Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air

by Francis J. Beckwith

Relativists can’t accuse others of wrongdoing.

When right or wrong are a matter of personal choice, we surrender the privilege of making moral judgments on others’ actions.

The approach many relativists take at this point is confused. First, they say that the Holocaust was evil and ask why God would allow such depravity. Later, when the tables turn and their own behavior is in question, they argue that morality is merely a matter of opinion.

What are values clarification exercises meant to teach? That there are difficult ethical circumstances in which the lines are not clear and the solutions are ambiguous? We already know that. No, these exercises go further. They imply that because some circumstances are ethically ambiguous, there are no ethical certainties at all.

In fact, to affirm that some perceptions and claims are flawed and that we can progress in our knowledge of the world after detecting these flaws assumes the reality of objective truth.

Evidently, on some college campuses it is permissible to behave like a tramp but impermissible to be called one.