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Gil Sanders
Mikage Kuroki
English 1A
April 12, 2015
Moral Relativism: An Antidote
In a world of ideas and a sea of minds, we need to be aware of just how powerful an idea
can be. In the Inception movie, the main character Cobb makes a crucial observation: An idea is
like a virus, resilient, highly contagious. The smallest seed of an idea can grow. It can grow to
define or destroy you. Every act in history, whether for good or for evil, has been caused by a
belief of some kind. The most dangerous of ideas are those that threaten our very own well-being
and destroy the foundations of knowledge altogether. We see a clear example of a dangerous idea
in the Inception when Cobb describes how his wife was possessed by the idea that she was in a
dream, and the only way to get back to the real world with their children was to commit suicide.
Turns out Cobb planted this idea into his wife during her dream-state. Imagine a similar idea that
tells us morality is an illusion of the human mind that needs to be eliminated. Such an idea would
remove a significant part of what makes us human. Not only is this a possibility, but it is an idea
that has already been planted into our minds by society.
This idea is known as moral relativism. More precisely, moral relativism is the belief
that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint (for instance,
that of a culture or a historical period) and that no standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others (IEP). In other words, moral values are not absolute in the sense that they are true independent of time, place, or opinion but are relative to the individuals preferences. For example, rela-

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tive to person X abortion is wrong, but relative to person Y abortion is good. No view is superior
to the other. The belief that murder is wrong merely amounts to saying that person X finds murder unpleasant in the same way that vanilla is unpleasant to Xs taste buds. There is no standard
over and above the person that makes murder objectively wrong anymore than claiming that
there is a standard that makes chocolate objectively better than vanilla. Murder is objectively acceptable but a society could decide to punish murderers because murder is unpleasant for the majority of individuals. This is similar to a society of chocolate lovers placing vanilla lovers into
Willy Wonkas chocolate prison cell because the majority find vanilla unpleasant.
Moral relativism, however, is a false idea that has virally infected our societys well-being and our only antidote is to restore a belief in moral absolutes as understood by the natural law
tradition. Like any deadly virus, we need to understand why relativism is dangerous, how widespread it is, and what caused it in order to find a suitable antidote. Once we find the antidote, we
need to make people aware that the antidote exists. Applying this metaphor more concretely,
well see how dangerous moral relativism is, how widespread it is, and the arguments used to
cause belief in relativism. The antidote of any false idea must refute the arguments that caused
the idea to go viral (like white blood cells attacking a virus) and if necessary offer a plausible
alternative. Natural law is that plausible alternative because as well see, it provides an objective
method for discovering what is good and what is evil. The last part is making people aware that
this antidote exists. Writing to change peoples perspective as this paper does, using the Socratic
method to persuade others, and passing this knowledge onto our education system should be the
primary means of spreading this antidote.

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Moral relativism is a dangerous idea that extinguishes the light of moral principles,
crushes all hope of progress, and has catastrophic consequences for our society. John Tasioulas, a
moral and legal philosopher at Kings College London, notes that the social roles of the parent
and child, teacher and student, official and citizen, friendship, and so on are deeply textured by
by the ethical standards we recognize. Moral principles act as a lighthouse that guide individuals into forming proper characters and relationships. Without those principles, there is nothing
better or worse about choosing to become a murderer when you grow up over becoming a doctor
that saves lives. Furthermore, there cant be any notion of moral progress if moral relativism is
true. We cannot say that America is better for having gotten rid of slavery because theres no
standard to compare progress to; each person has their own definition of progress. Martin Luther
King Jr.s actions against racism arent heroic or progressive if morality is relative. You could
just as easily hail the KKK as heroic and progressive. Who then decides what is right in a relativistic society? Either those with power get to choose whats right and wrong, or the majority
impose their (intolerant) values onto the minority. As the relativist Hobbes held, only a Leviathan
state that held absolute power over its citizens can subvert anarchy from occurring. All men will
seek their own self-interest which produces anarchy but the states power is the only force
that can keep this in check. Relativism inevitably destroys a society into seeking absolute power
or absolute chaos.
Today, relativism is a prevalent idea in the minds of most Americans. Professor Kreeft, a
philosopher at Boston College, notes that the modern West is the first society in history whose
mind molders are moral relativists. There has never been a society of relativists, any more than a
society of solipsists. According to Barna Research, about 64% of adults and 83% of teenagers

