Rugby and Moral Relativism

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1987, 2011, Brian Malley, Constantine, divine command theory, ethical relativism, Ethics, Massey Presbyterian Church, Matthew Flannagan, Michael Jones, rugby, Rugby World Cup, Sabbath, Sunday, Theodosius, West Auckland

Michael Jones and Michael Jones

At the very first Rugby World Cup tournament, in 1987, the first person to score a try was New Zealander, Michael Jones. In the 1980s and 1990s, the boy from West Auckland was not only famous for his canny abilities at flanker, but for his refusal to play rugby on Sundays. From the days of the early Christians, Sunday was commemorated as the day on which they believed that Jesus resurrected from the dead. By the fourth century, the first Christian Emperor, Constantine, placed restrictions on the activities able to be carried out on Sundays. These restrictions were extended later that century, under the Emperor Theodosius, making it illegal to conduct business, attend sports, or attend the theatre on every seventh day. In essence, Christians applied the Jewish laws concerning rest on the Sabbath to the new “Christian Sabbath”. Generations of Christians, including All Black Michael Jones, believed that rest on “The Lord’s Day” was the proper ethical stance for Christians to take.

Roll on 2011 and there is another Rugby World Cup. But things have changed in West Auckland churches. Within a couple of decades or so, the Christian attitude to Sunday which reigned in Christian parts of the world for a millennium and half has dramatically changed. If you attend Massey Presbyterian Church, for example, once the evening sermon by Matthew Flannagan is complete, you can remain in your pew and then watch the rugby match between New Zealand and Argentina.

As with all societies, cultures, and subcultures, the churches are continually changing and adapting their moral stances. They might not think that they do, and some might even claim to follow “objective divine commands”. Yet, on examination, churches are just as subject to the winds of moral change as any. No doubt Christians had good reasons in 1987 to stand up for not playing rugby on Sundays and equally good reasons in 2011 for showing rugby in church on Sundays. Ethical reasoning is often like that. There is no “fundamental” or “objective” reason for any set of ethics which a community adopts. Any set of ethics is completely subjective, merely the result of a community’s adoption of certain rules of behaviour. But once ethics are adopted, humans do tend to produce no end of rationalisations for doing what they currently do.

Much the same is the case for Christian communities. One difference, of course, is that Christian communities claim that they take ethical stances – e.g. on sex, war, global warming, stem-cell research, single mothers, etc – based on divine authority. However, “divine authority” is frequently a placeholder for whatever is the latest ethical trend. As Brian Malley says:

In my lifetime I have seen, among evangelical Christians, a new emphasis on environmental awareness, on physical fitness, on community formation, and changes in gender ideology. All of these changes reflected trends in the larger cultural environment, but all were incorporated into evangelical Christians’ authoritative discourse by being expounded from the Bible, as what the Bible had always said.

– Brian Malley, “Understanding the Bible’s Influence,” pages 194-204 in James S. Bielo, ed., The Social Life of Scriptures: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Biblicism (Rutgers, 2009), 202-203.

And what is the topic of the sermon at Massey Presbyterian Church, before they take down the sermon powerpoints and show the rugby game? The sermon is railing against … “ethical relativism“.

They couldn’t possibly be more ironic if they had tried!

Sigmund Freud and the Animal Farm School of Intellectual Inquiry

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Animal Farm, Animal Farm Tendency, George Orwell, Sigmund Freud

Deane, having been back from a trip to Australia for about three hours, has already at least doubled the number of words posted to this record that I managed to post in the entire two weeks he was gone.  I am well and truly shamed and must endeavour to do better …

In the very appropriate spirit of shame, a few thoughts on reading Sigmund Freud, which I am doing in preparation for teaching a class on religion and modernity in which the poor students will have to take Freud seriously.  In his 1927 book on religion, The Future of an Illusion, as translated by James Strachey in The Complete Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (London: The Hogarth Press, 1961), Freud writes,

