3.14: Claim: Morals are Relative
Statement of the Claim: 1) Given the empirical fact of widespread
disagreement among individuals and cultures about moral propositions and 2)
since we cannot demonstrate or conclusively prove the truth or falsity of
various ethical claims and 3) since the claim that one’s own morals are
superior to those of others appears to lead to intolerance and evil
consequences and 4) since moral propositions are essentially just statements of
personal preference or social convention anyway, it is false to claim that
certain acts (or moral propositions) are right or wrong in any objective,
universal sense (“moral objectivism”). Rather, the truth or falsity of
ethical propositions (and correlatively the rightness or wrongness of
behaviors) is relative to some subjective standard, either the individual or
the culture. What is ethically true and right for me (or my culture) is true
and right for me, and what is ethically true and right for you (or your culture)
is true and right for you (“moral relativism”).
Rebuttal Summary:
3.141 Moral objectivists can acknowledge the
empirical fact of diversity in moral beliefs while still maintaining that some
people (and cultures) are mistaken in their beliefs. “Belief doesn’t
change truth.” [1]
3.142 A common argument against moral relativism is the assertion that there is less moral diversity than claimed by the relativists and that in fact all cultures and especially religions do in fact share certain common moral principles including the Golden Rule. With respect to Islam, those assumptions are false and the moral incongruence between Islam and other ethical systems is real.
3.143 Cultural relativism logically negates the possibility of moral progress within a culture. If moral progress is possible, it means that people (and cultures) can be mistaken or fallible about their beliefs and if people (or cultures) can be mistaken or fallible about their beliefs, then moral relativism is false.
3.144 Since individual members within a society often hold differing views on moral practices, and since there are frequently dissenting views from the status quo, to whom does the cultural relativist point to as representing the ultimate moral standards for a given society and by what authority are they granted that status?
3.145 There are frequently subcultures within a culture, which make competing moral demands on the individual. Cultural relativism provides the individual with no means of resolving these sorts of moral dilemmas.
3.146 On what moral grounds could the cultural relativist object to a few like-minded individuals forming a “sub-culture” within a society and then claiming the moral right to do whatever reprehensible thing they want?
3.147 If a certain practice is immoral or reprehensible when committed by a few individuals, how does the same act become morally acceptable simply because a majority of people endorse it? This is known as the “fallacy from popularity”.
3.148 While the logical flaws of moral relativism may be somewhat concealed so long as ethically incompatible cultures have no contact with one another, they are starkly revealed when cultures with incompatible ethics are brought into close contact with each other.
3.149 Cultural relativism provides for no moral rational defense against the possibly aggressive demands of cultures that do not share the moral relativists’ meta-ethical perspective and instead endorse moral absolutism.
3.1410 Because moral relativism provides no grounds for defending freedom and tolerance as values that are objectively superior to tyranny and intolerance, moral relativism is more likely to lead to descent into tyranny and intolerance, based merely on an appeal to superior physical force, in order to resolve moral disagreements.
3.1411 Most moral relativists, when placed on the receiving end of the real-world consequences of their abstract theories, demonstrate by their own emotional reactions that they do not, in fact, really believe in moral relativism themselves.
3.1412 The arbitrariness of morality entailed in the cultural relativist’s claim that right and wrong is determined by cultural/societal convention, leads to self-evidently absurd conclusions.
3.1413 Precisely because one is able, according to the moral relativist, to create one’s own moral values, one is less likely to be bound by those values. Hence, moral relativism eventually degenerates into moral nihilism.
3.1414 Moral relativism is self-contradictory:
a. It is self-contradictory to assert that "it is objectively true that there are no objective truths". [2]
b. The relativist assumption that we shouldn’t criticize the moral practices of other cultures because such criticism is intolerant implies that tolerance is an objective moral virtue, which contradicts the theory of moral relativism by making the one virtue of tolerance an exception to the rule.
c. The very meaning of the word “tolerance” presupposes a belief in objective good and evil, since “we do not tolerate goods. We only tolerate evils in order to prevent worse evils”. [3]
d. From an epistemological perspective, “The proposition that one cannot verify moral judgment by empirical means… presents…a self-contradiction…the statement, "X is meaningless if it isn't subject to verification" cannot be verified by the very criterion set forth by the proposition.” [2]
3.1415 The “emotivist” claim, that moral statements are really only statements of likes or preferences,
a. Does not account for the fact that people often maintain ethical beliefs, which directly conflict with their own emotional desires and preferences.
b. Is not an empirically accurate description of the subjective phenomenon of passively experiencing emotions versus actively making moral judgments.
c. Does not explain the fact that we have a well-developed language for arguing about moral values (while we don’t argue about our subjective emotions), which reflects our experience of moral propositions as objectively real and meaningful.
