Who wants to be a Relativist?

So I was scoping the internet today, and I stumbled upon this article:

The Tropes of TruthWinter 1998
RELATIVISM: FEET FIRMLY PLANTED IN MID-AIRFrancis J. Beckwith and Gregory KouklBaker Books, 1998, 189 pgs.
Part of the fun of studying philosophy is that it is a very difficult, technical subject. If you know the meaning of "rigid designator," the "inscrutability of reference," and the "private-language argument," you can gloat in your presumed superiority to those who have no inkling of the complexities these phrases suggest.
In their fascination with the arcane, philosophers often lose sight of the fact that their discipline has the utmost practical relevance. The authors of Relativism do not fall into this mistake. Rather than addressing professional philosophers, they write with a popular audience in mind. They aim to show that false ideas about the relativity of truth foster moral and political errors.
Their case against moral relativism begins with a definition. "Subjective truths are based on internal references and change according to our whims. Objective truths, in contrast, are realities in the external world that we discover and cannot be changed by our internal feelings" (p. 28). Moral relativism holds that ethical truth is subjective in this sense. "Ethical truths depend on the individuals or groups who hold them" (p. 28).
Our authors distinguish three varieties of relativism. The first of these, Society Does Relativism, points to the wide variety of customs among cultures as a reason to deny moral objectivity. The Aztecs sacrificed human beings to their gods; who are we to stigmatize them as immoral? "Since each culture has a different morality, none is justified in claiming that its own brand of morality is correct" (p. 37).
As if this were not bad enough, Society Says Relativism goes further. It maintains that an individual ought to act as the rules of the society in which he lives dictate. Society Does Relativism does not do this; it merely describes the morality of different groups.
But there is one doctrine yet more extreme. I Say Relativism reduces morality entirely to the preferences of the individual. "What is right for one person isn't necessarily right for another person, regardless of the culture in which they live" (p. 38).
Relativist thoughts are very much in the air, as some of the comments on the recent difficulties of our Beloved Leader indicate. "Who are we to judge the president's private behavior?" "Maybe Bill and Hillary have an understanding. Doesn't this, if so, make the president's actions all right?" Comments of this kind illustrate the revolt against fixed standards which our authors wish to challenge.
In their view, all three varieties of relativism are demonstrably false. Against William Graham Sumner, who appealed in Folkways to differences among societies to support Society Does Relativism, they make a commonsense point: "Just because cultures differ on moral viewpoints doesn't mean objective moral truth is a fiction" (p. 46). From the fact that the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice, it does not follow that they were right to do so.
Indeed it does not, but this point does not refute Sumner; it merely notes that he has failed to make good his case. (Incidentally, Sumner held strong views as to what was correct moral behavior in his own society. He was the author of the libertarian classic What Social Classes Owe to Each Other.)
Our authors, alive to this point, endeavor to go further. "Sumner's view, however, is self-refuting. In order for him to conclude that all moral claims are an illusion, he must first escape the illusion himself. He must have a full and accurate view of the entire picture.... Such a privileged view is precisely what Sumner denies. Objective assessments are illusions, he claims, but then he offers his own 'objective' assessment" (p. 48).
This argument does not succeed. Someone, like Sumner, who denies that moral truth transcends culture is not himself advancing a moral doctrine. Rather, he is making a point about moral doctrines. Sumner may well be wrong, but he is not contradictory. (no, he is taking apart a piece to show the whole thing is false and self contradictory. If its going to be true, then it can't be false. This is a logical fallacy of equivocation and should not be listened to. It also promotes a fallacy known as the two wrongs don't make a right fallacy. His very statement regarding this gentleman's set of viewpoints is false).
Oddly enough, Society Says Relativism does fall before a variant of the self-contradiction argument. According to that view, you should adopt a moral rule only if your society holds it. If so, then you should hold this very position only if your society holds it; it says that people should conform to the rules of their group. And most societies conspicuously do not; they condemn other groups for failing to accept their standards.
