The Paradox of Moral Tolerance: Exposing Normative Relativism's Blind Spot

One does not have to look far to notice that the moral beliefs of individuals vary widely. For some, abortion is a morally thoughtful venture on the part of the mother. For others, it is regarded as the abhorrent murder of a human being. For some, homosexuality and transgenderism are beautiful expressions of one’s authentic self. For others, these practices are considered defamatory to the body and disrespectful to human dignity. Of course, there are many intricacies to these moral considerations, but ultimately, these views and many others seem to stand in stark contrast to one another.

How do we best handle this disparity of moral viewpoints? A common way is to adopt the universal principle of moral tolerance. Moral tolerance refers to the capacity or willingness of one to respect and coexist with the moral beliefs, values, and practices of others which one personally disagrees with or finds objectionable without interfering with the beliefs, values, or practices themselves. The principle of moral tolerance, in this way, is rooted in open-mindedness, empathy, and respect for individual autonomy, allowing for a peaceful coexistence of diverse moral viewpoints within a pluralistic society. Its aim is to foster social harmony and cooperation by promoting a moral climate of understanding and courteous dialogue rather than contemptuous condemnation.

Adopting the universal principle of moral tolerance seems like a reasonable way to handle the diversity of views we encounter. Even though some of our moral beliefs conflict, we should nonetheless respect the autonomy of one another to hold such beliefs. The desire for social cohesion through moral tolerance is one of the most prominent motivations for adopting the moral theory known as normative relativism (NR).

NR holds that the truth of a moral proposition is relative to the belief of a given individual.[1] What makes a moral proposition (i.e., that “homosexuality is good” or “homosexuality is bad”) true is whether one believes it to be so. The belief in these moral propositions, then, makes them substantively true for that individual, and the individual therefore has an obligation to act in accord with them.

Prima facie, NR appears to provide an ideal basis for moral tolerance by justifying each individual’s moral beliefs in virtue of the beliefs themselves. After all, given the disparity of moral viewpoints, who’s to say one individual’s moral beliefs are more valid than another’s? NR validates the moral beliefs of each individual and thus creates a level ground, ripe for moral tolerance. This serves as a prominent motivator for adopting such a theory. Upon closer examination, however, this motive seems built on a fractured relationship between moral tolerance and NR. This deep-rooted incoherence is what I will call the paradox of moral tolerance.

The paradox of moral tolerance: Moral tolerance is a prominent motivator for adopting NR but is ultimately unaccounted for by the theory.

Despite its apparent merits, moral tolerance—properly understood—is logically impossible on NR. For if Agent 1’s moral belief is not morally false or opposed to Agent 2’s moral belief in a substantive way, then there is nothing for Agent 1 to tolerate. Furthermore, for moral tolerance to be successful in handling the disparity of moral viewpoints peacefully, we would need to universalize the principle, allowing individuals to hold one another accountable to it. However, universal moral tolerance would imply an objective exception to NR which falsely elevates the principle of tolerance above that which is accounted for by the theory.[2]

The argument from the paradox of moral tolerance can be hashed out in the following way:

1.     NR cannot account for objective moral obligations.

2.     The notion of universal moral tolerance implies an objective moral obligation.

3.     Therefore, NR cannot account for universal moral tolerance.

 What might the proponent of NR say in response to this argument?

 One could imagine the normative relativist attempting to sidestep the argument by replying that, even if the principle of moral tolerance is not universal, one ought to be tolerant of the moral beliefs of other individuals if their own moral code accounts for it. However, we might respond by asking what it is they are tolerating. Tolerance, in this sense, requires that one’s views are opposed by their counterpart in a substantive way. If each individual defines morality for himself, as NR affirms, then what exactly is one tolerating? We might run the argument as follows:

1.     Moral tolerance requires the moral beliefs of individuals to conflict in some substantive way.

2.     On NR, the moral beliefs of individuals might be different, but do not conflict in some substantive way.

3.     Therefore, moral tolerance is not possible on NR.

But can't the normative relativist simply say that some moral truths, even if they are not objective, must be obeyed to allow for social cohesion? That is, tolerance towards other individuals’ moral beliefs is not an objective moral principle but must be adhered to in order to maintain some form of a social contract which keeps us from chaos. It seems this, again, holds tolerance as the tacit exception to the theory itself. The language of “must be obeyed” in this context would imply an objective moral obligation. However, on NR, according to what basis must these moral beliefs be respected, and on what basis is social cohesion more morally desirable than chaos?

Another reply the proponent of NR might give to the argument from the paradox of moral tolerance is one based on the nature of the justification of moral beliefs on NR. Because Agent 2’s moral beliefs are often different from Agent 1’s moral beliefs—at least to some extent—yet are justified in virtue of Agent 2’s beliefs in and of themselves, these differing principles are necessarily tolerated. In other words, we recognize that those who hold beliefs which differ from our own are justified in doing so, and thus we exercise moral tolerance necessarily. However, there is a distinction to be made between what is different and what conflicts in some substantive way. Just because a belief is different does not mean it conflicts in this manner. For example, if I believe that I have brown hair and my friend believes he has blonde hair, I do not have grounds to “tolerate” his belief, for our beliefs do not conflict in a substantive way—tolerance would seem to require this sort of conflict. To elucidate this concept, moral tolerance would require that Agent 1’s moral belief, “A is good” conflict Agent 2’s moral belief, “A is bad” in some substantive way. But on NR, Agent 1 would define what is good in virtue of his own belief, so even though Agent 1’s belief might be different than Agent 2’s, it would not conflict with Agent 2’s belief in some substantive way, and thus tolerance would not be possible.

