2 - 19 - 18 Moral Relativism

"You shall not act dishonestly in rendering judgment.

Show neither partiality to the weak nor deference to the mighty,
but judge your fellow men justly.

Two forms of moral relativism are descriptive and meta-ethical. Descriptive relativism merely asserts that moral structures differ between cultures and peoples. It’s a reasonable premise, and as such it’s quite widely accepted.

Meta-ethical moral relativism is the first thing that came to my mind when I thought of “moral relativism.” This is the assertion that there is no objective moral truth, so we can’t say one culture’s moral structure is better than another.

I’m going to paraphrase C.S. Lewis throughout as he’s got fantastic arguments on this topic.

I think the first thing to realize about this second kind of moral relativism (I won’t discuss the first anymore) is that it disallows you to make nearly any value judgments about the actions of other people, unless you are sure you fully understand the moral structure they were raised in. So then maybe we can judge people who were raised in the same culture, time, and place as us? Well, probably not.

My sister and I didn’t receive exactly the same instruction in morality. My brother, by virtue of being eight years older and the eldest (whereas I am the youngest), didn’t receive precisely the same instruction that I did. It’s quite obvious that once I look outside my family my hopes of finding someone raised identically are dashed.

But even if I did, do I really, perfectly understand the moral system I was raised in? There were many years that I did, or did not, abide by the rules for the sake of abiding by the rules. Surely someone who doesn’t break the law because “it’s the law” doesn’t understand that law. They don’t grasp its subtleties, its origins, how (down to the minute detail) it might apply differently to them as it does to other people.

So they should never be able to judge anyone for anything! “Judge” has a very negative context, especially when a Catholic is talking about it, but by judge I really mean the pure sense of the word, the sense in the passage from Leviticus today. I mean to evaluate, to decide fairly, to award credit and shame as they are due.

Some people may have a revulsion to even this most agreeable form of justice. They may say things like, “That’s the Old Testament, we live in the covenant of Mercy” which is true, and beautiful, but not exactly helpful in lifting our fellow people into righteousness and joy.

Because we’ve just got to live in a cause-and-effect universe for anything we’ve been taught to make sense. It’s deeper than our culture, it’s biological! If you want to drive someone insane or despondent the quickest way is to put them in a situation where their environment cannot be manipulated. Where things just seem to happen, and the worst part is, not only is it out of their control, they can’t even tell why.

Justice is simply the social branch of cause-and-effect. Justice in the abstract is, justice in its perfection is. Justice in its perfection deals out the exact reward or punishment an action merited. If we interact with a perfect Justice throughout our lives it should be quite clear and easy which decisions to make, which ways to go.

Well isn’t perfect justice such a nice idea? Wish we had such things on earth, but it’s simply not going to happen so why even talk about it.

Because in our current times we are embracing arbitrariness! “Show neither partiality to the weak nor deference to the mighty” is so far out of touch with our reality. People will punish the weak, knowing they cannot exact retribution. Or they will esteem and praise the mighty hoping for some reward.

These are quite obviously bad, but the reverse is just as damaging to a sense of justice.

People will defend the weak when they have obviously done wrong, arguing that the rules don’t apply because they’ve have a hard life. Applying the rules is the only way to not have a hard life! If we’re talking about the things we can control, which is the only thing it’s usually useful to talk about, we should thank anyone who can push us closer towards living rightly. It’s the only thing that will grant us peace.

Or, this is very popular, people will deride and condemn the mighty and successfully merely for being just that. I will admit this is probably the least damaging of the errors as the prominent can usually just ignore these people but it raises the question of reciprocity. Surely, we don’t want people in power over us to be arbitrary, and hate us because of things we can’t control, or worse, hate us for our virtues. So why then should we do the same to others?