Beckwith and Koukl do not raise this point. Instead they offer a wide range of other difficulties, some more successful than others, designed to undermine this type of relativism. They argue, wrongly as it seems to me, that you cannot criticize the practices of your own society if you accept Society Says Relativism. Does this not by itself suffice to overthrow the doctrine? For surely we can and do criticize our own society.
But I think this goes too fast. Society Says Relativism allows us to criticize a society for failing to meet its own standards. And often social criticism proceeds in just this way. For example, one might criticize abortion by alleging its similarity to infanticide, a practice condemned in our own society.
The weakness of this argument does not show, and I do not for a moment believe, that Society Says Relativism is true. Readers will derive much pleasure and profit from going over in detail the authors' many points against it.
Rather than praise them for their insight, I shall instead (as you would expect) consider another difficulty with one of their claims. They equate I Say Relativism, the view that morality is relative to the individual, with doing whatever you wish. How, they ask, can an I Say relativist hold himself obligated to keep a promise if he no longer wishes to do so? I should have thought the answer obvious: Keeping the promise may be a rule he himself holds valid. The authors might respond by claiming that if the relativist breaks his promise, he by that fact shows he has adopted a new rule; but there seems little reason to adopt this suggestion. (And as the author has demonstrated, there seems little reason to listen to his view of "not adopting this suggestion." The burden of evidence is against he who accuses. If he wishes to accuse an author of doing something, please provide evidence. Otherwise your claim is just silly and assumptive, creating an objective right in your own claim).
As our authors abundantly show, the issue of relativism affects many essential political controversies. Like Richard Neuhaus and his First Things associates, Beckwith and Koukl take on Romer v. Evans, the Supreme Court decision that overturned a Colorado constitutional amendment banning the inclusion of homosexuals within antidiscrimination laws. They point out the relativist basis of the Court's decision.
"The philosophical ground for this reasoning [of the Court]...is that personal subjective relativism and absolute autonomy are the primary bases for deciding moral issues that touch on public policy. Therefore any legislation that presupposes a notion of what is morally good cannot be rational" (p. 113). This being so, the Colorado statute was in the Court's view based on animus against homosexuals and could not survive strict constitutional scrutiny.
Once more I have a bone to pick. The view that personal autonomy is in some cases an overriding good need not be based on moral relativism. One might hold it objectively true that autonomy is to be respected. This point our authors sometimes recognize but elsewhere neglect. (Moral relativism also picks and chooses its morals. It fails as a set of morals in the first place and is actually a form of Communism, or amoralism. So of course, we would expect this gentleman, a moral relativist himself, to state such a claim).
Rather than pursue the point further, though, I shall conclude by enthusiastic agreement with two other points Beckwith and Koukl raise. They rightly note that although autonomy is often praised, it is seldom defended by argument. Why is autonomy the supreme value? We are rarely told. (This is because we are rarely given a situation in which we need to tell. It proves itself).
The authors also pose a devastating challenge to another often used tactic of moral evasion. Given widespread public disagreement over issues such as abortion and euthanasia, the Supreme Court, it is often alleged, must decide according to "neutral" constitutional principles.
Thus, in Roe v. Wade, Justice Blackmun held that since experts disagree on when the fetus becomes human, the State cannot adopt as its own a controversial moral position on the issue. But such a decision, the authors note, cannot be escaped. "The Court may have denied taking sides verbally, but the practical effect of its opinion is that the fetus in our society is not a human person worthy of protection" (p. 138).
Relativism is not always in my view right; but it is always worth grappling with. Readers interested in seeing how philosophy affects public affairs will find this book a valuable guide. (Relativism is not always right, so it can sometimes be wrong. This means it is self refuting WHEN WE PUT THIS UP AGAINST A TRUTH TABLE! Moral relativism is false on all accounts as is demonstrated. Actions speak louder than words and this gentleman has not given us a single reason to accept moral relativism. He basically confuses the issue at hand, and performs much equivocation in regards to what is known as a logical fallacy. This is a poor way to create an argument and should not be listened to in any form with the exception that the book it is trying to cover is actually one of the best books ever written on the face of the earth).