One last objection we might consider from the normative relativist is that the assertion of relative morality does not imply that there are no moral obligations. Furthermore, there is no need for the proponent of NR to affirm tolerance as a universal principle to hold others accountable for tolerance, for it is possible that all individuals could independently assert tolerance as a moral principle regardless. But the argument from the paradox of moral tolerance does not claim that normative relativists have no moral principles to abide by. In fact, according to NR, one ought to act in accordance with their own individual code. And it is logically possible that all individuals could affirm the same moral code, which happens to promote the principle of moral tolerance, but do so relatively. We might imagine, however, a possible world where one individual deviates from this code by revoking tolerance as a moral principle without violating the code itself, for their beliefs determine it. Moral progress or regress would not be made by the individual in this possible world, just a change in their moral landscape. The mere potentiality for intolerance to become morally permissible in a possible world where everyone believes tolerance to be a moral principle reveals the inability for NR to account for the universal obligation of such a principle, or any moral principle for that matter.

I believe there is potential for the argument from the paradox of moral tolerance to be extended beyond the scope of NR to other moral anti-realist theories. When I consider anti-realist theories here, I mean any theory which does not identify goodness even minimally with nonmoral properties, such as in weaker forms of moral realism. Anti-realist theories, then, would refer to only those theories which use goodness in a predicative sense to refer to that which is true about an individual’s own dispositions or the dispositions of the culture in which they abide. It is also worth noting that the argument from the paradox of moral tolerance seems to have utility for both cognitivist and non-cognitivist theories, as I say, IFF they don’t affirm an identity relation between goodness and a nonmoral property or affirm goodness as a mind-independent property. Lastly, the purpose of this argument is not meant to undercut anti-realist theories entirely or even NR but is rather meant to reveal how one of the more attractive underlying motivations for adopting such theories—namely, moral tolerance—is unaccounted for by previous anti-realist commitments, with particular attention drawn to NR.

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[1] “Individual” could also be considered a culture or society, as with normative cultural relativism. For the sake of simplicity, however, I use the term “individual” throughout this article.

[2] On NR there is also no inherent basis for equality (which seems to undergird the principle of tolerance) other than that which we have constructed on our own, though this is a separate—yet related—discussion.

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Hunter Kallay is a Ph.D. student at the University of Tennessee and holds a MA in Apologetics from Houston Christian University. His primary interests include moral epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion. In his spare time, he enjoys fitness, sports, and exploring new restaurants.

Mailbag: Does the Moral Argument Have a Fatal Flaw?

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In December, we shared a post on Facebook about The Morals of the Story, a book written by two of our editors, David and Marybeth Baggett. Along with the post, we included this snippet from a review of the book:

"If humanity’s deep and unshakable moral intuitions are correct, then The Morals of the Story demonstrates that the rational observer should embrace Christian theism in response."

In response to this idea, Heath writes,

 The point being that "objective morality points to the existence of god.” Which god, might I ask? Well, of course the Christian god. Who else? Why not Allah, or Shiva, or Quetzacoatyl? These are all gods too. And if objective morality points to god, objectively it points to ALL gods equally. Objective morality. Can there even be such a thing? I think all morality is subjective, not objective. It would be nice if moralities were indeed objective, but since we've decided to tie morality to religion we must necessarily reject objectivity. Example: A large group of profoundly fervent jungle tribesmen find it moral to hack the hearts out of living men, women and children to appease their gods. That is moral to them. Another group believes that 2000 years ago a god sacrificed himself to himself so that the believers can be forgiven for all time. That is moral, to them. A different group of people use reason to construct morals. Morals based on enlightened self-interest. Obviously they would reject the morals of both previously mentioned groups. These are atheists, and only without religious bias can morals begin to be objective.

Reply,

Hi Heath,

Thank you for your comment and you raise a couple of important objections to a moral argument for the truth of Christianity. Of course, your post is brief and one would not expect arguments to be fully developed in the context of social media, so I will try to spell out how I think you intend the argument to go. I take it that you have two concerns about the claim that if human moral intuitions are correct, then this suggests that Christian theism is correct.

First, even if humans generally and accurately apprehend moral truths, and even if this is best explained by theism, it is not at all clear how this would be best explained by Christian theism. If morality requires some form of supernaturalism, then many supernatural explanations of morality are available and it is not immediately obvious why the Christian explanation should fare any better than, say, the Hindu explanation. If there are moral truths that need supernatural explanation, then that is evidence that applies equally well to all supernatural accounts.

Second, you suggest that morality is not objective and, therefore, there are no moral truths with which Christians can build their moral case for Christian theism. The hypothetical story about the origin of moral beliefs is meant to motivate this conclusion that moral realism is not correct. Later, in another comment, you add this: “Different cultures have different morals. Hence the subjective nature of it all. I don't get why you presume a standard morality to be everywhere. That is a pipe dream. Not a reality.” In that case, the whole project of The Morals of the Story rests on the mistake of thinking moral realism (the view that there are objective moral realities) obtains. Since the project assumes something true that is false, it must be fatally flawed.

Let me take the second objection first. There are two kinds of reply I want to make here. First, I want to say something about why we should think moral realism is a justified belief. Second, I want to consider whether we have any good reason to think it is not.

Geoff Sayre-McCord, a philosopher teaching at the University of North Carolina, claims that “moral realism can fairly claim to have common sense and initial appearances on its side.”[1] The reason that Sayre-McCord might say that moral realism has this advantage is that we simply find ourselves believing in moral realism and we find ourselves having a high degree of confidence in these beliefs.[2] It seems obvious to most people that there are at least some moral facts.

