Confessions of a Moral Relativist
Sermon by Steve Edington
January 12, 2003
Reading
John M. Chrisman, "The Evolution of Moral Values." Humanist Magazine. July/August, 2000.
One way to think about how morals evolve is to compare the process with the amoeba. Many perhaps remember the amoeba as it looked under our microscopes in elementary biology class - a slithery, little one-celled blob. It moved slowly by sticking out tentative fingers of itself (we learned these projections were called pseudopods) and now and again simply flowed all of its blob into one of the pseudopods while abandoning and withdrawing from the others. Simultaneously, it was already putting out new pseudopods, into one of which it would flow.
If there were a particular direction achieved by all of this, one could see that the amoeba had "moved" to a new location while abandoning the old. What did it accomplish? If lucky, it may have surrounded and absorbed an item of nourishment or escaped a danger. In other words, this is how it lived and enhanced its existence.
If we look back over our cultural history it can be seen how our values have developed in a similar way and how they are still in flux. For example, slavery was gradually abolished in Western culture, first in Europe and then in the United States: An abolitionist voice or deed here or there, more and more voices and deeds, insurrections, a presidential debate, a war. Owning other human beings as chattel-a practice accepted for millennia-became unthinkable. Before the 1920s women, incredibly, could not vote in the United States; now, after a long struggle, they can. Alcohol prohibition has come and gone but drug prohibition is still in flux. Capital punishment is still in flux-at least in the United States. Abortion has become acceptable to many but is still unthinkable to others. And the choice of suicide to end terminal illness is gaining support.
But these are just modern examples. Rules about warfare - what is or isn't "just" - have come and gone throughout human history. Throughout the Middle Ages concern for noncombatants gradually developed, but in U.S. history we had such things as Andrew Jackson's order that as many Cherokees as possible should perish along the infamous Trail of Tears, and the slaughter at Wounded Knee. By the time of World War II we had the deliberate bombing of cities, beginning with Guernica in Spain and escalating on all sides.
The point is that acceptable morality ebbs and flows into one pseudopod after another as society's consensus adopts new attitudes. Despite the fact that most people like to think that values are eternal and that without a god that created them "anything goes," what we find in historical experience is that values are relative and are humanly created.
Sermon
It has been several years since the inquiry came to me by way of the feedback section of our church's website, but I still remember it quite well. It was from a young woman and it said, in part: "My best friend, who is a Christian like myself, is exploring his sexuality and his search is revealing that he is gay. I don't know what to think. I'm hoping you can offer some guidance to people who are confused about the sin vs. the biological questions about homosexuality. I'm scared and confused, as I know he is. Could you possibly send me any text about what God thinks about people like my best friend. Some guidance besides scripture - I've read the scripture."
My first take on this was that perhaps I should feel flattered that someone is asking me what "God thinks" about a particular matter. This young lady must think I move in pretty rarefied circles if I have that kind of knowledge. But I do not mean to make light of her very real concerns and the concerns of her gay friend; and I did answer the inquiry as best I could. I'll share some of what I said later. But what strikes me the most about this inquiry is the assumption this woman holds about the source of moral authority: "Could you send me any text about what God thinks?" This is a person who, by all indications, is sincerely struggling with how she feels about the sexual orientation of a friend of hers and is wondering if there is a moral issue involved. Her final court of appeal, so to speak, is what "God thinks." She's looking for the moral bottom line in a real-life situation.
The assumption being made about morality and codes of moral behavior here is that they are ultimately rooted in some source beyond human experience or human construction. It could be either in a Deity, however conceived; or in what our Enlightenment ancestors - Thomas Jefferson, for example - called "Natural Law."
This is a common, and quite understandable, assumption. What parent, for example, has not said, at some point of exasperation, to his or her child after running out of offering explanations for a parental command: "Because I said so, and that's all the reason you need!" Way back in my pre-parenthood days I made a promise to myself that I'd never say that to a kid of mine. That turned out to be one of the more easily, and most frequently, broken promises I ever made to myself. It is not that big of a step, really, to generalize from this kind of common parental experience, or - on a larger scale - from our human attempts to formulate our truly necessary laws and codes of moral behavior and ethics, that morality itself ultimately must come from some kind of cosmic, supra-human "Because I Said So." There may be debate over just who or what this "I" is that is "saying so" but the idea that Morality (with a capital 'M') ultimately derives from a fixed source that is beyond us is a commonly held one. And there are those who firmly hold that to question, or to deviate from, such an idea is to teeter on the precipice of a very dangerous chasm called "moral relativism."
