Myth 1.  The Christian right is the only purveyor of moral realism.

The Christian right's spokespeople have repeatedly implied that secular humanism, liberalism and religious tolerance are equivalent to moral relativism, or, as they put it, an 'anything goes' society, lacking a 'moral compass' . These misrepresentations have become veritable mantras of rightwing talk radio hosts and evangelists.  Having established a false portrait of liberalism, the theocratic right pose in front of this backdrop as the sole guardians of moral realism.

Moral realists maintain that moral statements like `female circumcision is wrong' are expressions of beliefs, which can be true or false. So, whether or not it is wrong to circumcise females does not depend upon one's cultural positioning or worldview. It depends upon the way the world is, on what properties an action, person, or situation really has.  The realist holds that value judgments are related to facts, and, if true, mirror as closely as possible the way the world actually is.  There are many facts that are made true by the way the world, including the human world, is. Realists maintain that giving reasons in support of moral claims is appropriate. "The practice of female circumcision causes unjustified female suffering" is a factual claim about the way the world is. It is either true or false.  It may be difficult to prove, but we know how to prove it.  According to moral realists, the truth about moral beliefs is culture-transcendent. What this means is that a moral statement is either true or false -- whether or not we have evidence of it's truth or falsity. Truth, for the realist, may go beyond our current or future methods of testing the truth of statements and so we could always be completely mistaken.   One problem for realists is that even where two parties agree on the facts, they may not agree on the relevance of particular facts to a moral question or issue.  It can be very difficult to establish whether a matter of fact constitutes a reason for believing something is right or wrong.    

Abraham Lincoln's statement in 1859 confirms his realist commitments:

All honor to Jefferson - to the man who, in the concrete pressure of struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there that today and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke . . . to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny.

The `abstract truth' to which Lincoln here refers is most probably the concept of natural rights embodied in The Declaration of Independence and the preamble to the Constitution.  Realists maintain that what the state does not give, it cannot take away.  If human rights are natural rights, as opposed to human conventions, then their being rights by natural endowment makes them inalienable in the sense indicated in our founding documents. Their existence as natural endowments gives them moral authority even in the absence of legal sanctions.  Their moral authority imposes on their bearers moral responsibilities, even when these responsibilities are ignored.  When such human rights are denied or violated by the state, or simply not enforced, they nonetheless retain their moral authority.  If their moral authority did not exist, then we would have no basis for condemning as unjust governments that fail to enforce them.    

By contrast, moral relativists maintain that moral right and wrong are always relative to a particular culture or belief system. The truth of moral statements is not absolute, but relative. For the relativist there is no absolute answer to moral questions, such as whether it is wrong to circumcise females. In some cultures female circumcision or sati  are accepted norms.  In others these practices are seen as morally wrong. Realists argue that we cannot judge the morality of one society, or one historical time, by the beliefs of another.  For the relativist, there is no single truth that could be used to measure the moral claims of one society, or one time, against those of another.  `Truth', for the relativist, just is the way a particular society envisions the world and this entails its methods for testing the truth of moral statements.  Because the relativist makes fewer demands on the meaning of truth, he could never be guilty of a complete mistake.

Moral relativism is weak on a number of fronts. It is true that some liberals embrace moral relativism because they view moral realism as ethnocentric and intolerant. On the surface, relativism might appear more tolerant of both individual and cultural differences.  But this is simply not the case.  In fact, relativism neither promotes nor guarantees tolerance, and may be deployed to justify oppression, discrimination, abuse and inhumane practices within any given culture. The relativist's preferred policy of tolerance between cultures provides a veneer of acceptability for intolerance within cultures, by endorsing a policy of whereby omissions are less culpable than acts vis-à-vis preventable atrocities.  If, for example, the majority of members of a particular society happen to believe that anti-Semitism is right, then this belief would justify whatever barbaric practices might follow within that society, and there is no standpoint from which their beliefs and practices could be morally condemned by another culture.  In fact, a relativist might well argue that it would be ethnocentric or intolerant for an outsider to judge that society or to act against it's abuses, since there is no universal or ultimate truth in moral matters .... "anything goes".  The right's spokespeople pour scorn on "political correctness" (which they view, naïvely, as tolerance for any lifestyle) because they see it as a weak and hypocritical attempt to play the diplomat, rather than to stand up for a consistent set of values.  

A further problem with moral relativism is that it makes nonsense of moral progress.  Progress can only be measured against some fixed standard, or ideal.  Without a fixed moral compass, we cannot know whether there is an increase in moral virtue or moral vice over time.  Our notion that the United States has made moral progress by abolishing slavery would be unfounded if there were no moral touchstone against which to measure various forms of human behaviour.

Moral relativism is also logically self-defeating. By its own standards it can only be relatively true or relatively valuable, and thus cannot form the basis for moral law.

A final weakness in moral relativism is that it lacks consistency.  If the majority of Americans believe on Monday that slavery is wrong, and then take another vote on Tuesday, shifting the majority to the side of favoring slavery, then the answer to the question of whether slavery is right or wrong could change as often as people's opinions do.  

