Moral Relativism – Post Number 3 | Tough Questions Answered

Moral Relativism – Post Number 3

Post Author: Darrell

Beckwith and Koukl’s fourth fatal flaw is as follows: Relativists can’t make charges of unfairness or injustice. As a concept, unfairness hinges upon an external standard of right. By definition, something is considered fair or unfair when it is in line or out of line with an external standard of right.

Unfortunately, to the moral relativist no such standard exists. Instead they believe that right is relative to the individual or society in question. As such, they are truly unable to deem anything fair or unfair. For example, as cited in the first post, the relativist may personally believe that it was unfair for Nazi Germany to slaughter millions of Jews. However, if Germany considered their actions to be right, and if right is relative to the individual or society in question, then by Germany’s standards of right and wrong they were being fair. Consequently, the moral relativist is unable to declare Germany’s actions unfair.

The moral relativist is equally incapable of making the charge of injustice, for the concept of justice also hinges upon the existence of an external standard of right. Justice involves punishing those who are guilty of wrongdoing. However, in order for someone to be guilty of something, they necessarily have to have violated an external standard of right. Since the moral relativist believes that right and wrong are relative to the individual or society in which one lives, they are incapable of declaring anyone guilty of anything. Perhaps the realtivist doesn’t like the fact that someone stole their car or the fact that a society refuses to punish a parent who abuses his children, but they are incapable of judging these actions as unjust unless there is an external standard by which to judge these actions as guilty.

Fifth Flaw: Relativists are incapable of improving their morality. Improvement involves getting better at something when compared to an external objective standard. However, to the moral relativist no such standard of morality exists. Therefore, there is no standard of moratlity to which ones moral conduct can be compared. This renders the concept of moral improvement incoherent to the worldview of moral relativism.

Stick around! The next post will address the final two flaws.

Tags: moral relativism, Morality, relativism

This entry was posted by Darrell on Friday, August 6th, 2010 at 10:00 am and is filed under Morality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Darrell

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http://rericsawyer.wordpress.com R. Eric Sawyer

Darrell, as much as I agree with the ultimate conclusion of B & K, in that they are trying to support the moral superiority of the Christian model to that of the secularists, I think these two points are pretty weak

In flaw number 4,

Relativists can’t make charges of unfairness or injustice. As a concept, unfairness hinges upon an external standard of right. By definition, something is considered fair or unfair when it is in line or out of line with an external standard of right.

The external standard need not be absolutely external, simply a standard, accepted by the community, which is external to the issue at hand.

Thus, in deciding the acceptability of a law, appeal is not made in our system to ultimate issues, and what constitutes final truth. Appeal is made to the constitution; does that supposedly common ground of our system allow or disallow the proposed action? It is immaterial for this action whether the constitution itself is just. That would take an amendment, or an appeal to an even more fundamental authority.
Thus, the secular moralist need not appeal to absolute moral authority, only one that subsumes the one issue in question. For their purpose, there need not be an absolute.

The weakest link I can see in that argument is why one should give a whit about the “good of the community” at all. I don’t think it is that hard to show that the good of my community is often in my self-interest; but that is the soft spot.

The same issue applies to Flaw 5.
If one wants to improve compliance of, say, behavior at traffic signals, the moral position is supported by an appeal to the common goal of safe and efficient travel for all people, especially including me. An improvement in moral behavior can consist of improvement of a inferior point of accepted morality by comparing it to a superior point which is accepted by the community, and suggesting that the inferior issue may be drawn more into line of the superior.
No appeal to absolutes is needed.

Of course, the same weakness remains, of why I should care even about the superior point, or conformity of the minor point to it. Ultimately, good of the community has to come back to self-interest as the fundamental principle.
Darrell

Eric,

I understand what you are getting at, but I still think there is an inherent weakness here for the Moral Relativist. If morals flow from what a community agrees upon and not from a higher source, how can we rightly judge communities that don’t adhere to our concept of morality?

Again, looking at Nazi Germany… how do we judge them as wrong since their community (country) declared their actions okay? Or, looking at a more modern issue, how about Communist China and their atrocities, e.g., drowning baby girls. How do we address those as their community declared them okay?

Darrell

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