Well, teetering or not, I'd like to make the case, the positive case, for moral relativism today, with my underlying point being that it is really the only kind of morality there is. A related point is that it is the reality of moral relativism that calls us, as human beings, to moral responsibility and moral decision making.
So, what is "moral relativism" anyway? That depends upon whom you ask. But in the searches I did on the topic, via books, the web, and the print media it generally comes across as a very "bad thing." According to spokespersons for the religious right - Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye, et. al. - it means the absence of any kind of morality whatever, which is what you get when persons and nations turn away from God. In his book Slouching Towards Gomorrah Robert Bork weighs in with the opinion that "for society as a whole the major and perhaps only alternative to intellectual and moral relativism and/or nihilism is religious faith." What was of interest to me, though, as I made my way through such material was that I could find no explicit endorsement of the only alternative, really, to moral relativism, which is moral absolutism. This gave rise to a couple of thoughts: The first is that the real danger to humanity is moral absolutism rather than moral relativism. The second is that any moral principle or law or precept one can put forth is conditional, meaning that is has to be applied relative to the circumstances and in the setting in which it arises. And that is what moral relativism, as I'm using the term here, actually means.
To stay with this matter of moral absolutism for just a bit longer, much of what has been called "man's inhumanity to man" has been perpetuated by those who believed they were acting in an absolutely morally correct way. Most acts of terrorism are grounded in moral absolutism. Those were not moral relativists who crashed those planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon a year and a half ago. Those who did those horrible and deadly deeds were absolutely convinced of the moral rightness of their cause. When Timothy McVeigh parked that van full of explosives next to a federal building in Oklahoma City and killed over 300 men, women, and children who were in building he was not acting - in his mind - on the basis of moral relativity. He was absolutely convinced of the moral rightness of his deed. When abortion clinics are bombed and when doctors who provide abortion services are murdered it is not moral relativists who are inflicting the destruction and death but rather those who are convinced they are enforcing God's absolute law.
On the secular side of the scale, totalitarian regimes subjugate and oppress entire populations - and will wantonly kill off substantial portions of those populations if deemed necessary - in the name of the absolute moral authority of the State. The absolute moral principle in effect here is that the "good of the State" takes precedence of all other matters and concerns. While I haven't done the research on this, I'd be willing to bet a substantial chunk of change that more death, destruction, and general human misery has been brought about over the course of human history in the name of moral absolutism than could ever hope to be done in the name of moral relativity. So please spare me this business about how it's the moral relativists who are leading us all to hell in a hand basket.
A related question to all this: Are there, in the end, actually such things as "moral absolutes" of either a religious or secular nature? I think not. Even when you look to the source of any so-called moral absolute you find a certain degree - in greater or lesser quantities - of wriggle room. Consider the commandment "Thou shalt not kill." I cite it since it's one of the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament Book of Exodus that are often referred to as the basis for "God's Moral Law." Well, if you read the larger text within which this and the other nine commandments are embedded, the same God who allegedly handed down this dictum from on high didn't seem to have much of a problem with the people to whom he gave this supposedly eternal moral law wiping out entire Caananite villages of men, women, and children. In many cases, actually, He commands them to do just that. A very learned Old Testament professor of mine from my divinity school days once told us in class that the most accurate translation of this commandment, taking into account the earliest available Hebrew texts as well as its historical context (which is how I learned to read the Bible as a seminarian) is "You shall not commit murder within your own tribe." Well now, compared to "Thou shalt not kill," "You shall not commit murder within your own tribe" is rather, well... relative I would say.
