absence of law that destroys it.