Saturday, May 10, 2003
Moral Relativism
The concept of moral relativism makes people crazy. The right wing speaks of it in hushed tones in the same string as homosexuality, single mothers and dancing. Because relativism suggests that there are no absolutes, even in the most fundamental, common sense foundations of society. The right practices moral relativism of course, everyone does, but they choose to see their practices as absolute… handed down from the good book, codified in the Constitution and American law. The most glaring example of right wing moral relativism is the death penalty. The immoral act of murder, becomes moral when it is sanctioned by the state and performed by faceless bureaucracy. I could go into the psychology of this, but what’s important is that the absolute, ‘thou shall not kill’ is transformed into ‘thou shall kill dire criminals’ because the dead man walking is unimportant, or even less human when the scope of his crime is considered relative to his worth to society. There are some devout Christians who believe that the death penalty is absolutely wrong, and refuse the relativistic argument; and while I can’t agree with most of their precepts, at least they reject hypocrisy by refusing to compromise principals.
Intellectuals and left wingers often have as much a problem with moral relativism; although they may converse in shades of grey. One of the extreme cases of moral relativism is the argument that Hitler wasn’t such a bad guy. I’ve made the argument (as the Devil’s advocate, I’ll admit) is that Hitler’s actions were motivated by the genuine wish to do good. That his belief structure, one in which racial identity and nationalism were the ultimate good, led him to the conclusion that the purification of his country, by exterminating subversive and impure elements, was also an absolute good. His beliefs stemmed from upbringing and life experiences that taught him the truth of his convictions, therefore from his perspective, his subsequent actions were not only justified, but necessary. Indeed, if the Axis had been successful, the entire world would have been taught this new belief structure from childhood and history would have treated Hitler very differently. Evil can only be judged from a distance. Rarely does the ‘evil’ person look themselves in the mirror and say, “Gee, I sure am evil.” They simply prioritize differently. National unity outweighs human life, security outweighs freedom, profit outweighs worker safety, dying in a hail of bullets outweighs the lives of your classmates; and lets face it, most of these equations are genuinely debatable… unless of course secrecy outweighs public debate.
If one takes moral relativism to its extreme, then we lose the ability to judge right from wrong, and become unable to enforce the rules of society. It is, at its core, a nihilistic philosophy. I use it judiciously, by choosing moral precepts by which to live, and then periodically re-examining them. As of today, murder and nuclear war are still ‘bad’ (although there is wiggle room); theft is ‘OK’ so long as it’s from large corporations; and sodomy, dancing and single mothers are ‘good.’ I don’t know how I’ll feel next week.
