Moral Relativism and Its Implications

If you don’t know already, CBT has recently implemented what is being called “Monday Night Discussions,” which take place on the last Monday of each month. A topic is submitted at least one week before the last Monday of any given month and the group takes it from there. It is a fantastic way to bring topics to life, share ideas, learn new things, and stand for the truth. The topic suggested by one of the students this last time was the difference between moral relativism and moral objectivism (or moral realism). If you didn’t get the chance to sit in on the discussion, you missed a real treat. But never fear, for what follows is an explanation of moral relativism and its opposite: moral objectivism/realism. Included below is a rough following of the major points that were covered on this a particular “Discussion Monday” night. 

Before we even begin to answer the question of what moral relativism is, we must first come to a basic understanding of what relativism implies. Stated most basically, relativism affirms that the truth of any given question (in our case, the truth of moral questions) resides in the person answering the question. This is to say, the thing that makes an answer either right or wrong is the person’s opinion on that particular question; the truth of the matter is found in the subject. 

For instance, suppose you were having a conversation with your friend about ice-cream. Over the course of conversation, it comes up that your favorite flavor of that frozen goodness is chocolate. To your surprise, your friend disagrees with you! Rather than affirming the supremacy of the chocolate flavor of ice-cream, he chooses to give credence to the vastly inferior flavor of strawberry. Now both you, the reader, and I, the author, can clearly see that your hypothetical friend is in great need of immediate correction. After all, strawberry is most certainly NOT the supreme flavor of all ice-cream flavors. That spot is reserved for chocolate. And so you proceed to try and change your friend’s mind by showing him the error of his ways. Shortly thereafter, you find yourself hotly debating who is right and who is wrong; is chocolate or strawberry the right flavor to like best? 

Hopefully you already know the answer. Both you and your hypothetical friend are correct: chocolate is the best flavor for you and strawberry is the best flavor for him. You both have different answers, contradictory answers nonetheless, that are both simultaneously correct. But how can this be? The answer is that the truth to the question “which flavor is best” relies on the opinion of the person (in this case, you and your friend) answering the question. There is nothing inherent about the flavor of chocolate that makes it superior to all other flavors. The only reason that chocolate is better than strawberry is because you think that chocolate is better than strawberry! And the same holds true for every other person on the planet. But here is the twist: What if you woke up one morning and found that strawberry was actually your new favorite flavor? Well, then strawberry would then be the best flavor for you. You see, based on nothing else than personal preference, people can have conflicting answers to the question “which flavor is best” and all be 100% right all at the same time. How can this be? It is only possible because ice-cream flavor is an issue that is relative to each person.

But what about the opposite and opposing view: objectivism? Consider a counter example to the ice-cream illustration used just above. Suppose I had a book. Suppose further that I placed this book on top of the Empire State Building in New York City. Lastly, suppose you and I went throughout Edmonton and asked people if my book was on top of the ESB. When we gather our results, we find that 30% of our survey said the book was there and 70% said it was not. Who is right? The 30% got the question right. Now what about this: I want you to imagine that every single person capable of rational thought took our survey and that 100% of the answers (that is approximately 7.4 billion people) said that the book was NOT on top of the Empire State Building. Question: is the book on top of the building? Yes! It does not matter one bit what people think about the book, the truth of the question is determined by the object, not by the people answering the question (hence, “objectivism”). Therefore, even if no one thought that the book was there, it would not change the fact that the book still stood on top of the building.

Now that we have a basic understanding of relativism and objectivism, we are prepared to deal with the topic of moral relativism. Given what you now know about relativistic thinking, what would moral relativism imply? It would imply that questions of morality (i.e. abortion, theft, lying, etc.) were relative to each person. For instance, have you ever heard the expression “Abortion may be wrong for you, but it’s not wrong for me.” Or “If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one!” These claims reduce the moral question of abortion to mere claims of personal preference. You might as well be talking about ice-cream: “Don’t like chocolate? Don’t have any!” But Christians affirm that morality is much more than mere preference. Christianity affirms that morals are objective; that they are real and exists independently of what any person on earth things about them. 

Take for example, the Salem Witch-hunts. Overly superstitious people would put women (primarily) on trial for being a witch and practicing sorcery. In order to test whether the accused was a witch or not, they would tie them to a chair, throw them in a lake and see if they floated. Or, they would place a plank of wood across their chest, having great amounts of weight on either side of the plank. If their chest was crushed, they were not a witch. You can see where this is going. If they died, they were innocent. If they lived, they were executed. A lose-lose situation if ever there was one. We can all agree that this behaviour is immoral regardless of what people think of it. The people who conducted the “trials” most likely thought they were doing the right thing. But they were wrong. Their actions were immoral regardless of what they, or anyone else though. 

What about a more pronounced example? Take the Nazi Holocaust. People were killed in torturous ways simply because of their race. Others were killed because they were seen as “unfit” to reproduce, or because they had mental disabilities or different sexual orientation. Children were killed along with the elderly. Surely this was one of the darkest moments in human history. But what if Hitler had won the war, killed everyone who thought the Holocaust was wrong and brainwashed everyone else into thinking it was right? Question: would the Holocaust still have been wrong? This author is compelled to think that it would be. But if certain things (such as boiling babies in wax for entertainment) are wrong even if everyone thinks they are right, moral objectivism is true.

Atheism, the system of thought which affirms the proposition that God does not exist, cannot account for moral objectivism. In atheism, there once was nothing. After an indeterminate amount of time (please excuse the sloppy description, but this is only a rough sketch of supposed billions of years) nothing exploded and created everything. Everything flew in all directions and then came together to form planets and stars. One of these planets, now called “Earth” was a big rock in space. This rock produced chemicals and the chemicals made bacteria. Today, we call the more advanced species of bacteria “humans”. Every now and then, one of these more complex biochemical machines will destroy another complex biochemical machine. We call this “murder”. But how in the world would the atheist ever be able to affirm that this thing we call murder is objectively wrong? It simply cannot be any more wrong for one human to kill another human than it is for one lion to kill a gazelle. Atheism cannot account for the moral features of reality that we answer to on a daily basis. So then, we can agree that, if God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. But as we have seen very briefly, objective moral values and duties do exist. The conclusion follows logically and inescapably, therefore, that God exists.

There is one other very significant implication of this fact: we are all obligated to conduct ourselves morally. In other words, God has set the standard and we are morally obligated to meet that standard. However, when someone takes the time to do serious self-reflection, they will realize that something deep inside their innermost person is broken. Something inside each of us is dark and twisted. It’s something we are ashamed of - embarrassed about. We all have a profound feeling of raw guilt inside. We all know that there are certain moral standards to live by. But we also know that we have all failed to meet that standard. Just like we tried to hide the fact that we stole a cookie from the jar before supper, we try to hide our moral shortcomings. And, just like we deserved to be punished for taking the cookie, we deserve to be punished for our moral crimes. Dear reader, there is only one known cure for guilt. It’s not acceptance, anger, sadness, or confession. It’s not anything we can do. The only cure that guilt has, the only cure for the human condition, is forgiveness. Jesus Christ, who walked the earth and lived among us, came to give you that very thing: forgiveness. Christianity correctly identifies mankind’s most fundamental problem: guilt. But Christianity is the only religion that offers the only solution: forgiveness.

It was a long read this week, but that’s only because it was such a great discussion. If you like what you see here, won’t you stop by Athabasca Hall at 6:00pm on Monday? We would love to see you! And if you don’t like what you see, submit a topic for a Monday Night Discussion (and if you want, come prepared!). We always welcome the opportunity to discuss important issues in a safe environment.

Aaron Johnson