Wikipedia says: “In philosophy, moral relativism takes the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect absolute and universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances. Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition’s truth.” Well that’s a pretty safe position to take. Universal is a very strong word. Isn’t that about the same as saying that there is nothing with which everyone will agree?
But there is this Christianity thing and this Islam thing, among others. About a billion people derive their morality from Christianity and about a billion people derive their morality from Islam. Although the morality of Christians and Muslims differ, they both believe that it is absolute, that it comes from God. Clearly they both can’t be right but they both believe that they are. So, what it comes down to is that if there is an absolute standard on which to base our morality we can’t agree on it.
Some ask: Who are we to judge the value systems of other cultures? I say we don’t have to judge who is right and who is wrong; we just need to determine if a culture is compatible with ours. And we should not encourage the immigration of people with moral values radically different from ours. I’m not necessarily suggesting that different cultures shouldn’t mix, I’m suggesting that those with conflicting beliefs and practices shouldn’t try to coexist.
For example, I’ve read that some forms of Islam allow (require?, encourage?) the stoning to death of adulterers and honor killings of children. These practices clearly conflict with US law. Are Muslims living in the US willing to give up these practices? We allow the killing of babies. Can Muslims live with that — even considering that they want be forced to commit abortions? We seem to be encouraging homosexuality and at least one state allows same-sex marriage. Can Muslims live with that?
Some cities in the US are already having problems with Muslim taxi drivers that won’t pick up passengers carrying alcoholic beverages or passengers accompanied by dogs. Dogs?? I know they don’t like hogs but was unaware that they have a problem with dogs.
To lighten up a little: Have you ever noticed how many _isms there are? Just related to this topic I’ve found moral absolutism (kind of the opposite of moral relativism), moral realism, moral naturalism, descriptive relativism, meta-ethical relativism, emotivism, universalism and ethnocentrism. More evidence that students are running out of thesis and dissertation topics.