My Answer to Matthew Flannagan's Second Challenge to Moral Relativism

This is my reply to an article by Dr. Matthew Flannagan entitled

The Challenge of Moral Relativism: Arguments for Relativism

June 22nd, 2018 by Matt Flannagan

This post is based on a series of talks I have given on moral relativism. In my last post, I looked at what relativism and objectivism are. Here I examine some common reasons people accept or defend relativism I will offer critical commentary on these arguments.

When examining any position in philosophy it is important to understand what motivates people to hold it, why do people find it plausible? Two reasons are commonly cited.

You must be a Christian before you are a philosopher, so you must choose obedience to the bible where this conflicts with what you wish to do as a philosopher.  The bible does not permit you to wrangle words, despite the fact that you cannot refute moral relativism without going round and round with others about the meanings of words:

 14 Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers. (2 Tim. 2:14 NAU)

It is hardly believable that Paul was only prohibiting the shockingly babyish "yes it is; not it isn't" type bantering, I prefer to presume that the people who converted to Paul's gospel in Timothy's church were just a bit more emotionally mature than a 3 year old.  He was clearly prohibiting anything that could be reasonably defined as word-wrangling.  Go ahead, challenge me with your alternative interpretation, I'll respond, leaving you without excuse for willfully defying those biblical commands that directly apply to Christians.

    The Argument from Cultural Diversity

One common motivation for relativism, particularly cultural relativism, is the observation that different societies have different moral beliefs.  To use a well-known example: people in 14th century Europe believed witchcraft was seriously immoral and executed witches. People in 21st century New Zealand doesn’t believe this. Some societies endorse polygamy others endorse monogamy.   Facts like these are held to cast doubt on the idea there is a single true morality relativism-1independent of what society thinks.

And you cannot overcome that prima facie case for relativism by trifling about the technicality that if God issued objective moral commands, these would exist whether we believed it or not.  If the tooth-fairy left me $2 million in a secret location, that would be true whether you believed it or not. But in both cases, we are dealing with a pretty big "if", and nothing important will happen until you move beyond the greasy marsh of the solely theoretical, to the practical.  Either state the one moral you believe is most clearly objective, or stop telling yourself that moral relativists find your arguments the least bit compelling.

 Response to the argument from cultural diversity.

Objectivists make several responses to this argument.

 Distinguishing Separate idea’s.

First, they argue that this argument conflates two separate ideas.  (a) the idea that beliefs about what is right and wrong differ from society to society. And  (b) that idea that what really is right, and wrong differs from society.  The fact different societies have different moral beliefs provides evidence for the first of these ideas. It establishes (a).  However, cultural relativism affirms something stronger than this. Relativists believe moral standards are correct or incorrect relative to society. 

Well then, you were wrong to previously declare that when a relativist labels a moral as "wrong", they are necessarily presupposing the existence of an objective standard.  Not they aren't.  Their standard for deciding what's wrong is their own relative opinion.  If you insist this is problematic, then maybe you should argue that drawing conclusions about what time it is, is unreasonable, because 3 p.m. in New Zealand is never 3 p.m. in Scandinavia. Time is utterly relative, yet if somebody asked you for the time, you would do so, with no worries about the fact that time is ultimately relative.  So stop telling us that a subjective basis for declaring a moral to be "wrong" is reasonable.  In practical life, we very often base our judgments of right or wrong on an admittedly subjective standard.

Cultural Relativists contend an action is wrong for a person because their society condemns that action.  Hence, they affirm (b).

However, that the fact different societies have different moral beliefs doesn’t support (b) It’s possible that when different societies make different judgements about something that one of them is mistaken.

 And we are still waiting for you to provide an example of the one moral whose objectivity you think is most clearly demonstrable.

When don’t normally assume that when societies disagree on something the correct answer is relative to society. 

Speak for yourself and your objectivist friends.  We moral relativists do normally draw that conclusion.

If different societies have different beliefs about the shape or age of the earth, we would not take this to demonstrate that the earth’s actual age and shape differ in various societies.