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believe morality is relative to the circumstance. Only 22% of adults and 6% of teenagers held
that moral values are absolute. Thats a staggeringly low number compared to what it was in the
previous generations. As the Barna study explains, relativism is gaining ground, largely because
relativism appears to have taken root with the generation that preceded today's teens. Surprisingly, a substantial portion of these voters regard themselves as born-again Christians. To see
how close to home this really is, consider a discussion that took place in Professor Kurokis English 1A class at PCC. Two classmates, David and Kevin, had a discussion with me over morality.
Kevin argued we should remove morality because it stifles scientific progress with concerns over
whether something is right (e.g, cloning). David argued that morality was subjective because its
something that we are taught by our parents, and not something we can prove via science.
We should understand what makes relativism false and not just what harm it causes. We
may not like the fact that the human species will become extinct due to the death of the sun or
some other natural cause, but we must still accept it as an inevitable truth (with the exception of
divine intervention). Similarly, it is indeed the case that relativism is harmful to us but it could
still be true even if we dont like its consequences. To be critical thinkers, we need to objectively
analyze the arguments in favor of an idea and determine whether its logically consistent with the
facts. Nonetheless, noting the consequences of an idea is important for helping us take an idea
seriously. Its easy to dismiss relativism as a problem for philosophers in their ivory towers, but
as Professor Kreeft notes, you sow a thought, reap an act; sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit,
reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny. Relativism is therefore a very real problem.
Well need to create an antidote that consists in refuting the arguments for relativism and replacing it with an objective moral system.

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The argument from moral diversity is a common argument in favor of moral relativism.
Relativists argue that different cultures have different moral systems (as anthropologists and sociologists document) and that this is evidence of moral relativism because if moral absolutism is
true, then there shouldnt be different moral systems. For example, some differ on issues like
capital punishment, fornication, abortion, racism, etc. But this is factually incorrect. There may
be differences in certain moral issues, but there remains a large degree of agreement. As Lewis
points out, From the Babylonian Hymn to Samos, from the Laws of Manu, the Book of the
Dead, the Analects, the Stoics, the Platonists, [] he will collect the same triumphantly monotonous denunciations of oppression, murder, treachery, and falsehood, the same injunctions of
kindness to the aged, the young, and the weak, of almsgiving and impartiality and honesty. This
is not something one would expect if moral relativism is true. To borrow an analogy from Kreeft,
languages sound radically different but they each talk about the same objects. Similarly then,
every society may appear to have radically different religious or social practices but underneath
this there are common moral values despite the differences. Furthermore, the argument itself is
what logicians call a non-sequitur (conclusion doesnt follow from the premise). There may be
different accounts of how humans evolved, for example, but it doesnt follow from this that we
did not evolve after all. So even if it is true that there are significant moral differences, it doesnt
follow that there are no moral absolutes.
Social conditioning is another known argument for relativism. The argument claims that
we are conditioned to believe in moral values because our parents and society taught them to us.
If we had been brought up in a Buddhist society, we would have Buddhist moral values instead.
The fact that morality is taught to us demonstrates that it is an invention of the human mind.
However, this argument falsely assumes that whatever is taught to us must be manmade. Mathe-

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matics is taught to us as well but we dont believe its manmade. To invalidate a belief on the basis of its origin is called a genetic fallacy. Hitler, for example, couldve taught kids that 1 + 1 = 2
but you cant say its false because Hitler was an evil bastard. Similarly one cant invalidate the
belief in moral absolutes merely because it was taught to us by society. How else are we expected to learn? Finally, its also true that if you were born in Canada, you would be taught to measure temperature using Celsius as opposed to Fahrenheit, but none of this proves that there is no
objective way of measuring temperature. One must already assume moral values are manmade in
order to be persuaded by this argument.
The last and perhaps the strongest argument for relativism claims that morality depends
on religion, which means morality cannot be proven in the way that scientific claims can. Basically, this argument concedes that absolute moral values may exist, but we have no reason to believe that they in fact exist because we cannot determine what religion is the correct one. Its all
taken on faith despite there being no evidence. Scientists, however, must depend on observation
and experimentation to discover truth. What method can we possibly having for discovering
moral truths? Its not as if we can find the commandment Thou shalt not murder in some particle. However, there are several problems with this objection. First off, as C.S. Lewis says,
[u]ntil modern times no thinker of the first rank ever doubted that our judgements of value were
rational judgements or that what they discovered was objective. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle,
Aquinas, and all of the greatest thinkers throughout time have believed that morality can be discovered via reason. Religion wasnt necessary to discover that something is good or bad, but this
is not to say that morality exists independently of God either. Second, the fact that human nature
is strongly inclined toward believing that there are absolute moral values is evidence (not absolute proof) that there are indeed moral values. Normally we don't have natural inclinations for

