Absolute Moralty : Moral Relativism ??
AT 48 : June 15th 2000
It is often asserted that there is, currently, a moral crisis in which the issue is between moral absolutes - which are held to be A Good Thing - and moral relativism - which is held to be A Bad Thing.
This is an example of the vice of compulsively polarised thought - the nearly irresistible urge to turn every question into an either/or choice. Of course some matters are inescapably either/or choices; the cricket captain who wins the toss has to decide either that his team will bat either first or second. He has to choose either the one or the other course of action. Fanatics, who may well be dangerous nutters, often say such things as if you are not for me then you are against me ...... leaving aside the very obvious possibility that the person to whom 'me' refers might be thought right in some ways, wrong in others and perhaps just plain silly in others.
The truly difficult problems are, in many instances, difficult precisely because they admit of no either/or resolution. The main purpose of this article is to demonstrate that the absolute/relative issue in moral theory is precisely such a case and that morally useful statements can often be both absolute and relative at the same time.
We first have to set out a working definition, relevant to the point at issue, of an absolute statement.
An absolute statement is one to which it is claimed that nobody can object (other than from ignorance, stupidity or perversity) and whose opposite is correspondingly unacceptable. Absolute moral statements are often made in the name of religion. It is claimed, for example, that thou shalt not bear false witness ..... is an absolute requirement there being no way in which contravention of this rule can ever be morally acceptable let alone morally right.
It is easy to see that rules of this kind rest upon false polarisation - either you are honest or you are not - and that all the exhortation in the world will not make them absolutely effective in their impact upon the behaviour of real people in real situations. Simple absolute rules of behaviour end up either as useful guidelines or as simply nonsensical.
To go to other side of this false polarisation we might say thou shalt bear false witness, or not as the case may be, according to what is normally accepted.
This is moral relativism - the practice of equating the right thing with the done thing. If there is such a things as morality then the whole point of it is precisely that the right thing and the done thing are distinct in principle (even if they are often the same thing in practice and even if identifying the right thing is enormously difficult). A crass example of moral relativism is the outrageous notion that, while stoning prostitutes is not right in Tyneside or in Kansas, it is nonetheless OK in Teheran or in Kabul .......... because Islamic Culture is different from ours.
If both sides of the polarisation of absolute as against relative are spurious then what can we do? We can refer to the behaviour of people whom we see as being sufficiently good people - readily recognised as such. Such people, in fact, act on such precepts as it is generally better, other things being equal, to tell truths rather than to tell lies.
The statement ..... it is generally better, other things being equal, to tell truths rather than to tell lies. ....... is recognisable as an absolute statement under the terms of the definition offered above - in that its opposite ..... it is generally better, other things being equal, to tell lies rather than to tell truths ....... is simply not acceptable to any normal person. It is, incidentally, a self-undermining statement in that if someone were to say it then we would not know whether his uttering of it is one of the lies he is evidently, on his own sayso, ever ready to tell.
But the statement .... it is generally better, other things being equal, to tell truths rather than to tell lies. ..... is also a relative statement in that what is prescribed is relative to consideration of "other things".
Real moral judgments made by real people in real situations are generally like that; such judgments result from ethical inquiry in the light of intelligible, experince-based, guidelines . Ethical inquiry may well be completed almost instantly by intuition but it is better undertaken by critical consideration in a less hurried way. A sufficiency of such unhurried inquiry in recalled instances may, in time, serve to educate the intuition that one needs as guidance in circumstances where hurry is unavoidable.
Beware of absolute rules; beware of naive relativism; identify reasonable guidelines and use the brains that our supposed Creator has allegedly given us.
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