Given its many weaknesses, it is little wonder that the Christian right have painted liberals with the brush of relativism. Associating liberalism and the weak doctrine of relativism creates the illusion that liberalism is weak. The Christian right has also successfully exploited liberals' confusion over the apparent identification of realism and ethnocentrism. This confusion allows the right to divide and rule, especially where arguments about ethnocentrism estrange liberals who are otherwise in agreement about the core values of liberalism: liberty, tolerance, equal rights, equality of opportunity and pluralism.

Many liberals are moral realists, although (due to the confusion mentioned above) it is impossible to generalize here. The right's admirable preference for moral realism is, however, no guarantee of the truth of their moral statements. In fact their brand of religious moral realism stands on far less solid ground than does the liberal realist's.

The Christian right's advocates seem to want a realist meta-ethics to do all the work of an ethical theory.  They mistake methodology with content.  To say that there exist absolute moral truths is quite different from saying that one's own beliefs are absolutely true. The fact that the theocratic right's leaders subscribe to moral realism is a separate issue to their psychological certainty regarding their own moral statements. Whether such statements do in fact correspond to actual features of the world is another matter, which does not depend on the degree to which they feel convinced. To say that there are absolute moral truths is not the same as saying that I possess infallible knowledge of which moral statements are true and which are false.  John Stewart Mill, the father of liberalism, built his case for tolerance of unconventional things and freedom of expression around the issue of fallibility.  He argued that those who suppress opinion are not infallible yet they are deciding for others.  To deny others the opportunity of judging amounts to an assumption of infallibility. Government suppression cannot be justified even in the case of apparently dangerous or unpopular opinion.  Liberty of discussion and debate is the very thing that allows us to assume truth for practical purposes of action.  Even mistaken views can contain elements of truth, so they too should be discussed.  The accepted wisdom needs to be subjected to questioning in order to maintain its legitimacy.  

Both secular humanism and theocratic Christianity are grounded in moral realism. Secular humanists believe that morality is culture-transcendent because human nature is culture-transcendent, and that it is because of our common humanity that we can talk meaningfully about equality, a moral law, human rights, and moral conscience. Secular humanists argue that the moral law is grounded in human nature and human reason, whereas theocrats assert that it is grounded in religious belief and scripture.

Liberal moral realists are committed to searching for the truth value of moral statements in light of the best available evidence, and with the help of an open and inclusive examination of the arguments.  Unfortunately for theologians, there is no consensus amongst rational human beings that the Christian Bible constitutes evidence at all, much less the best evidence.

Liberal realists know that truth may always go beyond our current or future methods of testing the truth of statements. We could always be completely mistaken. Given this possibility, liberal realists encourage open, interdisciplinary and international cooperation and debate on moral issues.  This means that our conclusions, while they form a tentative basis for law, are always open to revision in light of further evidence, or new discoveries. Even with new discoveries, we cannot be absolutely certain that our worldview will capture exactly the facts as they stand independently of our beliefs. Therefore we must be both strong and modest. Our strength lies precisely in our ability to grow and to learn from our mistakes.

Liberals acknowledge that Americans have freely given our Constitution its authority over us, and so we can also amend or reinterpret it to incorporate new discoveries. By contrast, the theocrat denies that he gives the Bible its authority over his life, and instead says that God gives him his authority over the rest of humanity. Never mind that this claim cannot be tested by any accepted methods. Nor does the theocrat take responsibility for the 'interpretative role' he plays in deciding which parts of the Bible ought to be enforced.  

While liberals take personal responsibility for their values and beliefs, and attempt to reach a consensus based on reason and the best available evidence, theocrats deny all responsibility for their values, saying that these are 'God's' values, and that they are simply paying tribute to the divine intelligence. This just betrays their arrogant delusions about their own beliefs. They must know at least as much as God, or more, in order to 'compliment' Him on his wisdom in this manner.

The 'straw man' tactic of defining liberalism as moral relativism ignores the liberal opponent's real position on the issues and sets up a weaker version of that position by misrepresentation, exaggeration, distortion or simplification.  This makes it easier to defeat, thereby making it easier to create the impression that the liberal's actual argument has been refuted.  

Moreover, the Christian right's myth depends rests upon a fallacy in reasoning.  Here's an invalid form of syllogistic reasoning (denying the antecedent):

1.    All X's are Y's:
2.    S is not an X:
3.    therefore S is not a Y.

Here is a more concrete example of the same fallacy:

1.    All Democrats drink water.
2.    Ann Coulter is not a Democrat.
3.    Therefore, Ann Coulter does not drink water.

All of the premises are true, so the argument is sound.  But the conclusion does not follow from the premises. The myth that all moral realists, and only moral realists, are Christian right-wingers deploys the same form of invalid syllogistic reasoning.  So, the argument looks like this:

1.    All Christian right-wingers are moral realists.
2.    Liberal democrats and moderates are not Christian right-wingers,
3.    Therefore, they are not moral realists.

Being a moral realist may be necessary to being a Christian right-winger, but being a Christian right-winger is certainly not necessary to being a moral realist. The reasoning slides from the possibly true premise `all Christian right-wingers are moral realists' to the false conclusion that `only Christian right-wingers are moral realists'.

(Myth 2. in my next entry)