The Dictatorship of Relativism and "The Abolition of Man"

The Catholic Church holds that "deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment...For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God...His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths." (CCC 1776).

The psychological phenomenon that we have coined, conscience, is not merely a personal feeling or opinion. But it is God attempting to speak to us through our brokenness—through the limits of our humanity—and our conscience in action is our last best judgment at the good or evil of an action based upon our intellectual, religious, and experiential understanding of human nature (i.e. the natural law—the law of human nature.)

This view is vehemently challenged by modernity. We ask ourselves: do moral absolutes exist? Are there behaviors, mindsets, or bits of speech which may be called morally right or wrong—for all people, regardless of how anyone might feel? If not, what would it mean for there not to be any objective standards of right and wrong? What is significant should be given to the fact that many people do not live up to their understanding of right and wrong? These are all pertinent questions.

Moral Relativism

It is a common conviction—based on observation—that moral codes differ in every society. But mistakenly, the conclusion is drawn that morality is merely a social construct of acceptable behavior and habits, and thereby, is fundamentally relative. Certainly there is disagreement among nations and even individual people on what is right and wrong. But mere disagreement does not imply that there is no answer—objective, external, and independent on anyone's personal convictions. If a person is to say, "all religions are equally true," this would yield to reason as nonsensical. By this logic, Muhammad is and is not the last great prophet of God. The immediate contradiction would prove the assertion false.

One might say that there are certain moral rules that all societies will have in common because these fundamental rules are necessary for society exist to defend the initial proposal of relativism. Yes, while that may be true, what is common is not coincidence, but perhaps the universal realization amongst nations of certain moral truths that are fundamental and simultaneously necessary for an operating society, e.g. don't steal, don't murder, etc.

The presumption that there are no facts and no one is right when morality is concerned is severely flawed. It is simple (and more rational) to say, "He has his opinion, and others have their opinions" and that might just be the end of it. But it is another thing to say: morals are based upon feelings and nothing more. If morality is entirely subjective, that is, relative to the person, then discriminating against a person for any specific reason whether it be race, sexual orientation, gender, appearance, height, weight, eye color, or identifying characteristic is not morally wrong—not wrong it any universal sense that would be obligatory for the person to change their behavior or binding on anyone else to also protest. It may, in fact, upset your personal moral taste, but you will just have to accept the moral tastes of others, which is, by the acceptance of moral relativism, just as right as your moral position.

Even more, there is a fundamental self-contradiction to the idea of moral relativism. To say that "all morality is relative" is a self-defeating claim. First, since morality is entirely relative to the person, anyone holding such a position is only saying, "It is my opinion…that all morality is relative." This is not true at all, but rather an opinion and opinions don't hold water in philosophical arguments of discerning whether or not something is true.

But what is more problematic is that the claim "all morality is relative" is a universal claim about the very nature of morality itself. It is a determination of the nature of morality for everyone, in all places, and at all times: it is relative. The fundamental idea of relativism is that there are no absolutes, but the very proposition of relativism: 'there are no absolutes' is an absolute claim and this renders moral relativism an inherent contradiction.

It is such thinking of morality being determined by the person and not any standard that leads to statements, such as, "while abortion might not be right for me, it could be the right choice for someone else." Essentially, every individual determines what is morally right for him or her. But disagreement, again, fails to demonstrate that there are no moral absolutes. If two men were to disagree over whether there is life on Mars or not does not make it logical to say, "while there may be life on Mars for you, there isn't life on Mars for me." It's absurd. There either is or isn't life on Mars.

Consider this curious phenomenon: human beings at all times and in all place have had this curious idea that they should behave in a certain way and they cannot get rid of this notion. If you were to witness two people arguing over the good or evil of some action, they silently recognize an unspoken standard. Even if one of them violated this unspoken standard, there is an excuse, a reason, that in their circumstance, under certain conditions, it was acceptable to violate said standard—the standard is never denied.

But even in recognition of this standard of ideal behavior that humans imagine, we do not behave consistently with it. We know the natural law; yet we break it. Where does this natural law derive? Perhaps, moral truths just exist. Moral truths could only be a psychological projection of a certain standard that we perceive to be ideal based on our realization of the flaws in our social contracts. I think this insight is not wholly untrue—it may be how we began to think about our moral failures—but this it would not make the morals truths necessarily true at all, but rather morally relative because the projection would vary person to person. Then again, moral awareness just may be a biological adaptation that is necessary for the survival of our species. But this too would not imply moral truths.

Why else might there be moral truths? Perhaps we are the creation of a moral Creator, thus, the universe is the purposeful work of a righteous God and our moral awareness, rooted in our human nature, is a result of the character and purpose of the God who made us in His image. But this is too far a leap for our agnostic, post-modern world.

Ironically enough, it is arguable that there aren't substantial differences in each culture's values. Murder, for example, has been wrong in every culture at every time in history. The only thing that changes is the concept of justification. Hitler justified killing Jews because Jews were said to be subhuman and not fit for the beautiful new world order that he envisioned. Murdering of human beings remained wrong. The same can be said of people who favor choice in regard to abortion. They do believe that human life is valuable, but they do not believe unborn babies are "persons" that have human rights. In the same way, supporters of embryonic stem-cell research ask the question, do six tiny cells with human DNA qualify as a "person" with human rights? Hence, in many cases, apparent moral discrepancies between cultures only reflect a difference in perception of the same facts pertaining to a particular circumstance not an outright conflict in the values themselves. We live in a world of competing philosophical frameworks that dictate our moral convictions. The presence or absence of God from these frameworks makes a critical difference.

Read this well-written, articulate "First Things" article by J. Budziszewski entitled "The Second Tablet Project" that eloquently illuminates what a metaphysically unfounded moral theory really means and the effects of removing God from morality.