Okay, it's time for me to finally get on the track as to where I really want to go with all this and still get us out of here in a reasonable hour. Moral relativity does not mean, as Robert Bork and others of his ilk hold (with no small amount of intellectual dishonesty), nihilism or amorality or the absence of any kind of morality at all. I find that it's usually the persons who make that charge who are also the ones most eager to impose their own brand of alleged moral absolutism on the rest of us.
Morality, values, and ethics are not just important, they are essential to human survival and well being. This is why we have them and why they have evolved, albeit in a rather halting fashion, over the course of human history. Moral relativism is the recognition of this simple truth: That morality is of human origin and has evolved along with humanity itself for the sake of human survival and human well being; and therefore-as I view it-has a certain sacred quality about it for that reason alone. A moral relativist is one who recognizes the broad moral and ethical values and precepts that have served the cause of humanity over the course of human history, and who seeks to apply those values and principles in whatever personal, or social, or socio-political situation it is that calls for moral decision making.
This is the point made by Dr. John Chrisman in the reading I used earlier; and it is the basis of an essay published some ten years ago by the biologist/philosopher/humanist Dr. Edward O. Wilson called "The Biological Basis of Morality." I'd like to turn to it for the next several minutes as it amplifies some of the thoughts I've been sharing. Wilson shows, as I've already noted, that the most common understanding of morality is that it ultimately comes from sources beyond the human - either as a revelation of God or from some natural philosophy. Wilson calls these "transcendent sources." But then he goes in another direction: "Moral values come from human beings, whether or not God exists... ethical codes have arisen by evolution through the interplay of biology and culture."
If one is of a basic humanist persuasion, as I happen to be when it comes to the origins and basis of morality, then this is hardly earthshaking news. I have my ways of believing in God, but a Supernatural dispenser of morality is not one of them. But for many the absence of an other-then-human source of morality is a scary notion and it's why a term like "moral relativism" sounds so threatening. In his great novel The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevski captures this fear very well when he has the character Ivan say "If God is dead all is permitted." Wilson does not make reference to this passage in his essay but I would guess that his response to Ivan would be reflective of some what I've said earlier: That human history is rife with examples of human beings acting as if everything is permitted, but doing those very things in the name of God. Wilson grants that much that is good and right and noble has been done in the name of a transcendent source of morality, and he names Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King as examples of persons who took this idea of a transcendent source of the Good and used it for the good of humanity. Dr. King, for instance - and whose birthday we celebrate next Sunday - strongly believed in a transcendent God of Love and Justice who called on His followers to be His agents of love and justice on Earth. That was moral underpinning Martin Luther King brought to the civil rights movement. While I may not exactly share Dr. King's theology, I have to admire and respect and deeply honor the work he did on the basis of that kind of moral theology.
But Wilson goes another route in identifying the source of morality. In a way similar to Chrisman's amoeba analogy, Wilson holds that there came a point in human evolution when the earliest humans realized that their survival depended upon their willingness to band together and cooperate rather than each trying to survive alone. This, in turn, led to the evolutionary trend of our genes to develop in such a way as to predispose us to co-operative behavior. This process, in turn, gave rise to moral sentiments and codes of moral and ethical behavior that were ascribed to transcendent sources to give them their authority; that cosmic "Because I Said So."
There is a downside to this process, however, that we've always had to deal with, and which Wilson notes by saying "The dark side of our inborn propensity to moral behavior is xenophobia." What he means is that cooperation mostly occurs within groups, tribes, or nationalities who define themselves and their well-being often in opposition to other groups, tribes, and nationalities. "Thou shalt not commit murder within thine own tribe," remember. This is part of the human dilemma: We are predisposed both to cooperate on the one hand, and to assert our personhood or grouphood on the other. Sometimes these two drives work against each other - sometimes in very tragic ways.
Wilson holds out some hope for the resolution of this dilemma in ways that I must admit sounded more optimistic when he wrote them over a decade ago than they do now. Nevertheless, his hope is that as we as a species learn more about our common origins, and our attempts over the ages to become moral creatures, the better we will come together as a species. Here's what he says: "Material reality discovered by science already possesses more content and grandeur than all religious cosmologies... We are a single gene pool from which individuals are drawn in each generation and into which they are dissolved the next generation, forever united as a species by heritage and a common future..."