3.1416 The acceptance that at least some moral claims are self-evident or “true” a priori would mean that there are indeed some objectively true and universal moral propositions and that moral relativism is false.
3.1417 The claim that we cannot know or rationally prove the truth of moral propositions and that therefore we have to accept moral claims as equally legitimate, is partly based on the claim that one cannot derive moral conclusions from observation of sensory facts. However, mathematical and logical propositions are not derived from observation of empirical facts, and yet we still accept that the truth-value of these sorts of propositions can be known or proved.
3.1418 Finally, “…as a theory for justifying moral practices and beliefs, ethical relativism fails to recognize that some societies [simply] have better reasons for holding their views than others.” [4]
Conclusion:
Moral relativism is logically self-contradictory in numerous respects and hence irrational. Being irrational it is arbitrary, and leads to self-evidently absurd conclusions. Contrary to fostering tolerance (it’s presumed pragmatic goal), the essential arbitrariness of moral relativism leads instead to intolerance and tyranny and ultimately results in moral nihilism, the very antithesis of morality itself.
Myth:
In the philosophical field of ethics known as “meta-ethics”, moral relativism is the position that since “ no universal standard exists by which to judge an ethical proposition’s truth” [2], the truth or falsity of ethical propositions is relative to some subjective standard (“subjectivism”), either that of the culture (“cultural ethical relativism”) or that of the individual (“individual” or “personal” relativism”).
Moral relativism stands in contrast to the positions of moral objectivism and moral absolutism. Moral objectivism is “the position that certain acts are objectively right or wrong, independent of human opinion. Models of objective morality may be atheistic, monotheistic…or pantheistic…The moral codes may stem from reason, from the divine, or from a combination of the two. These various systems differ as to the nature of the objective morality, but agree on its existence.” [5]
Moral absolutism is closely related, although not identical to moral objectivism and will be used somewhat interchangeably here. Also, while this rebuttal primarily addresses the claims of cultural moral relativism (sometimes referred to here as “cultural relativism” merely for brevity’s sake), given the common ingredient of “subjectivism” as opposed to “objectivism” in the arguments of both cultural and individual relativism, some degree of overlap in addressing their respective claims is unavoidable.
Arguments in favor of moral relativism:
- It is an empirical fact that different individuals and cultures endorse different ethical values. Given the wide degree of disagreement among cultures, morals are apparently relative and culturally conditioned (empirical argument from moral diversity and disagreement).
- Since we cannot know (empirically) nor prove (rationally) the truth about ethical claims, and since we cannot rationally resolve moral disagreements, we should treat all moral claims as equally legitimate (argument from lack of knowledge or proof).
- The claim that one’s own ethical values are superior is ethnocentric and intolerant and moral objectivism has been the cause of much human evil. Moral relativism is ethically superior to moral objectivism because it practically leads to more positive outcomes, including tolerance and freedom (argument from positive consequences).
- Moral propositions are essentially just statements of subjective emotions, preferences or attitudes (emotivism). Since moral propositions have no objective truth-value, individuals (or cultures) cannot be fundamentally wrong about their moral beliefs. In short, moral principles are merely personal preferences or social conventions.
Rebuttal:
3.141 Moral objectivists can acknowledge the empirical fact of diversity in moral beliefs while still maintaining that some people (and cultures) are mistaken in their beliefs. “Relativity in moral belief does not entail relativity in moral truth. Belief doesn't change truth.” [1]
Moral opinions or beliefs may well be culturally conditioned to some extent but that does not demonstrate that there are no objective moral values. Just because Muslims believe that dying while killing unbelievers in the service of jihad to spread Islam is the highest moral act (earning them privileged status in the afterlife with the guarantee of 72 virgins) does not mean that it is objectively true that dying while killing unbelievers in the service of the jihad to spread Islam is the highest moral act. To demonstrate the distinction between moral values and moral opinions, Peter Kreeft notes that just because one doesn’t believe in Hell doesn’t mean one couldn’t go there, otherwise the surest way to avoid going to Hell would be to cease to believe in it, demonstrating the moral relativist fallacy that “there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.” [3]
3.142 A common argument against moral relativism is the assertion that there is less moral diversity than claimed by the relativists (an attempt to undermine the presumed empirical fact of moral diversity which is an indispensable assumption of moral relativism) and that in fact all cultures and especially religions do in fact share certain common moral principles, such as the Golden Rule.