For example, for most it seems obviously true that the Holocaust was factually, objectively, morally wrong. It seems equally as obvious that torturing children for fun would be wrong in all the same ways. This, of course, is not anything like a decisive argument that moral realism is correct, but it should provide some reason to think we are justified in believing that moral realism is correct.

After all, we take all kinds of seemings as good justification for belief. It seems to me that there are other minds and that I am not a brain in a vat. It seems to me there is a table over there and that I am drinking coffee. These seemings are adequate grounds for having a justified belief that these things are so. If my three-year-old son looks out the window and sees a tree, it seems to him that there is a tree out there, and he forms the belief “There is a tree out there.” Few would say that this belief is not justified until he has more evidence; the seeming itself is sufficient.

 Of course, for all we know, we could be brains in vats or everyone around us could be mindless zombies that act exactly as if they had minds, but epistemologists generally agree that the mere possibility that these states of affairs could be actual should not worry us very much. Justification doesn’t require certainty.

However, justified beliefs can have their justification defeated. One might have good reasons to think that we are brains in vats, for example. Perhaps, like Neo from The Matrix, one could somehow become aware that reality as they experience it is a mere simulation. In that case, the belief that I am not a brain in a vat would no longer be justified.

My suggestion is that our moral intuitions are kinds of seemings analogous to the other kinds I have mentioned and that there are prima facie grounds for counting our moral intuitions as justified beliefs. Just as our experience of empirical realities can justify our belief in the external world or other minds, likewise our moral experience can offer us initial justification for at least certain of our less negotiable moral convictions. If one does not experience these moral intuitions, then, clearly, he could not be justified in believing in moral realism on this basis. Or, if he has sufficiently strong defeaters, he could no longer consider his belief justified, unless he defeats the defeaters. My view is that moral intuitions provide a prima facie reason for thinking that moral realism obtains.

If that is claim, then the next thing we will want to consider is whether there are any defeaters for moral intuitions. You offer one such possible defeater: the reality of moral disagreement. But it is not true that disagreement entails or even implies that a belief is false or that there is no truth to the matter. The history of science provides ample evidence of this. People disagreed with the heliocentric model of the solar system, but this did not imply that the proposition “The earth revolves around the sun” is neither objectively true nor false. Today, the flat earth movement is growing alarmingly and unfortunately fast. As a result, there is disagreement about whether the earth there is a flat disc or a globe. But this does not imply that, therefore, the truth of the proposition “The earth is not a disc” is merely a matter of subjective preference or opinion. If some proposition is objectively true then, by definition, whether people agree that it is true or not is not relevant to its status as a true proposition. So, I do not consider the argument from moral disagreement to be a defeater for the justification of our beliefs about moral realism. And so, if I am correct, then I continue to be justified in thinking that moral intuitions generate true moral beliefs.

If our belief in moral realism is justified, then we still have the remaining question of how the truth of these beliefs is best explained by Christian theism. You argue that the evidence is explained equally well by any religious perspective. But this simply is not the case. Some religions may not make any attempt to explain moral facts; they may say that ethics are ultimately illusory, as is the case in various forms of Buddhism and Hinduism. One central doctrine of some forms of Buddhism is annata or “no self” doctrine. This is the view that the perception of ourselves and others as moral agents is an error. We simply do not exist as persons. Perhaps we could preserve some form of moral realism on this view, but it would not accommodate what most take to be the obvious moral facts, even by most people living in contexts where the no-self doctrine is promoted. There is a reason why the Buddha needed to achieve enlightenment in order to discover the truth; his doctrines are directly at odds with our most basic beliefs about ourselves and the only way to overcome them is through rigorous practice.  Further, at least some religions are intrinsically bad explanations for anything. Scientology seems obviously and inherently less likely to be a good explanation for any phenomena it might be summoned to explain.

The Christian worldview, on the other hand, readily and naturally explains how many of our most deeply held moral beliefs are true. Suppose we think that human beings have dignity and value. The Christian worldview claims that ultimate reality is constituted by a being who is tri-personal. This being is the locus and ground of all value. It is natural to think that when we find the infinite good of the personal God mirrored in finite things, there we would find dignity and value. Many religions simply do not make the same claim about the nature of reality and the good. Polytheistic religions cannot claim the same thing without contradiction. The Christian worldview further confirms the value of human beings by telling us that we were created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26) and, most dramatically, in the incarnation, where the Second Person of the Trinity became a human being himself. God thought it worthwhile to condescend to becoming a human being in order that he might redeem humankind.

So, in Christian theology and revelation, we find our moral intuitions about the value of human beings easily and logically explained. That is just one example, but there are many others.[3] I think this is enough to show that it is just not the case that all religions are equally equipped explain how our moral beliefs can be true. What objective morality can help do is adjudicate between conflicting accounts and help us decide the best explanation. Not every theology is equally well equipped to provide a good explanation of the full range of moral phenomena in need of explanation—from moral duties to moral freedom, from moral values to the dignity of people, from moral knowledge to an account of evil, from moral regret to moral transformation to moral rationality. This is much of what The Morals of the Story tries to explore and explicate, while respecting the mental freedom of those who remain unconvinced by the argument. Of course here in this short post I can’t make the full case; not even a whole book can. Philosophy is difficult, and takes a serious investment of time.