Sigmund Freud in The Hague in 1920

If all the evidence put forward for the authenticity of religious teachings originates in the past, it is natural to look round and see whether the present, about which it is easier to form judgments, may not also be able to furnish evidence of the sort,  If by this means we could succeed in clearing even a single portion of the religious system from doubt, the whole of it would gain enormously in credibility.  The proceedings of the spiritualists meet us at this point; they are convinced of the survival of the individual soul to demonstrate to us beyond doubt the truth of this one religious doctrine.  Unfortunately they cannot succeed in refuting the fact that the appearance and utterances of their spirits are merely the products of their own mental activity. They have called up the spirits of the greatest men and of the most eminent thinkers, but all the pronouncements and information which they have received from them have been so foolish and so wretchedly meaningless that one can find nothing credible in them but the capacity of the spirits to adapt themselves to the circle of people who have conjured them up.

I must now mention two attempts that have been made – both of which convey the impressions of being desperate efforts – to evade the problem.  One, of a violent nature, is ancient; the other is subtle and modern.  The first is the ‘Credo quia absurdum‘ of the early Father of the Church [Tertullian].  It maintains that religious doctrines are outside the jurisdiction of reason – are above reason.  Their truth must be felt inwardly, and they need not be comprehended.  But this Credo is only of interest as a self-confession.  As an authoritative statement it has no binding force.  Am I obliged to believe every absurdity?  And if not, why this one in particular?  There is no appeal to a court above that of reason.  If the truth of religious doctrines is dependent on an inner experience which bears witness to that truth, what one to do about the many people who do not this rare experience?  One may require every man to use the gift of reason which he possesses, but one cannot erect, on the basis of a motive that exists only for a very few, an obligation that shall apply to everyone.  If one man has gained an unshakable conviction of the true reality of religious deoctrones from a state of exstasy which has deeply moved him, of what significance is that to others? (pp. 27-28).

That I find myself in more or less absolute agreement with most of Freud writes here is disturbing on a personal level, as I find Freud to be a load of destructive nonsense and antinomian conjecture; however, on closer inspection, there is something glaringly off about this passage in light of Freud’s larger project.  This is an instance of what I want to call the ‘Animal Farm Tendency’ within intellectual inquiry.  Recalling the bitter climax of George Orwell’s masterpiece Animal Farm, first published in the UK in 1945 as Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, the modification of the original credo of ‘all animal are equal’ to ‘all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others‘, this tendency, endemic within many fields of academic inquiry, is the tendency to be blind to the lapses in reason in every system of thought but one’s own.

The cover of the first British edition

For example, Freud’s entire system of thought, impressively involved as it is, is instantly undermined by the simple fact that Freud is as indebted as any Christian to the acceptance of certain assertions based less on reason than on other factors.  If one rejects as rank assertion Freud’s sacred trinity of Mother, Father, and Child (and all of the implicit sexual tension within this trinity) and the whole apparatus of his symbolic interpretation of dreams, the whole of the Freudian structure of though becomes largely untenable.  This is especially glaring given his arrogance and his pretensions towards science.  After all, he did write that many of the things plaguing humanity, religion among them, would eventually be ‘destroyed by psychoanalysis’ (31).

Freud is not alone in this sort of thinking.  We need think only of any of the predestinarian theologies, which assert a standard of evidence that neccessarily excludes those who are disinclined to believe in such theology.  This is even more true among the many theologians who have adopted a putatively – but poorly understood and lazily formulated – postmodernism.  Here we need only think of someone like Jean-Luc Marion, who uses the language of open inquiry to mask what is in reality a simple assertion of the truth of Christian Revelation.  John W. Cooper gives us another example:

In response to modernist claims of rational autonomy, some Reformed apologists have so strongly emphasized the relativity of reason to true faith and uniquely Christian presuppositions that the universal availability of any truth whatsoever has in effect been denied. What results is a kind of religious relativism. Truth is admitted to be completely system-relative, but only (Reformed?) Christians are acknowledged to have the right system.