Let me demonstrate to you how an argument SHOULD sound:

Against Relativism, by Daniel McCarthy
CSAP 510Apologetics Research and WritingFall 200510-31-05In this paper, I will consider some of the more prevalent challenges to absolute truth. First, I will examine Louis Pojman’s essay Discovering Right and Wrong. I will show that Pojman’s critique of ethical objectivism is moral relativism in disguise. I will also show how the foundation of Pojman’s system is not able to support the tenants of moral objectivism. Second, I will show how Alan Dershowitz’s argument for morality without God is self-defeating. Finally, I will review both Pojman, Dershowitz and other relativists attempts to disprove absolute truth. Reading through Louis Pojman’s chapter on “Ethical Relativism”, reminded me of this quote by Winston Churchill. “Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.” Pojman begins his essay in a quest to define an acceptable code of ethics in a world without a Moral Lawgiver. He stumbles over absolute truth by successfully refuting many relativistic truth systems, but quickly gets back up and continues to drive forward while looking for a path towards naturalistic ethics.While searching for the source and reason for a code of ethics, he accomplishes two meaningful ends. First, he effectively refutes a broad range of positions on relativistic truth claims. After refuting these hypotheses, he attempts to show how ethical objectivism is superior. Second, while trying to refute absolute truth claims, he shows how it is very easy to confuse customs and morality which he uses to refute absolute truth claims. Ultimately, his goal is to set up a man made morality tenable in a naturalistic setting where man’s use of reason is the base of all morality through moral objectivism. Pojman fails in his goal to show the superiority of ethical objectivism over absolute moral truth claims. First, Pojman tries to show a significant difference between subjective relativism and ethical objectivism. Throughout his essay, he attacks subjectivists because their philosophy promotes the question, “Who’s to judge what’s really right or wrong?” Pojman counters that objectivism is superior to relativism because, “We can understand and excuse, to some degree at least, those who differ from our best notions of morality without abdicating the notion that cultures without principles of justice or promise keeping or protection of the innocent are morally poorer for these omissions.” His analysis fails.The first question we must ask is who are “We”? Who is this intelligentsia with the insight to deem what is right and wrong? The point of objectivism is to judge what is right and wrong. If so, why is it a virtue not to view these cultures as “morally poorer” or try to change customs that seem not to be tolerant of other people culture? Pojman seems bent on saying that it is wrong to enforce your customs on other cultures by stating, “We have realized that the social dissonance caused by do-gooders was a bad thing.” The hypocrisy of this statement is that he has judged that “do-gooders” were “bad”. Pojman goes to lengths to show that he does not consider these cultures as “morally poorer”, though he views the do-gooders as bad. Pojman fails here because he violates the Law of Non-Contradiction. Here he shows how ethical objectivism is just moral relativism in disguise.How does Pojman attempt to justify his relativism in disguise? Pojman attempts to say that “impartial reason” brings us to this place of enlightenment. The problem is that if man is the base of reason, then man is not qualified to build ethical values because man is not ethical. According to Pojman, who does not believe in God or absolute moral values, since Man is only temporal, he can only build temporal or relativistic values. Therefore, Pojman’s ethical objectivism is nothing more than moral relativism in disguise. He must first set up what he subjectively considers wrong and then judge all other conflicting opinions false.In order to successfully defend Pojman’s dismissal of absolute truth claims, we need to define absolute truth. According to Norman Geisler, “Absolute truth is that which corresponds to its object.” When we consider many of the arguments of moral or ethical relativists, we find that they make man the absolute truth giver; therefore, the object of absolute truth. Pojman completes his chapter by saying, “Who’s to judge what’s right or wrong? We are. We are to do so on the basis of the best reasoning we can bring forth and with sympathy and understanding.” But Pojman’s challenge is to show that man’s use of reason is sufficient to build a universal moral code. In order for man to define what is universally and absolutely true, he must be able to be the absolute moral truth giver. The problem with his analysis is that Pojman repeatedly points out is that Man is a truly evil creature capable of infanticide, genocide and intolerant paternalism. Pojman’s challenge is to build a universal, moral objectivism based upon a creature capable of these qualities. Man’s history is replete with destruction of his fellow Man, war with his neighbors, intolerance towards those in other cultures and destruction of the