Heath, you have given us some important objections to consider and I hope that I have at least provided you with some idea of how a Christian might answer them, though I am also sure I have not convinced you to change your mind. We don’t even have the tip of the iceberg here! Maybe we have the tip of the tip and that is all. Still, I think you can at least see how one might argue that belief in moral realism is justified and how, at least possibly and perhaps somewhat plausibly, Christian theism may well be the best explanation of the truth of those moral beliefs.

If you are interested in exploring how Christians think about morality and how it might be evidence for the existence of God and the truth of Christian theism, The Morals of the Story is a good place to start. If you are interested in something a bit more rigorous and technical, you might try Good God or God and Cosmos. Baggett and Walls are wrapping up a new book on the history of the moral argument, which you might find of interest as well when it gets published eventually.

Thanks again for your comment,

Jonathan Pruitt

Managing Editor

[1] Geoff Sayre-McCord, “Moral Realism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy),” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, n.d., accessed December 20, 2018, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/.

[2] According to a survey of professional philosophers, most believe in moral realism.

[3]For another, fuller perspective, you might see Baggett’s Seven Reasons Moral Apologetics Points to Christianity. If you are interested in how Christianity better explains our moral intuitions about love, you might be interested in this discussion I had with Brian Scalise.

I offer an explanation of how Christianity in particular best explains how we have moral knowledge elsewhere.

Reading Literature through the Eyes of C. S. Lewis, Part 1

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            A central concern for Christians regarding literature is what value, if any, literature holds for the reader. Although this is not a new consideration, it is one C. S. Lewis referred to as a “living question” for its continued importance for discussion. Literature is often accused of being useless, merely entertainment, irrelevant to life, or immoral (Ryken, Windows to the World 18). Does a biblical Christian worldview allow Christians to enjoy literature, and if so, how should Christians decide what books they should read? In answering these difficult questions, one author in particular should be respected and consulted for answers: C. S. Lewis. This prominent Oxford and Cambridge lecturer and imaginative writer provides a thorough response for how Christians should engage the humanities and culture, particularly in the area of literary art.

            Lewis had the extraordinary privilege of teaching at the two most prestigious universities in the world for the humanities: Oxford and Cambridge. He first taught at Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1954. He then earned the position of Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at Magdalene College, Cambridge. In Reading the Classics with C. S. Lewis, Leland Ryken accordingly spells out some of the advantages of studying “with” such a learned scholar. First, Ryken notes that with Lewis’s literary criticism, readers are “in the presence of someone who simply assumed that the world of literature is a self-rewarding world of overwhelming importance” (24). Furthermore, he “had a knack for delineating the features of an author’s world” (24), and a way of attracting readers both to “individual works of authors” as well as immersing them into the “entire world of imaginative literature” (26). The key, according to Ryken, is Lewis’s vast array of reading experience; he states, “I know of no twentieth-century critic who refers to so many works and writers” (26). On a more personal level, Ryken observes, “To read literature with C. S. Lewis is to get to know Lewis himself, and this is part of the appeal of his criticism. Criticism as an impersonal scholarly inquiry did not occur as an option for Lewis. His own tastes and personality come through at nearly every turn” (28). Mark Noll considers the influence and importance of Lewis:

Lewis’s writing has constituted the single most important body of Christian thinking for American evangelicals in the twentieth century. His defense of supernatural Christianity, his ability to exploit learned culture, his example as a writer of fiction, his demonstration that the truths of the faith could be expressed in lively prose—all contributed an unusual measure of intellectual stimulation to evangelicals on this side of the water. (218)

As one of the greatest literary scholars and critics in the twentieth century, Lewis’s views on literature are vital for any Christian seeking answers to the questions of why one should read literature, what constitutes a good book, and how one should approach reading.

The most tragic reality students face in the secular university today is the absence of belief in absolute truth. Literature is typically not studied from the perspective of what the author is trying to communicate; instead, students are encouraged to decipher their own meaning and apply it to the text. In a society entrenched in postmodern ideologies, the understanding of what principles govern the reading of good literature is often lost. With postmodernity came the false presupposition that there are no objective standards to which literature must adhere. The result is “art for art’s sake” and the assumption that the reader, not the author, determines the meaning of the text. As postmodernists disregard absolutes, words, which form the foundation of literature, lose their essential meaning. Thus, words such as “Truth,” “Love,” “Wisdom,” “Beauty,” and “Justice” become mere abstractions which people subjectively understand. The loss of a stable language is detrimental to a student’s entire education. When words lose their function of communicating universal truth and meaning, students lose the ability to come to a meaningful understanding of truth and reality.

            Lewis, noticing the gravitation toward relativism in the contemporary worldview of his time, set forth concrete principles for interpreting literature. He believed in the importance of understanding the worldview of an author, as well as how readers’ worldviews affect the way that they interpret literature.  Yet Lewis argues that readers should not allow their own worldview to frustrate or impede a story; instead, they must “receive” rather than “use” a story (Experiment in Criticism 93). Thus, Lewis strikes a balance between two polarized forms of literary criticism. On one end of the spectrum, readers simplify a literary text to force it into a uniform category to argue that it advocates a particular worldview or universal truth. At the other extreme are those who deny the existence of absolutes and thus force the text to fit whichever meaning they subjectively wish to contend. Lewis’s approach, as a middle ground, encourages readers to interact with a text and to enjoy it for what it is worth, yet not to impose their personal agendas on the text to determine its meaning.

