Tag Archives: relativism

What Are the Flaws of Moral Relativism? – Part 4

Post Author: Darrell

Re-post from Aug. 11, 2010

Beckwith and Koukl’s sixth fatal flaw reads as follows: Relativists can’t hold meaningful moral discussions.  To the relativist, morals are formulations that exist only in the minds of human beings, and as a result, objectively true moral standards do not exist.  Consequently, there is no way to compare and contrast different moral points of view as all views are considered equal and no true transcendent standard of morality exists. However, having a coherent meaningful conversation regarding morals necessitates the ability to compare and contrast different points of view.

Some moral relativists may respond by saying, “All views are not equal.  There is a view which is better than others – my view!”  However, one is left asking, “Why is your view better?”  To what standard does the relativist appeal in order to claim that their view is better?

In the first post in this series, DagoodS claimed that the “Veil of Ignorance” standard as formulated by John Rawls demonstrates that Hitler’s actions were wrong.  But the big question left unanswered is, “Why is the Veil of Ignorance standard better than Hitler’s standard of morality?”

In reality, the moral relativist has nothing to which they can appeal to show that another moral view is wrong.  Therefore, there is no way to have a meaningful moral discussion, because there is no way to compare and contrast views in order to show that one view is better than another. DagoodS may love the “Veil of Ignorance” standard, but if someone believes it to be utter hogwash and believes that murdering millions of people is perfectly moral, e.g., Hitler, the relativist is completely powerless to meaningfully and logically counter their claim.

Seventh Flaw: Relativists can’t promote the obligation of tolerance.  Moral Relativism is built upon the virtue of tolerance.  Relativists claim that we should all be willing to tolerate the moral views of others because morals are an individual and/or community driven issue and we have no right to push our views on others. What is morally wrong for one person may be morally good for another, and we should all be open minded and willing to tolerate those with whom we disagree.

However, the worldview of the Moral Relativist makes their cry for moral tolerance incoherent. In reality, to claim that tolerance is something to which we all should adhere is to claim that it is a moral standard to which all should be held. This then makes tolerance a universal moral standard and is self-defeating given the worldview of the moral relativist. In fact, for the moral relativist to say that all should be tolerant is actually intolerant of them!

In conclusion, as each of these seven fatal flaws demonstrate, the worldview of Moral Relativism has several practical and logical problems.  It creates a world where nothing is wrong and nothing is praiseworthy. If Relativism were true, there would be no such thing as justice or fairness, no such thing as moral improvement, and nobody could be expected to be tolerant. In short, Moral Relativism would create a world in which no one would truly want to live.

What Are the Flaws of Moral Relativism? – Part 3

Post Author:  Darrell

Re-post from Aug. 6, 2010

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.

What Are the Flaws of Moral Relativism? – Part 2

Post Author:  Darrell

Re-post from Aug. 4, 2010

According to Beckwith and Koukl, the second fatal flaw of Moral Relativism is as follows: Relativists are incapable of complaining about the problem of evil.   The problem of evil is commonly used by atheists to argue against the existence of God. The argument is often structured as follows:

1)      An all powerful God would be capable of stopping evil.

2)      An all good God would want to stop evil.

3)      However, evil still exists.

4)      Therefore, an all powerful and all good God does not exist.

The problem for the relativist is that this entire argument rests upon the third premise: the fact that true evil exists. The worldview of the moral relativist makes the existence of true evil impossible.  The existence of true objective evil is wholly contingent upon the existence of true objective morality.  If morality is dependent upon what an individual and/or community believes, then that which is evil is also wholly dependent upon what an individual and/or community believes.  In other words, there is no true objective evil for God to stop, for evil only exists in the minds of the individuals or community!

Flaw Number Three: Relativists cannot place blame or accept praise.  To the moral relativist, there are no external standards by which actions can be measured. However, both blame and praise necessarily require an external standard.  Praising or blaming someone for something implies that their actions are either right or wrong as compared to an objective external standard of right or wrong. For example, placing blame upon an individual for stealing your car implies that stealing is an objectively immoral action. However, if the morality of theft is dependent upon what an individual believes to be appropriate, then we have no external standard by which to judge the thief’s actions. Perhaps they believe stealing is acceptable, and as such, we are in no position to place blame upon them for doing something that is morally appropriate to them. The same thing can be said for praising someone. Giving someone praise for something implies that they did well when compared to an objective external standard of right or good. The moral relativist is unable to do this because to them no such standard exists.

Stay tuned! Flaws four and five will be coming in the next post.

