Philosophy in the Toilet
Duffy sent me a quote from Jonah Goldberg with the usual conservative objections to “moral relativism.” OK, it’s a slow day; I’ll bite. Goldberg writes, “the central assumption of post-modernism is that independent moral judgments are impossible and that conviction is a substitute for fact. If my personal truth is true 'for me' no one can say otherwise.”
Whether deliberately or out of plain ignorance, Goldberg makes his case by conflating two distinct issues – epistemology (how we know what we know) and moral philosophy (how we know what we’re doing is right) – and coming to the conclusion that:
When you hire a plumber, are you looking for someone who can fix your toilet, or are you looking for the person most concerned about fixing your toilet? ... The answer explains why we don't hire postmodernists as plumbers, and why we shouldn't hire them as politicians -- or professors -- either.
The point of confusion here is easy to identify. Fixing a toilet properly requires mastery of a certain body of knowledge (this I know, because I have yet to master it). Only a fool would suggest otherwise. Making moral or political judgments, however, comes down to matters of personal belief whose rightness or wrongness can only be tested in the world in oblique and indirect ways.
Goldberg’s metaphor is deceptive because in the cases of both a broken toilet and a broken ideology, it’s easy to see what’s wrong: something isn’t connected where it should be, and the result is a stinking mess. Both can be “fixed” by bringing the parts into proper alignment using sound and well-established principles: of plumbing in the one case, and of logic in the other.
The problem comes in assessing the results. We can confidently say a toilet is “good” when it works as expected. The best we can say about any moral argument is that it is consistent, that it “makes sense” in that the conclusions proceed inevitably from the premise. But the premise of any moral case is irreducibly arbitrary, no matter how emphatically people on either side believe otherwise. If you don’t believe it, examine a common example.
Take the abortion debate. Both sides have logical arguments pointing to completely opposite conclusions. The reason is that one group starts with the premise that the life of the unborn child is fundamental, and the other with an unshakeable belief in the absolute right of the woman to determine her biological destiny. There is some middle ground, but sooner or later, anyone making a moral judgment on this issue needs to consult their own conscience and set priorities accordingly. Unlike the problems of domestic plumbing, there is no “fact” at issue here: just competing convictions.
Some might suggest that religion points to a way out of this problem by setting clear and firm standards by which to judge the rightness of moral decisions. That might be true if there were one religion and one interpretation of its teachings common to all humankind. Instead, the multiplicity of faiths, and denominations within each faith, and the way each individual understands his or her religious faith, suggests that at a certain level, we all crave the freedom to make our own decisions about fundamental values that affect our lives, even as some of us hunger for the comfort of institutional approval for the decisions we make.
Once again, however, it comes down to personal choices: which religion? How strict an interpretation of the dogma? How much to respect the choices of others versus the desire to impose conformity? History right up to the present moment has shown that in our quest for Truth with a big “T,” we often trample on many little truths. The 9/11 terrorists had absolute faith in the rightness of their cause, as does President Bush. In the face of a silent God (or a God who speaks in so many voices that it might as well be silence), how are mere mortals to decide whose Truth is worth the cost in human lives?
Moral relativism, for all its unsettling complexities, is an honest way to address these questions by making each person responsible for setting his or her own values. People are still accountable for their actions, and must still reconcile the choices they make in their lives with whatever basic assumptions they make about the world. Judgments are not forbidden: they are just understood to be provisional, made for concrete and instrumental reasons rather than out of adherence to some metaphysical ideology. Proponents are not advocating anarchy, but simply a more reasonable and tolerant society where the deeply-held beliefs of everyone (except those who harm others) are respected equally.
None of which should be confused for epistemological relativism: the assertion that there are no facts, and that everything we experience in the world is a matter of personal interpretation. That is a different contention, and one which I am far less willing to defend. To the extent that Goldberg has an argument with that perspective, however, he should stick to it and not bring in the more politically-loaded matter of morality.
Moral relativism, properly understood, leads us to a more peaceful society, free of the fearful, illogical, and often violently oppressive baggage of the less-enlightened past. Epistemological relativism, on the other hand, leads in my opinion to a kind of collective insanity that threatens the accomplishments of intellect, art and technology we have achieved in our history. It is not only possible to make a distinction between the two, it is necessary. Goldberg should attend to his own leaking intellectual toilet before spreading his shit all over this complicated philosophical debate.
10:24:26 AM 
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