Moral relativism and politics

Lots of people are talking about Eugene Volokh's recent post on moral relativism, so I figured I should provide a link here as well. I have been thinking about this a lot myself; these days I can't open an issue of the evangelical magazine World without seeing a declaration to the effect that "[political issue] isn't about liberals or conservatives; it's about the very nature of truth."

Here's what Volokh has to say about conservative charges that liberals are moral relativists:

Now it's true that, to liberals, some of these principles admit of exceptions — but surely this is true of conservatives, too. Liberals, conservatives, and libertarians all agree, for instance, that killing is generally bad, but the definition of when killing is evil and when it's permissible (or even laudable) necessarily has to be pretty nuanced, so that it properly treats killing in self-defense, killing in war, and the like. In fact, some liberals of the pacifist stripe may employ a more nearly absolute prohibition on killing (at least of born humans) than conservatives do — in my view, that's their moral error, but it's not an error of moral relativism.
. . . .
It's true that some people do employ a sort of cultural relativism, in which actions are made right or wrong by the country or culture in which they happen. This is far from a purely liberal principle, though; in fact, sometimes it's liberals who are most universalist in their calls for human rights. Moreover, while I'm generally not wild about this approach, it seems to me that at least as to some things it does make sense: Separation of church and state is a good principle (at least in some interpretations) for the U.S., but I'm not sure that it should necessarily be equally applied to other countries (for instance, to require England to entirely disestablish Anglicanism). But in any event, this is too tangential a matter, and a matter too divorced from the liberal/conservative divide, to be what the "moral relativism" claims are all about.

Certainly there are real epistemological questions at stake in some of our ethical debates. But I am with Volokh in wondering whether the "moral relativist" label is quite as enlightening as conservatives often seem to think, at least in political matters.

| Posted by Wilson at 16:56 Central | TrackBack
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