According to this argument, what appear to be moral disagreements between individuals or cultures are merely superficial differences in the application of common moral principles. For example, “… Hans Küng (1996) and others have maintained that there is a common “global ethic” across the world's major religious traditions regarding respect for human life, distributive justice, truthfulness, and the moral equality of men and women.” [6]
With respect to Islam, those assumptions are false and the moral incongruence between Islam and other ethical systems is real. In Islam, for example, infidel life is less valuable than Muslim life (reflected in the penalties for murder in Sharia law), lying and deceit are morally acceptable in the service of spreading Islam (taqiyyah), and women are regarded as morally inferior to men (according to an authenticated hadith, Hell is largely populated by women, e.g.).
While it may be true that Islam shares many moral principles with other faiths in a broad sense, including prohibitions against lying, killing and stealing, the fact that these moral injunctions apply differentially when the victims are Muslims as opposed to non-Muslims is not a superficial difference in the application of common moral principles anymore than a moral doctrine that one should do whatever benefits oneself first and foremost could be considered a "superficial" variation in the application of the Golden Rule.
3.143 Cultural relativism logically negates the possibility of moral progress within a culture. But if moral progress is possible, it means that people (and cultures) can be mistaken or fallible about their beliefs and if people (or cultures) can be mistaken or fallible about their beliefs, then moral relativism is false.
Since cultural relativism entails that “the culture or society is the highest authority about what is right for individuals living within that society” [7] , the moral status quo is by implication always correct by the logic of moral relativism and there could be no such thing as moral progress within a culture. Ergo, all moral reformers within a culture (including those who fought against human sacrifice or against slavery in the US, for example) were morally wrong. (Moreover, the acceptance that moral reformers do exist within a culture provides empirical evidence against the relativist assumption that all moral values are socially conditioned, otherwise where exactly did moral reformers get their innovative ideas in the first place?) [3] , [8]
Since Muslims believe that Islamic (Mohammedan) ethics represent an objective advancement over pre-Islamic pagan ethics, obviously Muslims cannot shield themselves from criticism of their ethics by appealing to moral relativism, although they quite often do so disingenuously when attempting to explain away questionable aspects of Muhammad’s behavior, such as raping female captives of war, taking slaves, or copulating with 9 year old Aisha, on the relativistic grounds that such behaviors were common practices in 7th century Arabia. But otherwise Muslims are largely unapologetic moral absolutists. Rather, the case for moral relativism is more often made by western apologists for Islam. But the fact that western moral relativists generally regard moral relativism as representing moral progress within their own culture because it is viewed as more tolerant than the moral absolutism that preceded it, demonstrates an inherent self-contradiction.
3.144. Since members within a society often hold differing views on moral practices, and since there are frequently dissenting views from the status quo, to whom does the cultural relativist point to as representing the ultimate moral standards for a given society and by what authority are they granted that status?
And even if a society appears on the surface to be fairly uniform in its moral practices, under what conditions was that uniformity established? Presumably,
“…the standards that are authoritative for a society are the ones persons have agreed to follow as a result of some negotiation or bargaining process ….Still, it may be asked whether they really have authority or perhaps whether they have the right kind. For example, suppose the agreement had been reached in circumstances in which a few members of society held great power over the others (in the real world, the most likely scenario). Those with less power might have been prudent to make the agreement, but it is not obvious that such an agreement would create genuine normative authority — a point the dissident challenging the standards might well make.” [6]
Because Islamic societies have a long history of brutally suppressing dissenting voices (it is commonly said that the “gates of ijtihad slammed shut 1,000 years ago”), it can be questioned whether Islamic societies as they are currently constituted have the kind of normative moral authority that moral relativists attribute to them. The culturally relativist assumption that they do have that normative moral authority often results in western moral relativists delegitimizing dissenting voices within the Islamic world itself, as demonstrated in the recent case of morally relativist (non-Muslim) Canadians supporting orthodox Canadian Muslims who wanted to implement Sharia law for domestic arbitration against the objections of many progressive Muslim Canadian women.
3.145. There are frequently subcultures within a culture, which make competing moral demands on the individual. Cultural relativism provides the individual with no means of resolving these sorts of moral dilemmas.
