Detective Morse and Post-Modern Relativism
/
In the mid 1960’s, Detective Constable Morse ponders the death of a young bricklayer Barry Fink at Mapplewick Hall estate north of Oxford, England. Detective Constable Morse is the central character in Masterpiece Theater’s ‘Endeavour’ series based on ground-breaking crime writer Colin Dexter’s novels. Detective Morse is an Oxford University dropout. When his love affair failed so did his academic performance. He then joined the army and after his discharge the police force.
The years have not tarnished the scholarly mind which entered Oxford with a scholarship. Viewed in the police force as a bit of a fish out of water, he relishes poetry, classical music, and a pint of ale. Fellow officers begrudgingly admit he has a brilliant nose for making abstruse connections in erudite Oxford crimes. While studying bricklayer Barry Fink’s suspicious death at Mapplewick Hall, Morse is also assigned to guard a controversial activist Mrs. Joy Pettybon. Mrs. Pettybon is an outspoken conservative crusader against smutty language on TV. She is bringing her national campaign ‘National Clean Up TV’ to Oxford.
Her ‘Clean Up TV’ crusade targets a nationally popular rock group ‘Wildwood’ (think Pink Floyd) who locates, of all places, at Mapplewick Hall estate. Mrs. Pettybon is to dialogue with ‘Wildwood’ on the weekly current affairs TV show Almanac. As Detective Morse accompanies Mrs. Pettybon to her TV appearance, he wonders about the connection of Mapplewick Hall to the dead bricklayer and ‘Wildwood’.
The faceoff between Mrs. Pettybon and ‘Wildwood’ is broadcast. Caricatured as an old fashioned ‘party pooper’, Mrs. Pettybon accuses ‘Wildwood’ of ramming down the throats of people in their homes sexually explicit and drug referent lyrics. Viewers should not be subjected to ‘dirty’ lyrics in their home. Rock group leader, Nick Wilding, is amused. He smugly asks her, ‘What is dirty?’ This is the edgy, post-modern, 'gotcha' question relished by the ‘Endeavour’ writers. ‘Dirty’ is dirty’ she responds. Nick retorts, ‘What’s dirty to you might be quite acceptable to someone else…quite normal in fact’. Snigger, snigger.
Here the show ‘Endeavour’ revealed its post-modern penchant for pressing the philosophy of moral relativism. Moral relativism holds actions are moral only for those who think them so. They are not moral for everyone, let alone objectively or absolutely true. Others may hold different behaviors are moral. One cannot expect what one believes to be moral or true for anybody else who does not believe it.[i]
We watched ‘Endeavour’ to enjoy a good crime mystery; however, ‘Endeavour’ was interested in peddling moral relativism. I was provoked with its ‘air’ of self-assurance that the argument is unassailable. I wondered if they knew ethicists consider it a difficult ethical position to maintain. It has been readily observed relativism’s own assertion is its logical contradiction. If it is believed there is no moral claim true for everybody, then one is making a moral claim one applies to everybody! The very claim ‘No moral claim is true for everybody’ denies the possibility of this absolutist statement.
Though Plato’s refutation of Protagoras’s promulgation of relativism is slick and not irrefutable, it exposes relativism’s vulnerability:
Most people believe that Protagoras’s doctrine is false.
Protagoras, on the other hand, believes his doctrine to be true.
By his own doctrine, Protagoras must believe that his opponents’ view is true.
Therefore, Protagoras must believe that his own doctrine is false (see Theaetetus: 171a) c).[ii]
That is, if Protagoras and relativists are true to their relativistic belief, they must accept their opponent’s rejection of their view. They have to allow their opponents who say they are wrong are right! Oddly, in making the case for relativism one argues for its own refutation!
Back to ‘Endeavour’ and Detective Morse. If ‘Endeavour’ premises crime is not good, then the consequences ‘Endeavour’ portrays of a relativistic philosophy are telling arguments against moral relativism. Just as the claim of relativism boomerangs back upon itself, so do its consequences. Detective Morse finds out the bricklayer Barry Fink died at Mapplewick Hall while in bed with ‘Wildwood’ rock band lead singer Nick (who was found comatose from an overdose) and Pippa, a girl groupie – a bisexual threesome. A fourth person, Emma, was stalking the bedroom that night and found no place in bed next to Nick. She was jealous of Barry Fink for stealing Nick’s affections from her. So, she strangled him. Her intense jealousy led her to murder. ‘Polyamory’ creates jealousy between ‘lovers’ which in turn incites murder which leads to criminal charges. One overdosed, one dead, and one charged with murder! A pretty good night for moral relativism! Unintentionally, ‘Endeavour’s’ moral of the story is, the moral consequences of a relativistic philosophy are its own telling argument against it!
[i] Trigg, Roger, Philosophy Matters: An Introduction to Philosophy(Madlen, Mass: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 2002), pp. 59-60
[ii] Swoyer, Chris, “Relativism”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/relativism/
Image: "The World's Greatest Dective." by Kit. CC license.