What Are the Flaws of Moral Relativism? – Part 1

Post Author:  Darrell

Re-post from Aug 2, 2010

Moral Relativists hold to the position that morals, i.e., that which is right versus that which is wrong, are not absolute or objective in nature.  Instead, they are dependent upon what an individual believes and/or a community deems appropriate. As a result, an action can be morally wrong for person “x” and morally right for person “y” at one and the same time and in the same sense simply due to the fact that they hold different beliefs or their community deems different things to be appropriate.  To the relativist, moral principles are not transcendent in nature, and as a result, they do not apply universally to all people at all times.

In Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air , Francis Beckwith and Gregory Koukl cite seven fatal flaws of Moral Relativism.  In the next few posts, I will list and explain these flaws in an effort to demonstrate the challenges inherent in the philosophy of Moral Relativism.

Flaw Number One: Moral Relativists are logically incapable of accusing others of doing wrong. Many moral relativists take the position that morals are a matter of personal definition, i.e., something is only wrong if it is deemed to be so by that particular individual.  This places relativists in quite an untenable position, for then an individual who believes murder to be morally acceptable would be morally appropriate in murdering.  The moral relativist may personally believe that murder is wrong, but this is of no effect when defining what is morally wrong for the murderer.  The murderer’s actions are only wrong if the murderer himself believes them to be wrong.

Some moral relativists believe that morals are not defined by an individual, but are instead defined by one’s community.  However, this position is equally untenable, for if morals are defined by ones community, Hitler and Germany were acting in a morally appropriate manner when they slaughtered millions of Jews.  After all, their community deemed these actions morally acceptable.  In fact, one might even say that the Allied forces were morally wrong in forcing Germany to stop, for they were forcing their community’s moral beliefs upon Germany.

Obviously, next to no one is willing to say that murder is acceptable or that the holocaust was morally appropriate, yet both of these positions are a logical consequence of moral relativism.  Consequently, moral relativists are in the position of affirming the moral acceptability of these horrific actions or are forced to maintain the belief that at least some actions (murder and genocide) are morally wrong despite what an individual or community believes.

In the next post we will look at a few more flaws inherent in Moral Relativism.  Stick around.

Are All Interpretations Equally Valid?

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Relativism is a constant and ever-present danger these days.  Today I’m speaking, in particular, about the interpretation of biblical texts.  When we open the Bible and read, what happens if we interpret the text differently from those around us?

There are scholars today who claim that nobody has the correct interpretation of a text, because there is no single correct interpretation.   In his book, Objectivity in Biblical Interpretation, Philosopher Tom Howe quotes writer James K. A. Smith as an example of this position:

To privilege one reading as normative (the one correct interpretation) would be to privilege one contingent situationality or tradition over another— a move that would be impossible to justify precisely because of the locatedness of any such justification. There is not a reading that is the reading of the world or a text.

Smith is saying that the tradition and situation in which a reader resides colors his interpretation.  Since each of us lives in a different situation and tradition, then each of our interpretations of a text are different, and none of them can claim to be the one correct interpretation.

Is this true?  Howe strongly disagrees:

According to this approach, conflicts are generated because of the differing “situationality” and “traditionality” that indicate the impossibility of a “privileged reading” or of the very existence of “the one correct interpretation.” . . .  Is there no such thing as the correct or the right interpretation of a text? If there is no “right” or “correct” interpretation, then the problem of conflicting interpretations seems to lose its meaning.

Conflicting interpretations create a problem only if there is an interpretation that is the right one. The fact of conflicting interpretations seems to create difficulty only if one attempts to judge between them in order to arrive at the meaning of the text. In fact, everyone who comments on this question believes that his own interpretation of the problem is the correct one. Even those who claim that differing historical, cultural, and linguistic situations render the notion of a privileged or normative or correct interpretation impossible believe that they have correctly interpreted the state of affairs.

They confidently declare that their interpretation of the problem of interpretation is the correct one, namely, that no one can claim to have “the one correct interpretation.” Those who claim that it is impossible “to privilege one reading as normative” privilege their own reading as normative. When, in the above quote, Smith declares, “There is not a reading that is the reading of the world or a text,” he presents his own reading of the world as the reading of the world.

Smith’s view ultimately self-destructs and, therefore, cannot be true.  Smith wants us to believe that his interpretation is the correct one, all the while arguing that no interpretation can be the correct one.  This is illustrative of the inner rot of any relativistic theory.  By denying objectivity, by denying that absolutes exist, the relativist always wants an exemption for their position.  They seem to be saying, “Every view out there is relative, except mine.  I am the only who has a privileged and absolute position.”