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something unless that something exists. This doesnt hold true for artificial inclinations like the
desire to ride on a unicorn because the inclination isnt universally engrained in human nature.
We all developed the natural inclination for hunger because food exists. It may not exist at certain places, but it can be found somewhere. Similarly, we have a natural inclination to follow the
moral law because its something that really exists. It may not exist as a physical object but it
does exist somewhere. Lastly, even if we dont have a precise method for discovering moral
truths, it doesnt follow that we cannot know that there is such a thing as right or wrong. Before
science we knew that water was a liquid via experience, but we didnt know what made it a liquid (H20). Does this mean we couldnt know water was a liquid before science? Of course not.
We too can know that something is wrong via experience before understanding what makes it
wrong.
However, contrary to the above argument, we do know of a method for objectively discovering what is right and wrong, and its called natural law. Dr. Feser defines natural law as a
method that grounds morality in human nature. In particular, it defines what is good for us in
terms of the ends for the sake of which our natural faculties exist. In other words, we can determine what is good by making reference to how well something fulfills its nature. To borrow
Dr. Fesers stock example, it is good for the squirrels at PCC to climb trees, find acorns, and run
around freely because this is the nature of a squirrel. But its bad for a squirrel to be genetically
predisposed to drinking alcohol in large quantities even if it enjoys doing so because it is harmful
to its nature. The natural law is like a physical law in that it refers to regularities, but unlike a
physical law a thing can fail to be the sort of thing that it should be. Like scientists we observe a
multitude of squirrels and not just any one individual squirrel in order to know what should be
true of all squirrels in general. A squirrel is better or worse in terms of how well it exhibits the

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qualities that we discovered all squirrels should have. Does this mean that we should condemn a
drunk squirrel for acting immorally? Of course not. Inherent to the concept of morality is the
idea of responsibility. So far all weve talked about are non-moral goods, but a moral good
comes into the picture when the being in question has an intellect and a will. Humans can know
what is good for their nature and choose to to pursue that good, thereby giving them some degree
of responsibility over their actions. Morality then has to do with examining the intentions of a
person and their circumstances to see whether it fulfills human nature.
Lets examine how natural law would work in practice. How would we know that murder
is wrong under this view? Its morally wrong because life is essential to our nature and murder is
an intentional removal of life, which makes it contrary to our good. Our classmate David objected to this argument by arguing that death is a part of nature because all humans eventually die.
While it is true that all humans die, its not true that death is a part of our nature because death is
the removal of our natures, not an addition to it. A ball, for example, is round by nature but after
some years it may decay into a flat object. But its false to say that a ball is by nature a flat object
because at that point it no longer is a ball in the first place. We can say that a ball is blue because
it adds something to the balls nature. Death and decay only takes away from nature, they cannot
add to nature. Therefore death is not a part of our nature. We can also determine that lying is
wrong because we can assess that the function of our communicative faculties is to express what
we think. But to lie is to express something that is contrary to what we think, so lying is inherently wrong. Now the arguments and issues here are more complex than just outlined here, but this
should give you a general overview of how natural law works. Not only is natural law immensely powerful but it has enormous practical use in every day life. Martin Luther King Jr. himself

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appealed to natural law in the Letter from Birmingham Jail in order to explain why its right to
disobey manmade laws against a peaceful protest. Natural law trumps the written law in the same
way new scientific discoveries trump what is written in scientific textbooks.
Now that we know what the antidote to moral relativism is, its important to focus on
spreading awareness that this antidote exists and persuading relativists to accept it. One method
of spreading awareness is what Mary Pipher calls change writing. All it means is that the writer
attempts to connect to the reader in order to persuade them of a certain position for the good of
society. This is precisely what this paper has been doing all along. Writing books, articles, blog
posts, and the like all go a long way toward persuading others. This is what Aristotle and Plato
did in refuting the relativists (known as sophists) of their time and it worked. For centuries afterwards relativism was dead. The Socratic method is another means of spreading truth by conversing either publicly or individually. This method consists of asking questions to individuals
until a contradiction or flaw is uncovered. Does it work? As a matter of fact it does. Kevin, the
student mentioned earlier, had seen the light after we had a good discussion over moral relativism. He now believes that morality is absolute. The cost? Nothing. You dont need to be a
philosopher in order to apply any of these methods. The common person could understand most
of what has been said here without any problem and relate these ideas to their friends. With
mediums like Facebook or Twitter, you can spread ideas like wildfires. Inevitably this will stir
debate and that should be encouraged because this can only further advance the truth.
Now someone may propose that we should put taxpayers money into the education system and have politicians pass laws that favor natural law. Theyd advocate putting forth programs and classes that teach moral absolutes. While I agree that this can help, its not the best