In modern, complex, pluralistic societies, people often have overlapping social identities. Beebe gives the example of an American woman who is both a feminist and a Catholic. Which subculture’s moral standards does she rely on for resolving the moral issue of abortion? [7] A similar dilemma applies for Muslims who face the competing moral obligations of being an American citizen (which entails owing primary loyalty to the United States and its citizens) versus being a Muslim (which entails owing primary loyalty to the Muslim ummah). This dilemma for Muslims living in the west is particularly acute when their own nations are at war with Muslim nations, as is currently the case for Muslims living in the US, Britain, Australia, Denmark, and Canada. Cultural moral relativism, which posits that the society or culture provides the ultimate standard for what is ethically correct, provides no guidance for resolving these sorts of moral conflicts. Presumably, the individual would have to choose between these competing moral claims but such a choice would necessarily involve a moral determination as to which obligation was more morally binding in some objective sense. (Presumably one could merely flip a coin instead but that would be a completely ‘amoral’ act and so irrelevant to a moral determination altogether.)
3.146. On what moral grounds could the cultural relativist object to a few like-minded individuals forming a “sub-culture” within a society and then claiming the moral right to do whatever reprehensible thing they want?
Aside from the requirement that a “subculture” must logically imply an association of at least two individuals, there is no clear standard for determining that a sufficient aggregate of individuals has been reached to confer upon said “subculture” the moral legitimacy that cultural relativism ascribes to it. What is the minimum number of aggregated individuals required to constitute a legitimate moral standard according to which one’s actions ought to be ordered ethically, from the cultural ethical relativist’s point of view? Two? Fifty? One hundred? One million? By way of illustrating the absurdity of the notion that “…any seemingly evil practice can become morally good simply by convincing a few other people to go along with it”, Beebe cites the case of cult leader David Koresh, who prohibited all the women in his cult (including married women) from having sex with anyone but Koresh himself. [7]
But at the time that Muhammad fled from Mecca to Medina after 13 years of preaching his message in Mecca, Muhammad still had barely 100 followers, as he had failed to rationally convince his fellow Meccans of the objective truth of his claims to prophet-hood. After relocating to Medina, Muhammad similarly failed to convince the powerful Jews of Medina of his claims to prophet-hood. Ultimately, he resorted to violence in order to enforce his claims, picking up converts with the promise of booty and slaves (or merely to spare their own lives) and gradually succeeded in eliminating all competing religions from the Arabian Peninsula through warfare and ethnic cleansing (whereas previously people of different religious beliefs had co-existed there). These actions were conveniently “justified” through divine revelation (but with regard to the ethical claims of Divine Command Theory, see section 3.1418). In short, Muhammad himself started out with a bare minimum of 100 followers after 13 years of prophetic effort and his moral claims were rejected by everyone around him until he and his followers resorted to levels of violence which were even anathema to the moral codes of his time (e.g. shedding blood during the holy months). Was it morally legitimate for Muhammad to resort to violence to spread his religion merely because he was able to convince an initially small band of followers to go along with it? What if I claimed to have a divine revelation that all Muslims should be exterminated for the sake of peace on earth and I could convince a few people to join my new religion? Would moral relativists have any choice but to accept the moral validity of my claims?
3.147 If a certain practice is immoral or reprehensible when committed by a few individuals, how does the same act become morally acceptable simply because a majority of people endorse it? This is known as the “fallacy from popularity”.
In the case of Islam, just because hundreds of millions of people now believe that it is morally justified to kill or subjugate (under Islamic law) others who do not believe in Islam, does not make it morally defensible. Nor does the fact that millions of people share this belief mean that the belief is automatically entitled to respect. Millions of Europeans also believed they were morally justified in exterminating the Jews. Was the holocaust justified on the grounds that millions of people believed it was morally justified? The same goes for numerous other ethical features of Islamic sharia law, including the death penalty for apostasy, its treatment of women as second-class citizens, its blasphemy laws, and its treatment of non-believers under the laws of dhimmitude.
(And in any case, the fallacy from popularity, if applied to the topic at hand would argue for the validity of moral objectivism over moral relativism, as moral objectivism has been accepted by far more philosophers and human beings historically than has moral relativism. In fact, moral relativism only gained a large following in the 20th century following the empirical discoveries of cultural anthropology. Moreover, the fallacy from popularity would favor Christian morality over Islamic morality, as there are far more of the former than the latter globally).
3.148. While the logical flaws of moral relativism may be somewhat concealed so long as ethically incompatible cultures have no contact with one another, they are starkly revealed when cultures with incompatible ethics are brought into close contact with each other.