Interpretation of the Bible can be difficult, and there are cultural, linguistic, and historical barriers to overcome, but to throw in the towel and say that no interpretation is correct is simply self-defeating.  The correct interpretation is there, but we have to work for it.

Do We Each Get Our Own Interpretation of Scripture?

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Darrell and I were talking today about people who claim that one interpretation of Scripture can be no better than another.  Or, put another way, we can’t know what the correct interpretation of Scripture is, so we shouldn’t debate it.  To each his own interpretation.

My sense is that people who say this in the midst of a discussion of a Bible passage feel trapped in an argument they can’t win, and this is their escape hatch.  If they relativize the Scriptures, making the meaning completely subjective, they get to keep their interpretation of Scripture and deflect anyone who disagrees with them.

This is the same tactic some people use when they are in a debate about a particular immoral behavior.  When they feel trapped, they say something like, “There is no objective morality any way.  Everyone decides for themselves what’s right and wrong.”  Again, if they relativize morality, then they no longer have to defend their position and they get out of an argument that they aren’t winning.

The real irony here is that the very people who relativize the interpretation of Scripture actually do believe that their view is objectively correct.  If they didn’t, then they wouldn’t have been debating in the first place.  They would have just agreed with everything their opponent said, because, after all,  everyone can have their own subjective interpretation of Scripture.

It seems to me that the best thing to do when someone plays the “relativism card” is to help them see that they really don’t believe what they are saying.  Remind them of some of the core beliefs that they have derived from Scripture and ask them if those beliefs are objectively true.

If they are honest, they will stand by their beliefs.  If they refuse to claim that their cherished beliefs about the Bible are objectively true, it’s probably time to move on, because they are more interested in saving face than having a conversation of substance.  Come back to them when they aren’t so defensive.

Does Evolution Explain Morality? Part 4

Continuing our critique of optimistic humanism, we find that proponents of the view are unable to speak about the subject of morality without contradicting their own ethical system.

Proponents of optimistic humanism admit that ethics are relative and changing over time.  They assert that there are no absolute, objective moral values that are true for all people at all times and in all places.  Their view is that humans just make a subjective choice to be moral and that there is no rational justification for this choice.  Morality is a useful tool for man to develop, but nothing more.  Oddly, though, optimistic humanists seem to frequently lapse into absolutist speech which undermines their system.

Writing in the January-February 2005 edition of Humanist magazine, former American ambassador Carl Coon says the following:

[Ethical] principles constitute a structure of interlocking behavioral guidelines that have been growing organically since our ancestors first became human, if not earlier.  These standards and principles didn’t descend to us from on high as some revealed truth from an intelligent being greater than ourselves.  We worked them out through a long and arduous evolutionary process marked by many wrong turns and much social discord.  Indeed, the structure is still imperfect and we continue trying to make improvements.

According to humanists like Carl Coon, ethics evolved from a purely natural and physical process with no intelligent agent guiding their development.  Ethics are relative in time and relative to man’s evolutionary development; they are not absolute in any way.  Ambassador Coon emphasizes in the the article that basic morality has changed over millions of years and that moral norms have been building from one period to another.

But notice the words he employs to describe morality: wrong turns, discord, imperfect, and improvements.  All of these words indicate that morality, over time, has been moving in a direction from worse to better, from bad to good, from imperfect to perfect.  But how is it possible for the ambassador to judge the morality of the distant past if all morals are relative?  How can he say that morality has taken “wrong turns”?  How do we know ethics are improving over time if no two time periods can be compared? 

The trap to which optimistic humanists succumb is that they cannot help but utilize absolutist language when they describe morality.  The only way one can say that ethics are going from bad to good is if there is an objective standard to which all ethics are compared, but this standard must stand outside of the ethical systems being evaluated.   A man cannot know a crooked line unless he first knows what straight is.  Optimistic humanism does not ever provide knowledge of a “straight line” and, in fact, denies that “straight lines” objectively exist. 

There are no absolute ethical standards in relativistic evolutionary ethics, so either Carl Coon is referring to a fictitious standard, which renders his description of morality incoherent, or he is busy sabotaging his own theory.  If we take his words seriously, he has introduced an absolute standard and has totally undermined his ethical system.  An ethical relativist can never compare the morality of one time period or one culture, or even one person, to another.  The moment they compare, they are invoking an absolute and objective moral law, the very thing their theory forbids.

Given the problems chronicled in the last few posts for optimistic humanism, we must reject this theory as a reasonable explanation for morality.  Our next post will analyze another ethical system based on evolution – the immanent purpose view.

[quotation references can be provided on request]