            Fiction is a unique vehicle for explaining and illuminating the reality of human life. Although a fictional story does not necessarily tell a true story, it is an instrument through which the reader can discover truth. Humans are, as beings created in the image of God, creators in their own right. Thus, a person who is crafting literature is creating a world. By entering the world of fiction, according to Lewis, the reader can later re-enter the real world with a refreshed perspective on reality. Emphasis on supernatural reality is one of the most common themes in Lewis’s work, particularly in his fiction. In his essay “On Three Ways of Writing for Children,” Lewis explains that he uses the genre of fantasy as a vehicle to convey his message because other genres attempting to express a moral or principle may inadvertently cause the reader to feel obligation. According to Lewis, “an obligation to feel can freeze things” (37). In other words, when entering the imaginary world, the reader typically does not feel that he or she is being told what to do. Instead, while watching the story unfold, the reader can experience the abstract or concrete ideas evoked by the author in a natural, rather than forced, environment. Such an environment is most effective, for it allows the reader alone to decide how to act upon the underlying message.

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. 

Sophocles and the Doctrine of Sin: A Reflection on Teaching Greek Tragedy

This past year I taught 9th grade Ancient Literature for the second time. My first year teaching this curriculum I spent too much time in Homer, and did not make it to tragedy; this year, my goal was to pace the course correctly and work through the most significant plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Along the journey, I discovered an unexpected blessing of teaching Greek tragedy: no other literature I have taught highlights quite so well the reality, the unavoidability, and the consequences of sin. I spent seven weeks with sixty 9th graders discussing questions of justice, inherited guilt, atonement, reconciliation, and grief. As a Christian educator in a secular school, I feel a burden to urge my students to consider topics I believe will prepare them for the gospel, and teaching Sophocles led to just such a discovery.

In setting the context for Oedipus Rex, I explained the play’s basic assumption that the plague in the city of Thebes resulted from a violation of the universe's moral law; the action of the play then, is a mystery solving the crime and rooting out the perpetrator. When the story unfolded and Oedipus’ guilt became increasingly plausible, I learned one of my students was a fervent relativist. He asserted adamantly that every person has a value system and that no one value system is preferable to another. People are good or bad based on how well they achieve their chosen values. This student left me scratching my head; how could I steer him towards truth without coming right out and telling him he is wrong? How do I guide him dialogically to discover that his thinking is insufficient? Fortunately, Sophocles himself resolved my dilemma.

That night, the students read a section of Oedipus Rex which made the incestuous relationship between Oedipus and Iocaste unmistakable; my student came in the next afternoon with a new declaration: “Mr. Herring, that’s wrong!” “Whether it fits his value system or not?” I responded. “Yes - that, that right there, is wrong.” Leave it to the Greeks—their licentiousness notwithstanding—to enshrine moral rock bottom in their literature. The battle for truth is in no way won; I suspect this student and I will go back and forth on the nature of truth for the next three years. But his declaration of “wrongness” struck me: Sophocles reached for a universal category in his drama, and in so doing he communicates down through the ages to our own “secular age.”

There is a sense in which it is harder to teach virtue than it used to be; teachers of years past could frame their moral instruction capitalizing on a common biblical literacy. Today, the idea of “loving your neighbor” because “God first loved you” simply does not compute without lengthy preparation. If we have lost the common cultural framework of biblical literacy, however, we are not left to our own devices to begin re-establishing the categories of sin and guilt. These are universal human experiences, and they underpin the best literature.

Sophocles can teach us moral fundamentals; sleeping with your mother and producing children offends the universe, human sensibility, and civic law. In Antigone, Sophocles has the title character appeal to the “unwritten laws of God” to justify her actions. In this line lies the glory of human literature as a moral teacher. On the other hand, therein also lies its insufficiency. Poets can discern sin, just as Paul calls the law the teacher of sin. Incest, pride, atheism, child murder: the tragedians illustrate the wrongness of these things. And yet, they can point to nothing more certain than the “unwritten laws of God” to prove the wrongness of these actions. These tragedies pull on a common human awareness of wrong actions, but fail to answer the desire for something clear, certain, and definitive.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the divine wrote down the rules? And then clarified them for us? This of course is exactly what we have in the Bible. We have the clarity of the Ten Commandments and the extensive development of practical outworkings all grounded in the nature of a loving God who created all things and knows our best interests. Suddenly, we have a sense of why hubris is dangerous: because God made us humans for a certain place, and the man of pride reaches for more than God intended. In the overreach lies the dangerous fall. Incest, too, offends the created order, wherein God intended human beings to form new covenant communities to diversify across the earth so that new facets of his image are revealed across creation. Scripture also shows us an alternative for guilt. We run not away from the angry Greek gods of Sophocles but to the loving God who through bloodshed atones for our wrongdoing. The Bible looks to the same universal problems and longings Greek tragedy addresses, but with hope.

After seven weeks in the wonderful poetry of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripedes, I reached three conclusions. First, tragedy operates in a pre-evangelistic manner. The stories are simple, but so well-crafted that the reader becomes imminently mindful that he may have committed some great evil unawares just like Oedipus. Second, tragedy highlights a missing certainty in 21st century post-postmodernity. Reading Oedipus Rex worked to “blow the roof off” of my student’s assumptions that morality is completely relative, beginning a further conversation about the existence of moral truth. Third, tragedy is like a cancer diagnosis without chemotherapy; it provides no hope. Without the gospel, without the real word from a real God, we are left with Oedipus in despair over what our understanding reveals. Unless God is real and the Bible is true, we stand with Nietzsche gazing into the abyss of existence with no authentic response but despair.