This is very similar to what I often say at a memorial service I'm leading; that there is an ongoing "Flow of Life" that is as old as life itself. We come out of that Flow for a time, have our individual life here on earth, and then return to that larger Flow in the course of time. We also leave something of ourselves for those others who are still having their lives here. That is my concept of Eternal Life - that we are each and all eternally related. This idea of eternal relation, I feel, is also the ultimate basis of morality. In many ways our world has become an even more fragmented and fearful place since Wilson put forth this idea. I only hope we can still catch something of his vision of a united species with a common gene pool. Would we in this nation/tribe of ours be as willing to inflict death and destruction upon the members of another nation/tribe-however noble and high minded our leaders may be able to make the rationale for doing so sound - if we could see the actual peoples of that other nation/tribe in the kind of relationship that Wilson describes?
To move to a final point - with a little more help from Dr. Wilson - one can be both a moral relativist, in the way I've tried to define the term this morning, and a religious person as well, Dr. Bork's either/or dichotomy (a false dichotomy, I maintain) of the two notwithstanding. In the latter part of his essay, Dr. Wilson has a section titled "The Hunger for Spirituality" in which he notes, "The human mind evolved to believe in gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology." That's a candid admission coming as it does from a renowned biologist. He is recognizing that human beings have real yearnings that rationalism alone cannot address. We did not, we do not, stop asking why when we stop being children. We just take the why to another level: Why am I here? How do I know what is right? How am I related to myself, to my neighbor, to my family members, to my community, to my nation, to my world? These are religious questions and they are moral questions that we are called up to struggle with and to answer and live out as best we can. To pursue them honestly and thoroughly means looking at the truths that scientific inquiry can disclose as well as the human truths we find when we look into the deepest needs and yearnings of our own souls, and when we truly seek to understand and relate to and in some way try to fulfill, the deepest needs and desires in the hearts and minds of our fellow human beings.
One more pass at Dr. Wilson: "Religion," he writes, "will possess strength to the extent that it puts into enduring poetic form the highest values of humanity consistent with empirical knowledge." That, I feel, is what we try to do here. We must always remain open to the truths that the natural world holds for us, even as we seek ways to respond to those human, spiritual needs for a sense of relationship with all of Life and with one another. I believe we do have a religion that does indeed allow, if not compel, us to put into poetic form the highest values of humanity. And if there must be a bedrock basis for morality then I would cast my lot with Wilson's assertion that we are "forever united as a species by heritage and a common future." From the family, to the neighborhood, to congregation, to the community, nation, and world - the kinds of moral behavior that is necessary for living and for life abundant in each of these kinds of settings should proceed from this notion that we are "forever united as a species by heritage and a common future." Moral relativist that I am, that's as close to a moral absolute as I can come.
Oh yes, how did I answer that young woman asking about her friends's sexual orientation? Those of you who've been listening to me over the years now can probably figure it out. I first said that sexual orientation itself is not a moral issue - sexual behavior and the moral choices we make about how we live out and within our own sexuality is the real moral challenge, which needs to be based on respect, care, and love. As to what God thinks, I said the following: "I don't know what 'God thinks' about you're asking me. Since my concept of God is really that of a Life Force or of a Power within Ourselves similar to what Ralph Waldo Emerson called the 'Spark of the Divine' he felt resided in the souls of all people, then I believe we have this power within ourselves to draw upon as we make our moral choices and as we take responsibility for them." [See, I told you you'd be able to guess what I said.]
To conclude, then: If Dr. Wilson is right, as I believe he is, about our sense of morality being an innate and inherited human trait, we are still left with the task of making moral choices, relative to that truth. One of our tasks as a religious community is to provide a setting wherein we do not have to make these choices in isolation. We have the support and the interaction of others in resolving the dilemmas and decisions that confront us. It is because we share a common future that we need communities of moral and ethical decision making where in the words of Alicia Carpenter we may celebrate and cultivate:
"A mind that's free to seek the truth;
A mind that's free in age and youth,
To choose the path no threat impedes
Wherever light of conscience leads."
Stephen D. Edington
January 12, 2003
Copyright © 2003 by the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua NH. All rights reserved
