The Madness of Moral Relativism

 The Madness of Moral Relativism https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/the-madness-of-moral-relativism?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=novashare 

The Madness of Moral Relativism https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/the-madness-of-moral-relativism?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=novashare 

Cliffe Knechtle, the Yale-educated pastor, recently sat across from Tucker Carlson. The conversation, though wide-ranging, sharpened on one theme: moral relativism. Knechtle said what many already sense: relativism is on the rise, and our culture is increasingly allergic to moral absolutes. He lamented it, but he didn’t go nearly far enough. Carlson prodded, Knechtle nodded, and the moment moved on. But this subject deserves to be pressed harder because moral relativism isn’t just a philosophical curiosity. It is poison, and it’s poisoning us fast.

Knechtle has spent decades debating students on college campuses, fielding questions about God, morality, and meaning. He has faced the classic lines: “What’s true for you isn’t true for me”; “Morality is cultural”; “There are no absolutes.” Always, he has tried to nudge skeptics toward the idea that truth exists outside of our preferences. His effort is noble. But if moral relativism is gaining ground, then it must be answered with more than polite nudges. It must be answered with a definitive, uncompromising dismantling.

Moral relativism, put simply, is the belief that right and wrong depend on personal opinion or cultural perspective. It sounds tolerant. It flatters our desire for autonomy. But it crumbles under the force of its own contradictions. If all morality is relative, then there can be no condemnation of anything, anywhere—not genocide, not slavery, not rape. If morality is just a cultural costume, then the Nazi uniform is no worse than a business suit, and the gulag is no worse than a schoolhouse. Relativism, when stripped of its disguises, defends nothing and permits everything.

Consider the common defense: “But what about other cultures?” Yes, cultures differ. The Greeks practiced infanticide. The Aztecs performed human sacrifice. Some societies mutilate girls to ensure their “purity.” Do cultural differences make these practices acceptable? If you say yes, then you have abandoned all moral ground. You can’t condemn the slave trade or the Holocaust, because someone, somewhere, considered them culturally valid. If you say no, then you have already admitted a universal standard by which you judge. Either way, relativism collapses.

This same relativism now infects debates over immigration. We’re told that defending borders is xenophobic, that preserving culture is bigotry. The claim is that every culture is equal, so every practice and every custom must be absorbed without resistance. 

But cultures are not equal. Some elevate human dignity. Others crush it. Some respect law and order. Others thrive on corruption and violence. If we pretend all cultures are interchangeable, then we hand our own over to dissolution. A nation that refuses to defend its moral core in the name of relativism cannot survive.

If we pretend all cultures are interchangeable, then we hand our own over to dissolution. A nation that refuses to defend its moral core in the name of relativism cannot survive.

Relativism also drives the excuses we hear for crime. Theft is treated as an expression of poverty. Assault is excused as a response to oppression. Murder is softened as the by-product of “different values.” If morality is subjective, then the criminal is just an alternative moral agent, and punishment is nothing but cruelty. But when morality bends, justice disappears. Victims vanish into the background. Communities decay. And law enforcement becomes little more than a display. A society that excuses crime through relativism abandons its citizens to predators.

Another dodge is the claim that morality evolves. This sounds sophisticated until you look closely. Of course, societies grow in understanding. But growth implies a standard of better and worse. If morality is relative, there is no better or worse, no progress at all, only flux. You can’t say we are better for abolishing slavery unless you assume a standard outside of shifting opinion. Without absolutes, moral progress is impossible. History becomes nothing but a string of empty costume changes.

Still, others retreat into empathy: “Can’t people decide for themselves?” That works until one person’s decision destroys another’s life. If morality is just preference, then a criminal’s desire is equal to his victim’s plea for justice. If right and wrong are subjective, then justice itself is an illusion. Try telling a mother whose child was murdered that the killer merely had “different values.” Relativism falls apart in the face of human suffering.

Look at the 20th century, the bloodiest in human history. Totalitarian regimes thrived not on rigid moral codes but on the rejection of absolutes. Hitler dismissed objective morality as a “Jewish invention.” Stalin scoffed at universal rights. Mao declared morality to be whatever served the revolution. Each replaced truth with power. The result was slaughter. When truth is relative, might makes right. And when might makes right, the weak are crushed.

Even in softer, modern forms, relativism corrodes. In the courtroom, it undermines justice. In schools, it reduces teachers to entertainers. In marriage, it erodes vows until they lose their meaning. If laws shift with opinion polls, they cease to be laws at all. A society built on relativism is a society without anchors. It drifts, then it drowns.

Some try to hedge: “Maybe a few absolutes exist, but most morality is relative.” This is no more coherent than saying gravity usually applies, except when it’s inconvenient. Either morality is grounded in something beyond us or it is nothing but preference in costume. There is no middle ground.

Others insist: “I have my morality, you have yours.” But morality, by definition, governs how we treat others. It cannot be locked into private bubbles. If morality is private, then courts are tyranny, laws are illegitimate, and the weak have no claim on the strong. If you believe murder is wrong only for yourself, you protect no one else. Society disintegrates under that logic.

Cliffe Knechtle was right to sound the alarm. Moral relativism is rising. Students, politicians, and even clergy are intoxicated by its promise of freedom. But it is a false freedom because a world without absolutes is a world without dignity, justice, or meaning.

The truth is this: moral relativism is never acceptable—not in theory, not in practice, not even a little. Because once you accept that morality is relative, you have no ground to stand on when the tests come—when a dictator crushes dissent; when a terrorist slaughters civilians; when uncontrolled immigration erases national culture. Either you say, “This is wrong”—wrong everywhere, for everyone, always—or you say nothing at all.

Author

John Mac Ghlionn