Cultural ethical relativism maintains that cultures ought to be permitted to adhere to their own moral norms. As a widespread philosophical movement, moral relativism was spawned in the wake of empirical discoveries of cultural diversity in the field of cultural anthropology, before the era of multiculturalism and massive Muslim immigration into the west. But now that people with incompatible ethical systems are living next door to one another in the same societies, were the claims of ethical relativism to be accepted, bizarre conclusions would follow. For example, western morality forbids slavery while Muslim morality does not. Saudi Americans, who were recently prosecuted for holding slaves in the United States, stated in their defense that they were just behaving according to their own moral beliefs. Meanwhile, cult leader Warren Jeffs was prosecuted in the US on charges of accomplice to rape because he arranged the marriages of underage girls against their will, a practice which is entirely acceptable according to Muslim ethical norms.
One could argue that both men broke the law in this society and so according to the moral norms of the United States, both deserved to be prosecuted and punished. But do we object to these acts simply because they are against the law or are they against the law in the first place because we think these things are morally wrong? According to the logic of moral relativism, we prosecute William Jeffs for behavior that is morally wrong for him but is not morally wrong if his Muslim next-door neighbor does it, while we prosecute the Saudi slave-holder for something which is morally wrong if his non-Muslim neighbor does it, but is not morally wrong for him. But then this divorces our laws from any basis in morality. The claims of moral relativism would lead us to routinely punish people when they really haven’t done anything wrong (or we would punish them for doing something which we wouldn’t see a reason for punishing their next door neighbor for). But since one arguably universal principle of morality that presumably even moral relativists would have to endorse, is that it is wrong to punish someone for a crime they didn’t commit (see section 3.1416), the claims of moral relativism would render the moral grounds of our entire legal system essentially baseless.
3.149.Cultural ethical relativism provides for no rational moral defense against the possibly aggressive demands of other cultures that do not share the moral relativists’ meta-ethical perspective and instead endorse moral absolutism.
If a morally absolutist culture wanted to impose its ethical principles on a morally relativist culture, including the subjugation of the moral relativist and the deprivation of his freedoms, and furthermore believed that it was morally justified in doing so by force, on what moral grounds could the moral relativist object? [7] After all, a central moral imperative of Islam is its demand to reign supreme on earth, as commanded by Koranic verse 9:29, among others. This is essentially the dilemma that the west (which has embraced many of the assumptions of moral relativism) now faces with Islam, which is morally absolutist and uncompromising in its ethics. If an ethical perspective provides no rational grounds for self-defense, surely it is reasonable to question whether the theory is flawed. Presumably the moral relativist could claim that while it is true for Muslims that it is morally right to subjugate others (and that they are not in any way objectively mistaken in that belief), it is likewise true for the moral relativist that it is morally wrong for him to submit to subjugation and that he should defend himself merely on that account but at that point it becomes difficult to maintain the fiction that one is even discussing morality anymore, when moral discourse has essentially devolved to the “law of the jungle” or tribal warfare ( from whence the ethics of Islam originated in the first place, and the fact that the “tribe” now counts a billion plus people doesn’t in any way alter its central, tribal “us vs. them” ethical core, nor make it morally justifiable, merely on the basis that so many people subscribe to it). (see 3.147)
3.1410. Because moral relativism has no grounds for claiming freedom and tolerance to be values that are objectively superior to tyranny and intolerance, moral relativism is more likely to lead to the negative consequences of a descent into tyranny and intolerance, based merely on an appeal to superior physical force in order to resolve moral disagreements.
This point follows directly from point 3.149. While moral relativism is commonly presumed to be ethically superior to moral absolutism because it theoretically leads to more positive outcomes such as freedom or tolerance, this is a gross misperception of the facts. On the contrary, all tyrannical systems have embraced some version of moral relativism, including Communism and Nazism. Mussolini said,
"Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition. . . If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be the bearers of an objective, immortal truth. . . then there is nothing more relativistic than fascistic attitudes and activity. . . . From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable." [3] (from Mussolini's Diuturna, pages 374-77)
Miguided westerners who embrace moral relativism because they are under the mistaken impression that it leads to tolerance, need to recognize that defense of tolerance as a moral virtue, is an objectivist, rather than a relativist moral perspective (see 3.1414b). It is moral objectivism that provides for the rational defense of tolerance (including the principled refusal to tolerate intolerance) and not moral relativism, which provides no grounds whatsoever for claiming tolerance to be a virtue superior to intolerance. This is not to suggest that just any moral absolutist stance will necessarily endorse tolerance as an objective moral virtue. Islam plainly does not, but interestingly enough, Islam, which subscribes to an absolutist ethics based on Divine Command Theory, and which is devoid of any independent rational support for many of its moral claims, is arguably itself a variant of moral relativism (see section 3.1418). Being grounded in Divine Command Theory, Islam’s essential arbitrariness (a feature of moral relativism), shares with other fascistic systems a need to rely on brutal suppression of dissenting opinion in order to enforce its moral claims.