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method to start out with. The problem is that a society that already believes in moral relativism
wont pass these laws or advocate these programs in the first place. The battles lies in the mind,
and the only vehicle that can reach the mind are ideas in conversation or writing. Once you conquer the mind, youll see it trickling down into our education and political system as a natural
consequence. Additionally, it's best to avoid using taxpayers money as much as possible. Eventually well need to spend money to pass on this knowledge in college via an ethics class, but this
should be done after cutting down on other expenses to make it affordable since this problem
takes precedence over a great deal of other things the government spends on. Ultimately we need
to address this problem immediately, lest we destroy ourselves.
Moral absolutes are the most relevant and unavoidable facts in the world. Absolutes a
part of who we are as human beings. Absolutes are in our every day conversations, in our
movies, our culture, and expectations. We expect to be fairly treated by others, and if anyone
harms those we love, we are morally outraged. We have a right to be because nature tells us what
is right and wrong; its written in our hearts. As Oderberg notes, the moral laws are so written
because the natural moral law cannot wait. It brings with it an urgency that the nonmoral law
does not. Man can no more do without morals than he can do without water. Thirst seeks to be
quenched, and the law seeks to be fulfilled. How well we live according to this law will determine how well we live. To conclude with C.S. Lewis: It seems, then, we are forced to believe in
a real Right and Wrong. People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the
multiplication table.

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Annotated Bibliography
Americans Are Most Likely to Base Truth on Feelings. Barna Group. Barna Group. Web. 3
Apr. 2015. This is an online article thatll provide statistics to show how widespread the
problem is. Specifically itll explain how 75% of adults from 18-35 hold to relativism and
that 52% of young adults base their moral choices on feelings. Even Christians hold to
some form of relativism, which serves to show how toxic this idea is.
Feser, Edward. The Role of Nature in Sexual Ethics. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly. This paper provides a clear definition of natural law to help the readers understand
what it is. This also gives the position some credibility given that Feser has a PhD in philosophy and has extensively written on this issue.
Kreeft, Peter. A Refutation of Moral Relativism. San Francisco. Ignatius Press. 1999. Print. This
is a book thatll help me offer convincing arguments in favor of the solution. In particular
Ill be using the conversational tone of the book to justify moral absolutism (or natural
law) as true for the average person. Im planning to use some of its examples to make it
easier to understand and a bit more entertaining.
Lewis, C.S. The Poison of Subjectivism. Calvin College. Calvin College. Web. 3 Apr. 2015.
This essay will help me refute certain arguments for moral relativism. More specifically,
itll show how the argument from moral diversity is false. Lewis has credibility in this
area because he has studied the history of morality in various cultures.
Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York. HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 1980. Print. This is a
book that will provide an experiential argument for my solution. Specifically I will be
using Lewis ability to persuade the reader of there being objective moral values and that

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most do believe in them through self-evaluation. He has examples that are practical and
can reach the human psyche even if mind is resistant.
Oderberg, David. The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Law. Natural Moral Law in Contemporary Society. Ed. H. Zaborowski. Washington, DC. Catholic University of American Press. 2010. 44-75. This scholarly journal will help me describe my solution. In particular I will be using it to explain what natural law is and how it is objective. In other
words, natural law is exactly like the law of physics in that it is something we can discover independently of our feelings.
Tasioulas, John. "Consequences Of Ethical Relativism." European Journal Of Philosophy 6.2
(1998): 172. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 Apr. 2015. This scholarly article will help
me define the problem with ethical relativism. In particular it will assist me in determining what consequences follow from relativism and why, as well as answering objections
that may come from relativists.
Westacott, Emrys. Moral Relativism. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. IEP. Web. 3 Apr.
2015. This encyclopedia entry will provide a list of objections and responses from both
relativists and critics of relativism. More specifically itll provide me a good overview of
what I need to respond to if I hope to convince the readers of my solution.
Escobar, David, and Orellana Kevin. Personal Interview. 11 Apr. 2009. This discussion, which
was arguably an interview, took place in class and demonstrates how pervasive moral relativism is at our schools. Ill be addressing Davids arguments in hopes of persuading
him and using Kevins conversion to moral absolutism to support my solution.