Pascal famously wrote of a “God-shaped void” in every human heart; Greek tragedy can illuminate this void, but does nothing to fill it. In seeking some sort of atonement, Oedipus blinds himself, Iocaste commits suicide, and (in a later play) Antigone ends the evil of her existence by hanging herself. Tragedy looks at the human experience, sees the reality of sin, and concludes that nothing but despair remains. Where the tragedians despair, the gospel proclaims hope. Christ himself enters our tragedy and in the greatest eucatastrophe in human history reverses the tragic into the salvific.

Image: Bénigne Gagneraux, The Blind Oedipus Commending his Children to the Gods, Public Domain

Chapter 5, Part 2b, C. Stephen Evans’ God and Moral Obligations, “Constructivism”:

MORALITY AS AN IDEAL SOCIAL CONTRACT

Perhaps one might think the objectionable features of Harman’s view come from his decision to treat moral obligations as the outcome of relativistic social bargains that individuals freely enter into. It’s thus worth investigating whether moral obligations can be understood as the result of a social agreement that is ideal and perhaps for that reason universal.

Ronald Milo has proposed a view that he calls “contractarian constructivism.” It holds that moral truths are most plausibly construed as truths about an ideal social order. On this view, a certain kind of act is wrong just in case a social order prohibiting such acts would be chosen by rational contractors under suitably idealized conditions. This introduces a number of questions. For example, are the decisions based on making possible some good? And if so, isn’t this an abandonment of contractarianism, since it’s the good the guides the contractors’ decisions? Milo tries to avoid this by saying the practical reasoning of the contractors will be shaped by “means—end” reasoning as to how best to satisfy our desires. The aim is to improve the satisfactoriness of our lives. But Evans notes that this stance still involves a theory of the good, namely, a desire-fulfillment theory, and such an account of the good is as realistic as any other, since it seems committed to the claim that it is objectively good for humans to satisfy as many of their desires as possible. It’s also a controversial theory, but there is a more fundamental problem with the whole project.

What authority do the decisions of these hypothetical contractors have over actual individuals? Even if we decided that there are true counterfactuals of this type and that we could know what they are, why should the decisions of these non-actual people be binding on actual people? If I don’t accept their view of the good, then there is no reason to think I would agree with the views about right and wrong that they base on their theory of the good. One might try to avoid this by saying the contractors have no theory of the good at all, but this should only make us more suspicious.

The best attempt Evans knows to resolve this problem of authority is provided by David Gauthier in his Morals by Agreement. He tries to motivate a social contract approach to moral theory by seeing such an agreement as a way of trying to resolve “prisoner’s dilemma” situations. In these scenarios, two accused criminals—call them Ed and Fred—have the chance to confess to a more serious offense. The situation is stipulated such that it appears that whatever Fred does, Ed will be better off confessing. If Ed and Fred, though, could somehow count on each other not to confess, then each would get a small penalty. It looks like the best strategy for both of them would be to reach an agreement not to confess, but there is little reason for them to behave in this way without some assurance the other will keep the agreement.

Gauthier believes that such prisoner’s dilemma situations are not simply unusual possibilities, but capture many features of actual human social interaction. There are many situations in which, if every individual in a group pursues his or her self-interest, the outcome for everyone in the group will be much worse than would be the case if the individuals accept some restraints on their self-interest. Without an agreement regulating our behavior, in the actual world we are doomed to “non-optimal outcomes that, in ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma-type’ situations, may be little better than disastrous.” The solution is an agreement that creates duties that limit our quest for self-interest, though in the long run the agreement actually furthers our self-interest. Duty overrides advantage, but the acceptance of duty is truly advantageous. The authority of the agreement lies in the advantages the agreement makes possible, along with the fact that those who are party to the agreement will withdraw their cooperation towards those who fail to comply.

Is the agreement actual or hypothetical? Evans thinks Gauthier thinks that both can be true. The agreements may be implicit rather than explicit, but they are not a “mere fiction” since they give rise to new modes of interaction. Gauthier thinks that the authority of actual agreements depends on the degree to which they resemble an ideal agreement. He argues that ideal agreement is one that adheres to the “principle of minimax relative concession,” in which the maximum that each party is asked to concede is as small as possible, thus giving everyone reason to commit to the agreement.

Gauthier’s attempt to see morality as a solution to the disasters that stem from unfettered pursuit of self-interest is powerful, and it’s a creative effort to get beyond Harman’s relativism. But Evans thinks many of the same problems beset Gauthier’s solution. For example, it’s still not clear why an agreement that would be made by ideally rational agents under certain conditions (which in fact do not hold) is binding on actual individuals. It seems unlikely that the agreement that it would be reasonable for an individual to keep if other people could be counted on to behave morally is binding on actual individuals, who know that in the real world people frequently lie and cheat.

It’s true that those who are known to violate the agreement can be penalized by others who keep the rules, but this only gives a reason to keep the agreement when breaking it is likely to be detected and the offender is likely to face some serious sanction if it is detected. Gauthier admits he isn’t claiming it’s never rational for one person to take advantage of another, never rational to comply with unfair practices. But Evans points out that this is simply to abandon key elements of the Anscombe intuition, since on such a view moral obligations are not always overriding and do not apply with equal force to everyone.

Perhaps to solve such a problem Gauthier suggests another response to the problem of why individuals should keep their agreement to behave morally. Morality can’t really survive if we are purely self-interested individuals who behave like “economic man.” What must happen is that we must strive to be like the “just man,” whose feelings are engaged by morality and adheres not because of self-interest, but because he simply loves the ideals he is committed to. But this limits the authority of morality to those with the relevant feelings.

