Is an attack on "relativism" missing the mark?

[OneSheep]

Today I clicked the link on this site that directed me towards a statement about the evils of relativism. I’m not sure I understand “relativism”. If relativism is tolerance, it falls far short. Jesus does not only want us to tolerate the evil we do to each other, he wants us to forgive! Of course that doesn’t mean to avoid stopping people from doing hurtful things, that is not the issue.

Abortion is a problem of dehumanization of the unborn. It is not a matter of relativism, it is a matter of human nature and our mind’s mechanical action of blame and denial. A person who appreciates the unborn will not choose to support abortion. Of course, there are plenty of women who fully know the value of the little person inside, but have an abortion anyway because they are in despair, and in that case they have a lot of grief to put up with. These women are included in those we are called to help, before they go to the abortion clinic.

Same-sex marriage is a matter of difference of opinion, not relativism. Generally, people who support same-sex marriage do not think that intolerance of same sex marriage is okay, they think it is wrong to be intolerant. Both sides of the issue have their rulebooks and expect the other side to tolerate it.

What am I missing here? The envelope of “relativism” seems a little too big to contain all this stuff. These are all important issues that need resolving, and labeling them all as “relativism” seems unproductive.

 

[Scoobyshme]

Today I clicked the link on this site that directed me towards a statement about the evils of relativism. I’m not sure I understand “relativism”. If relativism is tolerance, it falls far short. Jesus does not only want us to tolerate the evil we do to each other, he wants us to forgive! Of course that doesn’t mean to avoid stopping people from doing hurtful things, that is not the issue.

Abortion is a problem of dehumanization of the unborn. It is not a matter of relativism, it is a matter of human nature and our mind’s mechanical action of blame and denial. A person who appreciates the unborn will not choose to support abortion. Of course, there are plenty of women who fully know the value of the little person inside, but have an abortion anyway because they are in despair, and in that case they have a lot of grief to put up with. These women are included in those we are called to help, before they go to the abortion clinic.

Same-sex marriage is a matter of difference of opinion, not relativism. Generally, people who support same-sex marriage do not think that intolerance of same sex marriage is okay, they think it is wrong to be intolerant. Both sides of the issue have their rulebooks and expect the other side to tolerate it.

What am I missing here? The envelope of “relativism” seems a little too big to contain all this stuff. These are all important issues that need resolving, and labeling them all as “relativism” seems unproductive.

Relativism, basically, is a denial of objective truth. Truth has two dimensions, objective and subjective. The objective dimension of truth is what it is. For example, I have a wrist watch on my wrist. It’s a wrist watch. It cannot be a baseball bat, or a tomato, or anything else. It’s a wrist watch. The subjective dimension of truth is our understanding of the objective dimension. And that depends on our ability to understand. Some things, we will never fully understand this side of heaven. And, some folks can understand some things others can’t.

But what relativism says, is that there is no such thing as objective truth. Everything is subjective and is controlled by the individual. They use such terms as “your truth” and “my truth.” This is wrong. Truth, absolutely speaking, is not a viewpoint, or an opinion. It is a Person, Jesus Christ. To deny objective truth is, in effect, to deny Jesus Christ.

 

[ndeparis88]

Also is a big place where relativism goes wrong in the tolerance department. In relativism everything is “your truth”, “my truth” every one’s truth is permissible except yours. In the name of “tolerance” tolerance is being abolished. See we as Catholics believe in objective truths, but with relativism it’s this false tolerance because no tolerates not approving of same sex marriage. Where our line is drawn at marriage and acts. So we are tolerating something but there is a part that we don’t condone, but today the thought is if you tolerate it you have to condone the behavior. I misbehaved kid being rude to his parents, they scold him not because they hate him but because he is being rude.

another danger is relativism allows you to rationalize things that really are just malformed. like if I feel in my head I am faithful to my wife then It’s not cheating if i’m with another woman. now this “tolerance” has to let me do that because I’m not causing harm to anybody physically or emotionally because my wife doesn’t know.

with relativism Catholics are called bigots, and I know from a friend how you can get harassed verbally, because of a bumper sticker supporting traditional marriage, but those people doing the harassing are tolerating right.

 

[Joe_5859]

Relativism is not simply some convenient label that Catholics use to denigrate their opponents. It is a philosophical system of thought that is inimical to the Catholic worldview. It’s a separate thing from tolerance. Tolerance calls for respect for others and/or their beliefs. Relativism says that we don’t just tolerate others’ beliefs, but we cannot know whether one belief system is any better than another.

As Scooby said, simply put, it is a denial of objective truth.

There are many different sub-types of relativism. For example, moral relativism says that there is no objective moral truth. In other words, morality is not dependent on any outside force or natural law. Morality is simply what a given society comes to a consensus on as being acceptable behavior. When you see discussions about relativism, they are most often focused on moral relativism, because that’s the system of thought people fall back on to justify things like abortion, homosexual behavior, etc. (i.e. all the hot-button issues of our day).

You might check out this helpful article from Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft:

A Refutation of Relativism

 

[St_Francis]

Moral relativism means that the morality of an act is determined by the circumstances. So if a woman is distressed about being pregnant, then abortion would be all right for her. The morality does not inhere in the act itslef but elsewhere.

Today I clicked the link on this site that directed me towards a statement about the evils of relativism. I’m not sure I understand “relativism”. If relativism is tolerance, it falls far short. Jesus does not only want us to tolerate the evil we do to each other, he wants us to forgive! Of course that doesn’t mean to avoid stopping people from doing hurtful things, that is not the issue.