environment he curses with his presence. Since truth (either absolute or objective) must correspond to its object, Pojman’s observations of Man’s capacity to do evil strongly suggest that Man is not capable of building a universal moral system. Therefore, Pojman’s base cannot support his system.As Ken Samples points out, “Ethical principles cannot exist in a metaphysical or epistemological vacuum; they need a ground or a foundation which can justify them.” Pojman’s ethical objectivism is just another version of relativism disguised in man’s subjective ability to reason. Ethical objectivism is grounded in an epistemological vacuum because as Kai Neilson states, “Reason will never take a man to morality” .Pojman’s major challenge to an absolute moral truth is that societies seem to have different customs. For instance, the Eskimos left their elderly behind to die because they may risk the lives of the clan. In India, until the British outlawed a long held practice of burning a widow alive so they could keep themselves pure for their deceased husbands, we see different tribal customs taking a position on the value of life. Pojman and many other relativists use these examples to show how morals vary from culture to culture. The problem with his assessment is that he is misunderstands the root cause of the actions. For instance, the tribe may leave the elderly behind because they value life. Their lives may be threatened or ended if they stay behind and lose the herd of animals, which is feeding the clan. A wife burned in the fires because her husband died is the ultimate act of love and respect for the husband. She burns herself to join her husband in the great mind of their god. The widow’s life becomes demonstrably more precious once cast into the funeral pyre.The absolute principle of valuing life is the common denominator in these customs. Customs vary in their practice, but are all rooted in their intent. In the Eskimos case, the intent was to protect the future of their clan by practicing natural selection of their elderly. In the Indian case, the culture’s intent was to value the purity of the life of the widow through the practice of immolation. The value of life was absolute. As C.S. Lewis stated, “Their have been differences between their (different civilizations and different ages) moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference.” In these examples, the absolute truth that life is of absolute value is knowable even though their expression of this absolute value varied from culture to culture. We see another approach to building ethics without God by Alan Dershowitz. This method is interesting because Dershowitz attempts to define morals through the negative. We see this epitomized when Alan Dershowitz debated Alan Keyes. Dershowitz stated, “I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S RIGHT! I know what's WRONG. But I have something else to tell you, folks. YOU don't know what's right!” Though Dershowitz says he does not know what is right, he states that he knows it is Right to say that they are wrong. Importantly, his statement is false because it violates the Law of Non-Contradiction. Dershowitz’s claim is also self-defeating. By stating, “You don’t know what’s right,” he claims to know what is right. Ultimately, like Pojman, he bases his assessment of truth on his exclusive point of view. Anyone that opposes his point of view is wrong.Dershowitz’s argument is a newer tactic relativists and objectivists employ when they are confronted with evil figures that grossly violate Natural Law like the Nazi holocaust or by Paul Pot’s Khmer Rouge. As we have seen, Dershowitz’s goal is to set himself up as the arbiter of what is wrong to explicitly define what is right. He states that you cannot pass judgment on any person or any action unless you have a defined standard. That standard must define righteousness or justice. Through Dershowitz’s standard of judging what is wrong, he believes he can now set up a moral code of justice. For instance, Alan Dershowitz, in the same debate with Alan Keyes, railed against the evils of legislating against abortion, same sex marriage, anti-sodomy laws and even the Boy Scouts. Dershowitz highlighted this point by stating, “I just don't think it's wrong to be a homosexual! I just don't think it's wrong to engage in homosexual conduct!” Previously, Dershowitz had stated that no one knows what is right. Afterwards, he betrays himself. Dershowitz does think he knows what is right by stating that homosexuality must be right because he did not think that it was wrong. Dershowitz’s logic fails to circumvent the Moral Lawgiver though because only a moral lawgiver can give a law that shows that something in truly wrong. Like most positivists, Dershowitz’s goal is to make himself the Lawgiver by defining what is right through the negative. Once he defines what is wrong, he can then declare all opposing points of view are wrong. Therefore, this example exposes how Dershowitz’s version of moral relativism is self-defeating and false.Pojman and Dershowitz attempt to justify a code of objective moral values. This attempt reveals the need for an independent standard by which we are trying to measure moral standards