The last difficulty Evans raises with Gauthier’s theory concerns the scope of the moral obligations as these are understood. Evans has argued that moral obligations are universal in scope: applying to all humans, and at least some obligations extending to all humans. It’s hard to see how an agreement grounded in self-interest could be the basis for obligations of this type. Gauthier concedes that animals, the unborn, the congenitally handicapped and defectives fall beyond the pale of morality tied to mutuality.

Nor is it easy to see why people in one human society should have obligations towards people in some distant land, particularly if the people in the distant land are too poor and weak to threaten or benefit the people in the first society.

Gauthier imagines such cultural contact between privileged purple people and impoverished green people, and gives three reasons why the purples might decide to treat the greens in a moral way. First, it may in the purples’ self-interest. Second, the purples may have become the kind of people who are so disposed to kind and compassionate treatment that they literally have no choice but to treat the greens well. Evans says this would only be plausible if human nature were completely transformed.

Third, the purples may possess a certain measure of sympathy for all whom they consider human. Evans replies, though, by saying it’s hard to see how such feelings of sympathy by themselves could be the basis of real moral obligations. All of the considerations to which Gauthier appeals manifestly fail to provide a foundation for genuine moral obligations that are overriding, binary in character, motivating, and universal. The contrast between such a view and a divine command account of moral obligations is clear.

Find the other chapter summaries here. 

Image: "Construction Time Again" by Victory is Mine. CC license. 

Chapter 5, Part 2a, C. Stephen Evans’ God and Moral Obligations, “Constructivism”:

Evans takes constructivism to be a metaethical stance that tries to steer a middle course between realist, cognitivist accounts of the moral life and expressivist views. Like realists, constructivists want to argue that moral judgments have an objectivity such that they can be judged true or false, but they want to hold that such judgments gain that status because of our activities. They thus share the expressivist view that the moral world is a human creation. In this section of the chapter, Evans discusses three different versions of this project. Two of them see moral obligations as the result of a social contract or agreement, while the third is inspired by the Kantian-type view that morality is something that is created by the autonomous self. This post covers the first of these three accounts.

GILBERT HARMAN’S RELATIVISTIC SOCIAL CONTRACT ACCOUNT

One of the simplest and most natural ways of thinking of morality as a human construction is to see it as the result of a social agreement, for such an agreement would obviously be the result of human activity, yet if morality were grounded in such an agreement, it would appear to have a degree of objectivity. A key question that must be faced by social contract theories of morality concerns the nature of the agreement: Is the agreement supposed to be an actual agreement or is it merely a hypothetical ideal, an agreement that people would make if certain conditions were fulfilled, even if those conditions never in fact hold? The difficulty with a hypothetical agreement is understanding how it could be actually binding.

Both the strengths and weaknesses of the actual agreement model can be seen in the metaethical thought of Gilbert Harman, who’s a metaphysical naturalist. He’s skeptical that moral terms can be defined in terms of non-moral facts, so he instead envisions morality as the result of a human agreement, which can salvage a sort of objectivity. Harman wants to distinguish his own view, which he calls ethical relativism, from the view he terms ethical nihilism, which simply denies that ethical propositions have any truth at all. Moral nihilism would thus logically lead to the view that morality should be rejected altogether, and Harman does not wish to go that far.

Why does Harman commit to ethical relativism? Because actual human social agreements differ significantly. One might of course propose that there would be no relativity if the agreement is an ideal one, an agreement that all humans would agree to if they were fully rational and had the opportunity to make such an agreement. But Harman is skeptical this could be achieved and, even if it could, that it would be binding. Any moral obligations we have must then be grounded in actual agreements made by concrete social groups. Since many such groups exist, there could be many different moral frameworks.

This means, Harman says, that moral claims will be analogous to claims about motion that are made in the context of Einstein’s theory that space and time are relative. There are alternative spatio-temporal frameworks and any claim about whether an object is in motion (as well as how fast it is moving) are always  made relative to some particular spatio-temporal framework. When understood as relative to a particular framework, claims about motion can be true or false, but it makes no sense to see such claims as “absolute.” Similarly, no one moral framework can be correct in the sense of holding for everyone, even though such claims can be made relative to a particular framework. But Evans wants to raise questions about whether Harman’s relativism really differs significantly from nihilism.

Ultimately the problem with Harman’s view is similar to the problem that emerged with expressivism: the authority of morality is undermined. Remember such key features of moral obligation as objectivity and universality. Harman admits his view can’t accommodate universal moral obligations. But consider a Mafiaoso obligated to murder—Harman says it’s a misuse of language to say of the assassin that he ought not to kill, or that it would be wrong of him to do so.

But Evans replies that it’s hardly a misuse of ordinary moral language to say that this employee of Murder, Inc. ought not to kill. Morality has been emptied of its authority otherwise. In particular, our conviction that moral obligations are universal and apply to everyone has been undermined. To say that morality has authority is in part to say that such claims about what people ought to do can be true regardless of what people believe.

Consider too why people adhere to their agreements. If the motivation for the agreement is self-interest, as Harman says it is, it is not clear they it is not sometimes reasonable for a person to fail to keep their moral agreements. Why should a person agree to live by a set of moral rules and yet selectively disregard those rules when it is in the person’s interest? Why should the rules of morality be seen as possessing genuine authority? This is particularly a problem for Harman’s view that says what creates moral obligations is the individual’s decision to accept a particular moral agreement as binding. This means people can walk away when they choose.

