Moral absolutism Absolutism is the belief that certain actions are right or wrong, no matter what the situation. According to moral absolutists, morals are inherent in some fundamental source eg nature, God etc. Moral absolutists might, for example, judge slavery, war, dictatorship, the death penalty, or childhood abuse to be absolutely and inarguably immoral regardless of the beliefs and goals of a culture that engages in these practices. In a minority of cases, moral absolutism is taken to the more constrained position that actions are moral or immoral regardless of the circumstances in which they occur. Lying, for instance, would always be immoral, even if done to promote some other good (e.g., saving a life). This rare view of moral absolutism might be contrasted with moral consequentialism—the view that the morality of an action depends on the context or consequences of that action. Modern human rights theory is a form of moral absolutism, usually based on the nature of humanity and the essence of human nature. Many religions have morally absolutist positions, regarding their system of morality as having been set by God. They therefore regard such a moral system as absolute, (usually) perfect, and unchangeable. For example, under some religious moral absolutist beliefs, homosexual behavior is considered fundamentally wrong, even in a committed monogamous relationship. Many who make such claims often ignore the changing views of their communities. However even absolutists may change opinion over a long period of time eg today almost no religious group endorses slavery, whereas in the past many communities held it to be perfectly ethical. The historical character of religious belief provides strong grounds for criticism of religious moral absolutism. Many philosophies also take a morally absolutist stance, arguing that the laws of morality are inherent in the nature of human beings, the nature of life in general, or the universe itself. For example, someone who believes absolutely in nonviolence considers it wrong to use violence even in self-defense. Many Christians regard Christian theology as teaching a hierarchy of moral absolutes — a view called graded absolutism. Here, if there is a conflict between two absolutes, the duty to obey the higher one exempts one from the duty to the lower one. And the order is duty to God > duty to fellow humans > duty to property. So for some Christians during the second world war Jesus’ command to Love God and Love your neighbour as yourself was more absolute that to obey the Nazi regime and persecute the Jews. Semi-religious arguments for moral absolutism have to do with the relationship between free will, choice, and morals. Some have argued that without free will
morality is pointless. If human beings have the power of free will their choices must be meaningful and therefore absolutism is a guide to good behaviour that humans must choose to follow or reject. However the question is raised - how we come to know what the "absolute" morals are. The authorities that are quoted as sources of absolute morality are all subject to human interpretation, and there are many different views on them. For morals to be truly absolute, they would have to have a universally unquestioned source, interpretation and authority. Therefore, so critics say, there is no conceivable source of such morals, and none can be called "absolute". So even if there are absolute morals, there will never be universal agreement on just what those morals are, making them by definition unknowable. moral relativism takes the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect absolute and universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances. Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition's truth. Relativistic positions often see moral values as applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or in the context of individual preferences. An extreme relativist position might suggest that judging the moral or ethical judgments or acts of another person or group has no meaning, though most relativists propound a more limited version of the theory. The 18th-century Enlightenment philosopher David Hume (1711 - 1776) serves in several important respects as the father both of moral relativism, though Hume himself did not agree with it. He distinguished between matters of fact and matters of value, and suggested that moral judgments consist of the latter, for they do not deal with verifiable facts that obtain in the world, but only with our sentiments and passions. However Hume still regarded some of our sentiments as universal. He famously denied that morality has any objective standard, and suggested that the universe remains indifferent to our preferences and our troubles. The combination of both philosophical relativism and anthropological relativism results in descriptive relativism, which claims that different cultures have different views of morality, which they cannot unify under one general conception of morality. Thus, one might want to claim that all cultures, for example, prohibit the killing of innocents. The descriptive relativist reply to this is that while this might be true at a general level, different cultures have different understandings of what "innocent" means, and so are still culturally relative. The Catholic Church for some time now, especially under Pope Benedict XVI has seen relativism as a denial of absolute truth which leads to moral license and a denial of the possibility of sin and of God. Relativism, orthodox Catholics say, constitutes a denial of the capacity of the human mind and reason to arrive at truth. The denial of an absolute reference denies God, who equates to Absolute Truth, according to these Christian philosophers. Thus, they say, relativism links to secular beliefs.