Abortion is a problem of dehumanization of the unborn. It is not a matter of relativism, it is a matter of human nature and our mind’s mechanical action of blame and denial. A person who appreciates the unborn will not choose to support abortion. Of course, there are plenty of women who fully know the value of the little person inside, but have an abortion anyway because they are in despair, and in that case they have a lot of grief to put up with. These women are included in those we are called to help, before they go to the abortion clinic.

Same-sex marriage is a matter of difference of opinion, not relativism. Generally, people who support same-sex marriage do not think that intolerance of same sex marriage is okay, they think it is wrong to be intolerant. Both sides of the issue have their rulebooks and expect the other side to tolerate it.

What am I missing here? The envelope of “relativism” seems a little too big to contain all this stuff. These are all important issues that need resolving, and labeling them all as “relativism” seems unproductive.

 

[Cristiano]

Moral relativism means that the morality of an act is determined by the circumstances…

I would re-phrase your statement and I would say that relativism means that morality is determined only by the circumstances.

In reality morality of an action is determined by the act itself, the intention, and the circumstances. For example if we say that morality is driven only by the intention then we switch to subjectivism.

This is a good CAF thread to read:

Can doing something right be morally wrong?

 

[OneSheep]

I think I am starting to understand what “relativism” is, but it still seems counterproductive to label a bunch of issues as “relativism” and condemn everyone’s opinions who do not fall in step. On the other hand, counterproduction is something we can learn from, I suppose.
There are better ways to make change in the world.

 

[Joe_5859]

I think I am starting to understand what “relativism” is, but it still seems counterproductive to label a bunch of issues as “relativism” and condemn everyone’s opinions who do not fall in step. On the other hand, counterproduction is something we can learn from, I suppose.
There are better ways to make change in the world.

Labeling something as relativism (provided it is done accurately) is not so much about condemning as it is an appeal for intellectual honesty and clarity.

If someone says “You have your truth, I have my truth, let’s just live and let live”, that is – by definition – relativism. And as a system of thought, it has some pretty glaring logical inconsistencies (“Is it objectively true that there is no objective truth?”, etc.).

It’s not the issues themselves that are labeled as relativism but rather one philosophical method of arriving at conclusions about those issues. And if one is using a flawed, logically fallacious method to arrive at one’s conclusions (which we all do from time to time), then we would do well to revisit the issue and think through it again.

EDIT: I think I understand your frustration, though. If one comes to places (like this forum) and people start dismissing one’s views on certain issues with a wave of the “relativism” wand (with no explanation as to why such-and-such is an example of relativistic thinking), then it can be a little irritating. It can start to seem like “relativism” is just employed as a knee-jerk rhetorical cure-all to dismiss opposing viewpoints without due consideration. Even if those people are right about something being an example of relativistic thinking, they are doing a disservice to the truth by not explaining it fully and possibly a disservice to charity if they are particularly obnoxious about it.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

The usages of the term “relativism” I most often see are very problematic for me. The other day I heard a usage that made more sense, but in six years of posting it’s the only time I remember seeing it used that way. That was that we “revise” Biblical teachings, basically, to be politically and culturally “correct” such as “adapting” teachings on marriage to include homosexual marriage. At least that usage made sense.

The others don’t.

One of the nonsensical contexts involves insisting upon a rigid, almost paranoid, adherence to written rules of behavior, reminiscent of the Pharisees. That is absolutism, and anything but that is relativistic and therefore evil. To this I say Jesus and St. Paul were among the greatest relativists in history, and if that isn’t immediately obvious I am only too happy to elaborate.

Another usage I see less frequently involves literalistic interpretation of certain scriptures. I say “certain” because, curiously, self-described “absolutists” tend to pick and choose what we MUST interpret literally, namely everything in Genesis, which is not only opposed to Church teachings, but they claim that to interpret anything in the Bible figuratively is relativistic and therefore wrong. When it is pointed out to them that Jesus spoke in parables all the time, they either bypass it and pick a fight with some statement of their opposition that they take out of context, and completely ignore the real objection to their rant, or they provide some gibberish that obfuscates the issue.

I challenge any self-described absolutist to a rhetorical battle on any issue they think I am hopelessly “relativistic” about. I am one of the most anal-retentive people I know. My dad used to work for Standard Oil, and got to proofread press releases the chairman of the board at the time, John Swearingen. He passed much of that along to me, although I am not nearly as good at it as he was. Most of the time when absolutists take exception to my statements, they get emotional and argue in ways that show they wouldn’t even recognize a truly “absolute” statement if it bit them on the nose. As an engineer, when I sign off on a design, there is a great deal at stake if I don’t know exactly under what conditions the design is guaranteed to work according to exactly what specifications, with a quantitatively stated reliability and chance for failure.

For example, I can’t help but cringe every single time I hear “the margin of error of this poll is plus or minus 3 percent.” It is not a “margin of error” at all; it is a “confidence interval” due to “random” sampling, and is a totally different thing. Not to mention there is never a mention of possible systematic errors.

Finally but probably most frequently, I see “relativism” used as a general purpose put down that apparently means, “I am an absolutist and therefore I am right, and to disagree with me is relativistic and is therefore wrong, if not dangerous or downright evil.” I think this one is self-explanatory. If that doesn’t make sense, I would of course be glad to elaborate.

Alan