3.1411. Most moral relativists, when placed on the receiving end of the real-world consequences of their abstract theories, demonstrate by their own emotional reactions that they don’t really believe in moral relativism themselves:
“Maybe you've heard the true story about a philosophy student who wrote a research paper arguing that there are no objective, universal moral principles. Judged by its research, scholarship, documentation and argumentation, it was easily an "A" paper. The professor, however, took one look at it, pulled out his red felt pen and wrote " ‘F’ - I do not like blue covers." When the student got his paper back he stormed into the professor's office, "This is not fair! This is not just! I shouldn't be graded on the colour of my cover, but on the content of my paper!" The professor asked if the student was referring to the paper which argued that there are no objective moral principles such as fairness and justice. The student replied, "Yes, yes, that's the one!" The professor responded, "Well... I do not like blue covers. The grade will remain an 'F."' Suddenly the student realized that he really did believe in objective moral principles like fairness and justice, and he was expecting them to be applied to his situation right then and there." [1] (See also [3])
One could take this analogy farther and imagine a western democratic society (albeit one which had evolved over time in such a direction through “mob rule”), which decided to systematically persecute moral relativists, merely on the grounds of being a threat to the public order. It is difficult to imagine that moral relativists wouldn’t genuinely feel that they were being wrongly persecuted in some “objective” sense. That scenario isn’t very far removed from the actual experience of many non-Muslims subjected to the most draconian Sharia laws in the Muslim-dominated societies in which they reside.
3.1412. The arbitrariness of morality entailed in the cultural relativist’s claim that right and wrong is determined by cultural/societal convention, leads to absurd conclusions such as the following:
“Imagine an island of 100 people. They take a vote on whether murder is right or wrong and the results are a 50/50 split. The next day some of the "murder is right" side kill one of the "murder is wrong" side. Now the count is 50 to 49 in favor of the "murder is right" side, and murder becomes morally acceptable. Now let's say the "murder is wrong" side slay two of the other group. The vote is now 49 to 48 in favor of the "murder is wrong" proponents. So now murder is wrong even though it was right when they did it, and so on! A view that leads to such absurd conclusions cannot possibly be true.” [1]
From the cultural moral relativist perspective, shifting demographic realities are capable of ultimately determining the validity of moral claims in such a way that what was considered morally wrong yesterday, becomes morally right today merely on the basis of a demographic shift in a society’s numbers (illustrating again the “fallacy from popularity” noted in section 3.147.) Currently Muslims are out-breeding native Europeans, putting Europe on the path to becoming a Muslim-dominated continent in several generations. This means that while it may be currently considered morally wrong for Europeans to consider rape victims responsible for their rape on the basis of the clothing they were wearing, this could well come to be considered morally correct merely after a certain demographic tipping point is reached.
3.1413 Precisely because one is able, according to the moral relativist, to create one’s own moral values, one is less likely to be bound by those values. Hence, moral relativism eventually degenerates into moral nihilism.
Arguably, a central psychological feature of what compels someone to act in accordance with their moral beliefs is the belief that those ethical principles are “objectively” true and hence morally binding for that very reason. (It should be noted that there is a distinction between “mores”, such as the convention that one ought to stop at a red light and “morals” and that we are referring to the latter here). But of course moral relativism, by definition, removes the assumption of objectivity that makes moral principles morally binding. It thus removes a critical psychological deterrence to immoral behavior, with the consequence of leading to the destruction of morality altogether (moral nihilism). [9] , [3]
3.1414. Moral relativism is self-contradictory.
a). It is self-contradictory to assert that "it is objectively true that there are no objective truths" [2]. Or in other words, “If all such truths are relative then that very claim itself is relative. And if that claim is itself relative then it is not necessarily true. And if it is not necessarily true then there is no reason to accept it. This is the essential logical defect of the Post-Modernists as the current exponent of personal/cultural relativism known as subjectivism.” [10]
b). The relativist assumption that we shouldn’t criticize the moral practices of other cultures because such criticism is intolerant, implies that tolerance is an objective moral virtue, which contradicts the theory of moral relativism by making the one virtue of tolerance an exception to the rule. (If there are no objectively true moral values, then on what grounds could it be considered morally wrong to be intolerant?)