Fallacy of false analogy:  the shape of the earth is demonstrable empirically.  The objective wrongness of adultery is not.  Yet you necesarily imply with such analogy that you can disprove the moral goodness of any act you deem objectively wrong, just as easily as you can disprove the flat-earth theory.

So why do we do this when the disagreement involves moral judgements? 

For the same reason you think it is objectively wrong to burn a teen prostitute to death for working out of her priest fathers house (Leviticus 21:9).  Either you agree, or you start looking like the foolish moral relativist who says burning your daughter to death might perhaps be morally good in certain situations. 

The mere fact societies make different judgements on a topic tells us nothing about whether those judgements are objectively true or false.

Correct.

Exaggerated disagreement

Second, objectivists argue that appeals to cultural diversity often exaggerate the amount of cross-cultural disagreement over moral standards. Often when societies have different moral beliefs, this isn’t due to different moral standards but the result of disagreement over certain factual questions.  Consider the abovementioned case of witchcraft. In the 14th-century people believed in the existence of witches. They believed witches met together secretly and sacrificed children and ate these children in a ritual feast. They bound themselves by oath to the devil to use supernatural powers to harm, and kill innocent people. Hence the believed witchcraft involved the deliberate conspiracy to cause serious harm to innocent people.

 They probably also believed it was objectively morally good to burn witches, and would have sneered at devil-protecting liberals who campaigned for less barbaric treatment of the accused.

We don’t hold these beliefs today but if we did our opinion of witchcraft would be very different. Suppose we believed there was a group which conspired to randomly kill and maim innocent people and killed and ate children as part of its rituals.  We probably would legally suppress this group. And many people would support the death penalty for those who did these things, killing children is a horrendous form of murder after all.

But you aren't linking the horrendousness back to "god" or showing that child-murder violates any "objective" moral.  

The difference between us and 14th-century Europeans is due, in a large part, to different factual beliefs not simply a disagreement over moral standards.

Our supporting a death penalty less barbaric than burning at the stake testifies to the level of wrongness we and 14th century Christians disagree on.  It wasn't like burning alive was the only method of death in the 14th century.  They preferred that for witches because they felt the witch-crimes were far more heinous than simply killing and eating children.  These fanatics thought violation of "god's order" was the height of satanic rebellion.   You are quite aware of many hideous crimes people commit against children, but I doubt you'd recommend death by burning, since you see it as moral overkill.

 Trust me, the difference is moral and not merely factual.

    Relativism Promotes Tolerance

A second motivation behind relativism is the idea that moral relativism promotes tolerance and humility. When you realise that your own moral standards are correct only for you, you are less likely to fall into arrogance and pass judgements on the beliefs and practises of others. Nor are you likely to demand they change these practices and adopt yours.

Response:

Objectivists respond that this concern reveals a subtle contradiction. The argument assumes that tolerance and humility are good things, it assumes people should be tolerant and humble and should not be arrogant and rush to judgement. 

 I agree with you that tolerance and humility are the subjective judgment call of the relativist.

However, if relativism is correct, this isn’t the case. According to cultural relativism, it is wrong to be intolerant only if your society believes that it is.  Societies which are imperialistic and arrogant and believes its permissible to colonialize other nations don’t do any wrong if it imposes its moral judgements on to others.  Similarly, according to subjectivism humility and tolerance are wrong only if you think it is. If someone has bigoted or arrogant beliefs, then bigotry is morally required of them, and they shouldn’t act in a humble, tolerant way.

 I agree that some relativists irrationally presume that their own opinions are more objective than others.

Objectivists maintain that one can condemn individuals or societies who have arrogant and bigoted practices only if you hold these things are wrong despite the fact societies or individuals may endorse them. There is something incoherent about offering a moral criticism about the arrogant and intolerant moral judgements of societies or individuals and then concluding you can’t make judgements about societies and individuals.

 Thanks again for telling us what Christian objevists believe.  Do you ever plan to get down to actual business, and state the specific moral proposition whose objectivity you believe to be the most clearly demonstrable?

See my answer to Dr. Flannagan's third installment here.