A Morally Relative Sequel
If you’re like me, you’ve been thinking about my last article. Apologies, that sounds a little self-centered. It’s true though. Since my last article on sexual misconduct accusations, many of you have been in contact to let me know how much you appreciated what I wrote, and for that I want to say thank you. It means a lot that you’re reading and thinking about the different issues I’ve tried to bring up. A number of you have raised some good points and questions yourselves over the past two weeks and so I’d like to take this space to elaborate on one idea in particular you have brought up in conversation.
The vast majority of individuals being accused have been engaging in these kinds of activities for decades and the idea that they were simply a product of their times is becoming a common one. The comment that has come up most frequently is something to the effect of “but it was a different time and it was accepted back then.” We have to be extremely careful when using that kind of language. The fact that it was commonplace and rarely brought about repercussions, is a very different thing than being accepted. To go a step further, being accepted, is a different thing than being morally right.
Slavery is classic if something of an extreme example but it is something that I doubt I’ll get much resistance for calling morally wrong. At one point, the institution of slavery was commonplace and brought about next to no repercussions. For a time, slavery was an accepted institution. We now claim Slavery as morally wrong. When we say that, do we mean slavery became wrong in 1860s, or do we mean that it was always wrong and we finally started to enforce that in the 1860s? I would offer the former provides an odd world view.
Similar situation, at one point, slavery was commonplace and accepted in one part of the country, but not the other. Does this mean that slavery was morally wrong until you got below the Mason-Dixon, or does it mean that slavery was wrong everywhere but those below the Mason-Dixon were mistaken? Again, the first paints a problematic paradigm.
What you may be sensing are the undertones of a moral relativism argument. Moral relativism is branch of thought that has more spinoffs than Law & Order. It’s an extraordinarily deep pool and I don’t have the space to dive into it. In its simplest form though, relativism claims that morality is dictated by the relevant group. There are no moral absolutes, it’s all relative depending on where and when you are. Your family might find cruelty to animals to be reprehensible, but Tim’s family likes to throw puppies off the roof. Under relativism, both are morally acceptable and could not be the subject of punishment because the behavior was accepted by the particular time and space. That’s where the “it was a different time,” argument leaves us.
Just because a behavior was accepted or easy to get away with, does not make it morally right. Slavery, sexual misconduct, or cruelty to animals, it does not matter. A moral claim should be beyond location and decade. If something is only provisionally wrong or right, how could society function? I have a hard enough time remembering which house I do or do not take my shoes off in. If morality is relative, than everything is potentially morally right. The moral act may have been harder to distinguish at one time or another, but that does not excuse making the wrong choice.