c). Moreover, the very meaning of the word “tolerance” presupposes a belief in objective good and evil, since “we do not tolerate goods. We only tolerate evils in order to prevent worse evils” [3]. Or, to put it another way, tolerance presupposes that we believe that the other’s viewpoint is wrong, since “We don’t “tolerate” people who share our views. They’re on our side. There’s nothing to put up with. Tolerance is reserved for those we think are wrong…” [11]
d). From an epistemological perspective, “The proposition that one cannot verify moral judgment by empirical means (and that it remains therefore meaningless) presents, according to many philosophers, a self-contradiction. In this view, the statement, "X is meaningless if it isn't subject to verification" cannot be verified by the very criterion set forth by the proposition.” [2]
3.1415.The “emotivist” claim, that moral statements are really only statements of likes or preferences,
a. does not account for the fact that people often maintain ethical beliefs which directly conflict with their own emotional likes and preferences. One might be drawn emotionally to homosexuality but refrain from engaging in homosexual acts because one believes homosexuality is morally wrong. Also, people often have conflicting desires. For example one might love their spouse and desire to be faithful to them while at the same time feel attracted to someone else and desire to have sex with them. In such a case moral reasoning would be necessary to determine if it is morally permissible to commit adultery. These sorts of examples suggest that emotivism provides a false empirical description of the actual nature of moral propositions and ethical judgments.
b. is not an accurate description of the subjective nature of experiencing emotions versus the act of making moral judgments . There is a subjective difference between the experiential facts of subjective desires and the making of moral judgments, as communicated through primary sense-data. The “primary data” of moral experience suggest that “desires push from within”, while the sense of moral obligation is subjectively experienced as pulling one “from without”, suggesting that moral propositions are not the same things as desires or preferences. [3]
c. does not explain the fact that we have a well-developed language for arguing about moral values, which is based on our experience of moral propositions as objectively real and meaningful. People do not argue about their respective subjective claims to be liking or desiring or feeling thus and so ("I like apples!"or “I feel sad!”. “No you don’t!”) in the same way they argue about moral propositions, suggesting that moral propositions are not the same thing as statements about subjective preferences or emotions. [3], [12]
3.1416. The acceptance that at least some moral claims are self-evident or “true” would mean that there are indeed some objectively true and universal moral propositions and that moral relativism is false. (“ If there is even one universal moral principle, moral relativism contradicts itself and is therefore false.”) [13] A number of candidates for such “a priori” moral claims have been proposed, including, for example, the moral proposition that it is objectively wrong to punish someone for a crime he did not commit, or that it is objectively wrong to inflict unnecessary physical suffering on sentient beings merely for fun. Another possible candidate is the “hypothetical imperative”. [8]
Obviously the issue of precisely which moral claims might be a priori, self-evidently “true” is beyond the scope of this rebuttal to address, as this is a question that has bedeviled philosophers and ordinary human beings for several millennia. But when the moral relativist has the sort of “Ah-Hah!” experience described in the anecdote conveyed above in section 3.1411, it is reasonable to ask from where that “Ah-Hah” experience comes? Perhaps the most common explanation for that sort of reaction has appealed to theories of “natural moral law” or a universally shared “moral intuition”. It is interesting to observe, in that regard, that when many Muslims, who are often ignorant about what their own religion teaches, are confronted with the actual facts of Islamic ethics (or about the factual history of Muhammad’s behavior), their initial response is quite often to deny that those teachings are what they factually are or that Muhammad factually did what he did (setting aside the entirely different case of Muslims who are consciously practicing taqiyyah), suggesting that Muslims share the same capacity for “natural moral intuition” as anyone else. The many examples of apologist attempts to reconcile ‘natural moral intuition’ with the actual facts about Islam and Muhammad by resorting to the all too common human tendency towards denial, are amply demonstrated throughout this handbook.
3.1417. The claim that we cannot know or rationally prove the truth of moral propositions and that therefore we have to accept moral claims as equally legitimate, is partly based on the claim that one cannot derive moral conclusions from observation of sensory facts. However, the claims of mathematics and logic are not derived from empirical facts, and yet we still accept that these sorts of propositions can be known or proved. Moral objectivists argue that mathematics and logic (which rely on a priori reasoning), rather than science, provide the appropriate templates for demonstrating the truth of moral propositions.
