Bad relative

By ‘moral relativism’ I take it to mean that there is no standard by which we necessarily have to live, and with that there is no way to determine the ethical truth of any thought or action made. A person can effectively live a “moral” life in any such fashion as his present society and surroundings will allow. This is very common in our society today, many people live what they feel is to be a moral life; they don’t steal (much), don’t kill, and are kind to others (mostly). This system can work very well for any individual at any given time, but as a whole it is very dangerous for a society to adopt moral relativism as its basis of existence. A somewhat extreme but also common example of where moral relativism can lead you can be found in places such as prisons, where we all know and hear about what can happen in these ‘societies’. Most of us on the outside can say, “It’s terrible in there.”, because we have our present living conditions to compare to. But what if we didn’t have anything to compare it to?

I have an analogy for moral relativism. Two carpenters each have to cut 100 boards all the same length. They measure their first board with a tape measure and each cut their respective boards to the correct length. Because it’s easier to now use the cut board as a gauge to cut all the rest of the boards, they begin to do this. The first carpenter keeps his original board and always uses it to measure the next board. The second carpenter (hopefully not the one you hired) uses the board he last cut to measure each successive board. When they get to the 100th board, whose do you think is closer to the original length? Right. The second carpenters was 2 inches too short (or long) than it should have been and all the boards in between were some length leading up to this. This is due to a gradual error that will always build on itself if not referred back to the original standard.

By societies going the route of relative morals we will find ourselves so far from what we originally intended that we may not recognize ourselves or have anything to compare back to. This in itself might not be so bad in theory, but things seem to always head downhill when there is no standard or compass to guide us.

Star This to Save in Your Profile