Quote of the Day | June 26, 2008: Moral Relativism

More from Sam Harris' 2004 The End of Faith:

Many intellectuals tend to speak as though something in the last century of ratiocination in the West has placed all worldviews more or less on an equal footing. No one is ever really right about what he believes; he can only point to a community of peers who believe likewise. Suicide bombing isn't really wrong, in any absolute sense; it just seems so from the parochial perspective of Western culture.

Throw a dash of Thomas Kuhn into this pot, and everyone can agree that we never really know how the world is, because each new generation of scientists reinvents the laws of nature to suit its taste. Convictions of this sort generally go by the name of "relativism," and they seem to offer a rationale for not saying anything too critical about the beliefs of others. But most of relativism -- including moral relativism, which seems especially well subscribed -- are nonsensical. And dangerously so. Some may think that it is immaterial whether we think the Nazis were really wrong in ethical terms, or whether we just don't like their style of life. It seems to me, however, that the belief that some worldviews really are better than others taps a different set of intellectual and moral resources. These are resources we will desperately need if we are to oppose, and ultimately unseat, the regnant ignorance and tribalism of our world.

The general retort to relativism is simple, because most relativists contradict their thesis in the very act of stating it. Take the case of relativism with respect to morality: moral relativists generally believe that all cultural practices should be respected on their own terms, that the practitioners of the various barbarisms that persist around the globe cannot be judged by the standards of the West, nor can the people of the past be judged by the standards of the present.

And yet, implicit in this approach to morality lurks a claim that is not relative but absolute. Most moral relativists believe that tolerance of cultural diversity is better, in some important sense, than outright bigotry. This may be perfectly reasonable, of course, but it amounts to an overarching claim about how all human beings should live. Moral relativism, when used as a rationale for tolerance of diversity, is self-contradictory.

Tags: Sam Harris, The End of Faith, Religion