by. We see that both Dershowitz and Pojman assert that they can know when things are wrong. C.S. Lewis sums this up beautifully in Mere Christianity. “The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying one of them conforms to the standard more than the other. But that standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as a real Right, independent of what people think, and that some people’s ideas get nearer to that real Right than others. Or put it this way. If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something- some real morality- for them to be true about.” The Moral Law is knowable and undeniable. We know this because as Chuck Colson states, “Truth conforms to reality.” Reality is undeniable and under girded by the laws of mathematics and logic. Proof for the knowable moral law is that people constantly make excuses for breaking it. Chuck Colson talks about a disagreement he had with a relativist. The relativist asserts that all religious groups are the same. Colson counters by pointing out the way towards salvation between Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hindus are very different, therefore, his point of view is flawed.The relativist counters by stating, “They really aren’t truth claims, simply the preferences or beliefs of these groups,” Colson moves to the analogy of taking a pen out of his pocket and dropping it on the table over and over again. He states, “You’ll notice it drops everytime…Don’t we call that the law of gravity?” The man replied, “Oh that is not really dropping, I know enough about quantum mechanics to realize that particles are in constant motion…and those particles are passing through one another.” Colson immediately countered, “Bull. What you see is a pen dropping, mass hitting mass. If particles are passing through, so be it. You are still seeing mass strike mass. One truth claim excludes the other.” The reason one truth claim excludes the other is that there is a law of gravity which is self-evident. The reason people deny absolute moral values is that there is an absolute moral value to deny. Without an absolute moral value, it would be impossible to have competing truth claims. Just because you deny the law of gravity does not mean that gravity does not exist. Post-modernism leaves its adherents as brainwashed to think that they can have, “both feet planted firmly in midair.” We have shown that absolute truth is undeniable and knowable by refuting the claims of prominent moral relativists and objectivists. I have proven that if there is just one absolute moral principle, then there must be a moral lawgiver. That Moral Lawgiver has made his moral truth know just like physical truths like gravity. Absolute truth is undeniable because it corresponds both to its object and reality. Immutable laws like gravity governed reality and act according to Natural laws. Moral Law is analogous to Natural law and is best knowable based on our reactions to negative stimuli. This is why we see objectivist or relativist ethicists try to build a system based upon what they see as wrong with society to determine what is ethical for humankind. Specifically, Pojman and Dershowitz tried to build systems of ethics based on identifying what is wrong which attempt to displace an absolute moral system. The only way they could identify this system of ethics is if there is an independent standard to build their ethical assertions. As C.S. Lewis stated, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust.” Works CitedLewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. New York: HarperCollins, 2001 Edition.Colson, Charles W. The Good Life. Wheaton: Tyndale, 2005Samples, Kenneth R. Without A Doubt. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004.Pojman, Louis P. Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong? Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1990.

What we can see here is that Relativism is a bankrupt philosophy with absolutely no morals involved whatsoever! They can call it what they want to, but I think we can see basing an Absolutist argument against a Relativistic argument that is quite obvious which is the better argument. Moral Relativism always fails, and is unfortunately self defeating and self refuting. If they speak otherwise, no matter what, the argument is always going to be self defeating and self refuting simply because you can not defeat an objective without establishing another objective itself.

OKAY...yeah, so what they say about Relativists entering the "black hole" of thought really is true here. Lets take a look as to why this argument simply fails. I am using this as an example because I rarely see Apologetics sites stumble upon a Relativistic argument and pick it apart. I will (well obviously) succeed in doing this, since Relativism is always self refuting. First point is right off the bat, this gentleman makes an Objective claim, his relativism fails time and time again throughout the article. However, the main thing we need to hack here is his repeated, "He doesn't push forward his morals." To this I state, You are pushing forward your morals against us by implying that we should listen to a moral set of agreements that you believe are true