Harman anticipates this objection about “free riders” by saying the agreement implies an intention to carry out one’s part of the agreement on the condition others do the same. But this will not do, Evans says, for if we admit that a moral agreement can be tacit and grounded in actions and intentions rather than an explicit promise, it still must involve an element of commitment over time. Harman sees moral obligations as grounded in relative agreements we can always opt out of, but it is easy to see that a moral skeptic might claim that the view that there are such obligations does not differ significantly from the moral nihilist claim that genuine moral obligations do not exist at all.

Harman’s account fails in another way. Since the individual can opt out of morality altogether, there is no reason to believe that all are subject to moral obligations, nor is there any reason to think that any of us has moral obligations that extend to all human persons. Nor does it seem we have any obligations to people in our own neighborhood we may come in contact with, if these are people who can’t benefit us or harm us. But it seems arguable, quite to the contrary, that some of our deepest and most serious moral obligations are precisely obligations towards people who may be in such categories; for example, those who may be senile or handicapped or unable to act towards us in ways that our self-interest should take into account.

Image: "Construction" by A Levers. CC License. 

The Obfuscations of Stanley Fish

Stanley Fish has written:

"In the period between the attack on the World Trade Center towers and the American response, a reporter from the Los Angeles Times called to ask me if the events of the past weeks meant 'the end of relativism.' (I had an immediate vision of a headline—RELATIVISM ENDS: MILLIONS CHEER—and of a photograph with the caption, 'At last, I can say what I believe and mean it.') Well, if by relativism one means a condition of mind in which you are unable to prefer your own convictions and causes to the convictions and causes of your adversary, then relativism could hardly end because it never began. Our convictions are by definition preferred; that’s what makes them our convictions, and relativizing them is neither an option nor a danger. (In the strong sense of the term, no one has ever been or could be a relativist for no one has the ability to hold at arm’s length the beliefs that are the very foundation of his thought and action.) But if by relativism one means the practice of putting yourself in your adversary’s shoes, not in order to wear them as your own but in order to have some understanding (far short of approval) of why someone else—in your view, a deluded someone—might want to wear them, then relativism will not and should not end because it is simply another name for serious thought."

  So the first way Fish envisions someone defining moral relativism is like this: “a condition of mind in which you are unable to prefer your own convictions and causes to the convictions and causes of your adversary, then relativism could hardly end because it never began. Our convictions are by definition preferred; that’s what makes them our convictions, and relativizing them is neither an option nor a danger.” Let’s call this the “preference” account of relativism. Fish rejects the idea that such relativism can or should go away because, after all, people holding beliefs means they take them seriously.

  And the second formulation of relativism goes like this: “the practice of putting yourself in your adversary’s shoes, not in order to wear them as your own but in order to have some understanding (far short of approval) of why someone else—in your view, a deluded someone—might want to wear them, then relativism will not and should not end because it is simply another name for serious thought.” Let’s call this the “empathy” variant of relativism. And again, Fish says this variant of relativism shouldn’t and can’t go away either.

  The problem here, as I see it, is that Fish has offered two highly idiosyncratic definitions of relativism. Ethical relativism is the view that says morality is relative—usually to culture, though some relativize it to subcultures or even individuals. It’s a subjective understanding of morality in the sense that there aren’t objectively true moral answers—instead the content of morality is a function of individual, subcultural, or cultural choice. The problems confronting ethical relativism are legion and well-rehearsed. What’s interesting to me about Fish is that he simply tries sidestepping all of that by offering two accounts of relativism that have nothing essentially to do with it.

  Consider the preference variant. Fish is of course entirely right to say people prefer their own beliefs. But if so, why would he think that anyone means by relativism the denial of such a thing? If a student did such a thing in a paper, I’d rake him over the coals. So why on earth is Fish, an established academic, doing such a thing?

  Take the empathy variant. There’s nothing indigenous to relativism that involves putting yourself into your enemy’s shoes to see things from his perspective. That may be a cultural or subcultural approach, but it equally well may not be, in which it would be, by relativistic lights, the wrong thing to do. If someone wants a principled reason to embrace judicious tolerance and a cultivated sense of empathy, he needs to look in direction other than relativism. In other words, any good reasons there are to cultivate such attitudes most assuredly don’t come from relativism. So why treat such a thing as relativism’s distinguishing or defining feature except to answer the easy question and avoid the hard ones?

  Fish is an academic who works with words. Remarkable to me how willing he is to bastardize them with such shameless and reckless abandon, and that an outfit like the New York Times accords space to such obfuscation while turning down so many pieces far more worthy but written by folks less well known. For he employed the same procedure in an October, 2001 NYT commentary on 9/11 when he reduced “postmodernism” to merely this: “The only thing postmodern thought argues against is the hope of justifying our response to the attacks in universal terms that would be persuasive to everyone, including our enemies.”

  Postmodernism means lots of things, but surely what it doesn’t mean is the mere suggestion that we can’t persuade terrorists that their tactics are wrong—a recognition anyone has who’s spent more than an hour engaged in substantive debate. Postmodernism isn’t without its insights—the need to see other perspectives, recognize our own shortcomings, demonize opponents, etc. (though I hardly think we need postmodernism to grasp such truths). But I simply don’t see how discussion is advanced when, confronted with the flaws and fallacies of one’s approach, one simply reduces the view in question to an isolated, incidental, innocuous thread and argue it’s harmless, while overlooking the plethora of troublesome and profoundly counterintuitive implications of its more robust (and honest) versions. Serious academics should do a whole lot better.