I have been having a conversation with a co-worker recently regarding postmodernism. This is a topic that I’ve had some exposure to through my studies at Biola University, especially in courses taught by R. Scott Smith, author of Truth and the New Kind of Christian: The Emerging Effects of Postmodernism in the Church.

As we were discussing this topic, it became clear, however, that our understanding of the topic differed. As my friend kept describing postmodernism, it kept sounding to me like psychological perception. Let me explain.

Each example seemed to revolve around how words influence our perceptions of reality, not that the reality itself is somehow influenced or restricted by words (as is my understanding of postmodernism). One of the examples was that as we begin to place importance on something, it becomes important in peoples’ minds because the importance placed on the item by our talking about it affects how people feel about it. I completely agree with this.

If a company is getting ready for a big audit and the company trains its employees what to expect from the auditors, the employees expect the audit to go as the company has trained. In the minds of the workers, the audit exists as it has been described. But this is only a psychological perception! The actual audit may be completely different than anticipated. The words did not influence the truth of the actual audit; they only influenced how people perceived it. This is not “pomo,” but perception, right?

Because there are moral concepts that have appeared in every society, regardless of their contact with each other, there must be a source of morality that is distinct from these individual societies. Although the moral relativist claims that morality is a human invention, morality is not something invented by human beings at all. Instead, there are “absolute” moral concepts that are true, regardless of whether you are living in Manhattan in the year 2004 A.D. or in Egypt in the year 2004 B.C. Noted anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn has written:

Every culture has a concept of murder, distinguishing this from execution, killing in war and other justifiable homicides. The notions of incest and other regulations upon sexual behavior, the prohibitions on untruth under defined circumstances, of restitution and reciprocity, of mutual obligations between parents and children—these and many other moral concepts are altogether universal.

Clyde Kluckhohn, “Ethical Relativity: Sic et Non,” Journal of Philosophy 52, no. 23 (1955): 672[journal on-line]; available from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X%2819551110%2952%3A23%3C663%3AERSEN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K.

So, the moral relativist’s claim that “moralities” differ from culture to culture does not seem to correspond to anthropological research even dating back to 1955. The source of this morality cannot, therefore, be the cultures themselves, but must be something extrinsic, but shared by them all.

Notice, though, that even if the moral relativist could claim that morality is something invented by human beings and is thus definable, then surely one could also make the same sort of claim elsewhere. If there were no absolutes then many disciplines would cease to be relevant. Consider mathematics; where would it be if two plus two stopped being four? What about academia? How can a professor assess a student’s understanding of a topic if there is no absolutely-defined topic to understand? It seems to me that two plus two continues to be four regardless of whether a person believes it or not; a group cannot simply get together and vote to change such a thing regardless of their political power or group size.

The moral relativist might argue that morality is simply a preference decision rather than an absolute truth such as the result of adding two integers. Unfortunately for the moral relativist, it has already been shown above that all cultures have similar moral concepts. If all groups do, in fact, vote to define their version of morality, it certainly is a striking coincidence that they seem to always vote in the same way and for the same issues. Moral concepts are therefore more like mathematics (static) than they are like preferences (dynamic).

Also, the simple act of group agreement does nothing to change the trueness of moral concepts. Since moral truths have commonalities that transcend cultures, we cannot simply agree them away just as we cannot agree for a new result of the mathematical addition of two and two. Suppose the suicidal jumper in our story brought along a friend and they both agreed that gravity (another static concept) no longer had any power over them. If they both leapt from the bridge, I’m certain that the only thing that would change in the story is the addition of another falling body. Just like the gravity that draws their bodies closer and closer to the earth at an increasing rate of speed, the concept that “suicide is wrong” was apparent to both the jumpers and to the on-looking commuters because it is also a static concept and therefore an absolute truth.

Moral relativism is based on the false assumption that the existence of differences of opinion equates to the nonexistence of any “correct” opinion. A moral relativist may argue that we cannot know which version of morality is right, and so none of them can be wrong. But does the alleged existence of multiple moral belief systems necessarily mean that all of these belief systems are correct, regardless of whether or not we can know which is right? It seems to me that this is the same as saying “Since we cannot agree, and we really can’t know who is right, we both must be right.” But two sides holding conflicting views about an issue cannot both be right (although they can both be wrong), regardless of whether or not we know who holds the right view.

To further understand this concept, consider the following scenario: If Johnny’s mother asks him where his piggy bank is, Johnny will tell her a location that either does or does not correspond to where it actually is. Notice that even if Johnny says that it is under his bed when his mother thought it was on his night-stand, it could actually be in his closet because his younger brother moved it there the night before, unbeknownst to Johnny. Given this example, I can imagine a situation in which Johnny knows where the piggy bank is, but his mother does not; his mother knows where it is, but Johnny does not; and when they both do not. Outside of shattering the bank into multiple pieces, I fail to think of a situation where Johnny and his mother can both hold differing views about the location of the bank that both turn out to be correct. Likewise, differing opinions about morality do nothing to prove the truth or falsity of any specific moral concept. Just because one culture may not know with certainty that either their views or the views of another culture are right or wrong does nothing to the right- or wrongness of the morality of any of these views.

Moral relativism does not provide us with a standard to judge the actions of other cultures, leaving us with no intelligible difference between the good or evil actions of other cultures or individuals. If moral relativism is true, we cannot judge other cultures as morally wrong.

A moral relativist might respond by saying that the world would be a better place without its Bonnie and Clydes, Manson’s followers, and the Nazis, but we cannot say that these groups were “wrong” for doing what they did because, as one moral relativist, Gilbert Harman has written, “they are beyond the reach of the relevant moral considerations.” In other words, since they are outside of the group that we have formed, we cannot place our judgment upon them. What was wrong for the world might have been right for the Nazis and we have no place to say otherwise. They can only be judged by their own version of morality which, by the way, made their actions perfectly legitimate. There exists no ultimate standard with which to judge them by. Any collection of individuals can, at will, determine what is and what is not moral.

If such a belief was actualized in the real world, however, human civilization would be destroyed. There would no longer be any moral reason to stop the Hitlers or the Mansons or even the Bonnies or Clydes of the world from completing their evil missions. Thus, the group of commuters had as much of a right to urge the suicidal woman to her death as Hitler had to murder countless numbers of Jews.

On the other end of the spectrum, there would also be no reason to praise social do-gooders like Mother Teresa. Since there are no “bad” acts, there are also no acts that are inherently “good.” Under the guidelines of ethical relativism, Mother Teresa is Hitler’s moral equal. Both are “right.” However, when attempting to define a system of morality, surely one can do better than to create a system that shows no difference between an individual that most of the world has viewed as “good” (Mother Teresa) and another individual that most of the world has viewed as bad (Hitler). Moral relativism’s lack of discernment between these two extremes disqualifies it as a practical—and therefore acceptable—system of morality.