(Note: “It is sometimes argued that the proponent of objective morality is committing the naturalistic fallacy (or, in a related objection, tries to bridge the is-ought “dichotomy”), because he is trying to use facts of nature in order to deduce moral judgment. But objective morality does not commit the fallacy because it does not directly transpose natural facts into moral judgments, but rather uses them as evidence. In fact it is the relativist who commits the naturalistic fallacy, by assuming that our unprocessed opinions and instincts about moral standards are automatically valid.” [14] )
3.1418. Finally, “…as a theory for justifying moral practices and beliefs, ethical relativism fails to recognize that some societies have better reasons for holding their views than others.” [4]
The ethical practices of Muslim societies, which are largely based on Islam, essentially derive from what is called “Divine Command Theory” (DCT). [15] But, “Because the Koran says so” or “Because Muhammad did it” is not a good reason for accepting the moral claims of Islam or analogously, any other faith for that matter, absent independent rational supporting arguments (which is why Thomas Aquinas rejected DCT). DCT, while morally absolutist, does not provide a truly objectivist model of morality because of its very arbitrary nature and could just as legitimately be viewed instead as a variant of moral relativism:
“If a good God prohibits torture he does so because torture is intrinsicly wrong, not merely because he declares torture to be wrong by fiat. But if torture is intrinsicly wrong, then it is wrong regardless of whether or not God exists. Either certain acts are wrong regardless of anyone's opinions or commands (including God's), or else all that we mean by "torture is wrong" is "God prohibits torture." Rather than grounding the objectivity of ethics, DCT completely undermines it by insisting that God's commands (like those of individuals or societies) do not require justification in terms of any external principles. DCT is thus a kind of moral relativism: what's right or wrong is what one's God (like one's self or one's society) says is right or wrong--and there are no moral standards apart from this.” [15]
As argued above, moral relativism leads in the end to tyranny. The arbitrary, non-rational basis of Islam, which derives its moral authority from Divine Command Theory, absent any external, rational supporting evidence for its moral claims to truth, ultimately depends on the application of violent coercion both to sustain itself (the death penalty for apostasy) and to spread (the doctrine of jihad), a characteristic feature of other totalitarian systems grounded in moral relativism.
This isn’t to say that one couldn’t try to make an “objectivist” case for some aspects of Islamic Sharia law. For example, one could try to make the rational case that it is more humane and has greater deterrence value to cut off the hand of an inveterate thief in order to put a stop to his behavior than to lock him up and deprive him of his freedom altogether. The deterrence value of this punishment would be questionable in modern society, however, when theft is no longer a simple matter, as it was in the 7th century, of physically grabbing a loaf of bread. Modern technology enables a sophisticated thief to dictate computer keyboard commands to an accomplice and steal millions of dollars from others, with or without the use of his hands. That aside, however, what possible “objectivist” argument could one muster to justify slowly stoning a woman to death for adultery (especially when at the same time temporary marriages of only 24 hours are permitted with impunity by others)? On what basis could one argue for the objective moral legitimacy of treating the testimony of a woman in a court of law as worth half that of a man? What is the objective case that it is morally wrong to adopt children who have no parents? Islam forbids alcohol as morally wrong, yet promises alcohol as a reward in the afterlife. But if drinking alcohol is inherently morally wrong, then on what moral grounds is it permitted in the afterlife? Ethical systems that can provide independent rational arguments to support their moral claims are objectively superior to those that cannot.
Conclusion:
Moral relativism is logically self-contradictory in numerous respects and hence irrational. Being irrational it is arbitrary, and leads to self-evidently absurd conclusions. Contrary to fostering tolerance (it’s presumed pragmatic goal), the essential arbitrariness of moral relativism leads instead to intolerance and tyranny and ultimately results in moral nihilism, the very antithesis of morality itself.
References
[1] http://www.michaelhorner.com/articles/rightorwrong/index.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism
[3] http://www.peterkreeft.com/audio/05_relativism.htm
[4] http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/ethicalrelativism.html
[5] http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Moral_objectivism
[6] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/
[7] http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/%7Ejbeebe2/relativ.htm
[8] http://faculty.vassar.edu/brvannor/relativism.html
[9] http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/philosophy/courses/100/100relativism.htm
[10] http://www.markmcintire.com/phil/chapter11.html
[11] http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GregKoukl/2006/12/14/the_intolerance_of_tolerance
[12] http://home.sprynet.com/%7Eowl1/objectiv.htm
[13] http://www.daylightatheism.org/2006/08/the-roots-of-morality-i.html
[14] http://www.strongatheism.net/library/philosophy/answering_to_moral_nihilism/
[15] http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/divine.html