The logic, undoubtedly given a boost by the language of the postmodern movement, goes something like this: ‘in a relativistic world, there is no such thing as thought free from presuppositions; therefore, everyone must be obliged to respect the presuppositions of others’.  Fair enough.  As far as this goes, we are still within the relatively respectable territory of ‘all animals are equal’.  However, the next step within the Animal Farm Tendency is to add a further phrase: ‘there is no such thing as thought without presuppositions; therefore, everyone must be obliged to respect the presuppositions of others; therefore, we are justified in claiming that our presuppositions are superior (or more equal)’ to those of others.

Animal Farm illustration by Jim Conte

Other scholars in many disciplines, biblical studies and broader religious studies among them, have used a similarly uncritical relativism to support absolutist claims or to simply and without reflection claim the truth of a given set of presuppositions. Much as it may pain me to say this, there are many examples of the Animal Farm Tendency within contemporary Marxist thought; in fact, anyone relying uncritically on Marx’s materialist meta-narrative of history is guilty of walking on two legs after denouncing walking on two legs.

Such thinking, whether it aimed at religious, historical, ethnic, or scientific ends, reminds at least this reader unavoidably of the immortal Leninist slogan delivered the pig Napoleon at the end of  Animal Farm.

Let’s have some more examples, this time from the audience …

Thinking in Tatters: Moral Relativism and So-called ‘Counter-examples’

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Matthew Flannagan, moral relativism

Matthew Flannagan

Back to Matt Flannagan’s tirade against moral relativism – that producer of such moral outrages as equality for women, freedom of homosexuals from legal persecution, and all those other things that cause your average member of a conservative think-tank to worry about all night in bed.

Later on in his presentation, Matt announces that he is going to produce ‘counterexamples’ to moral relativism. Now, usually a ‘counterexample’ would demonstrate the illogical or absurd nature of moral relativism. So does Matt produce this type of ’counterexample’? Does any one of his examples demonstrate the illogical or absurd nature of moral relativism? In fact… none of them do.

Matt makes the following confused suggestions about moral relativism:

– If a society considered wife-bashing to be morally acceptable, it would not be ‘right’ for a feminist or a moral relativist to object to it;

– In an Islamic society which believed that conversion to another religion was a capital offense, it would be morally required to execute converts;

– In countries in which racism is widely practiced, then racism is acceptable;

– An individual who thinks it is right to rape, torture, kill or ‘chop up’ women would be morally right under individual relativism, and nobody could impose their views on them.

Matt adds, “If you accept cultural relativism, essentially the norms of your society become infallible. They can’t be wrong. Because right and wrong just is what your society says it is.” As Matt concludes that is it implausible that societies can be morally infallible in their judgments, he concludes that moral relativism is not true.

Matt’s reference to ‘infalliblity’ here is interesting. For infallibility is a normal trait of divine commands. Once again, it seems that Matt is assuming that moral relativism must have the characteristics of moral objectivism. He just cannot appreciate how moral relativism works. For moral relativism is not some monolithic system across society, but a variety of different views, some coalescing together, some in conflict to some degree or another. Moral relativism is not some stationary edifice, as Matt pretends, but is always developing, always reacting to material circumstances and prior ideologies. Once one removes the imaginary characteristics of divine command theory – infallibility, immutability, universality, etc – from the description of moral relativism, then Matt’s conclusions are exposed as unsound.

For moral rules are always sites of dispute. A society that approves of wife-bashing, like most of New Zealand did only about 50-or-so years ago, can certainly renegotiate the moral rightness or wrongness of such behaviour. And such disputes need not only occur within a society. Our learned (not objective) disgust at certain behaviour might prompt us to attempt to alter the behaviour of other societies (and it often has, for better or for worse, relatively speaking). So there is no illogic in the system, once relativism is properly viewed as a fluid process, rather than as the artificial imaginary associated with Matt’s divine command theory.

Moreover, there is no absurdity in the fact that a person or sector of society with very unusual morals might consider their behaviour to be morally good. To the contrary, if morality depends on cultural norms, the examples he provides are exactly as we would expect. Only a few people would openly claim moral rectitude for really weird or kinky behaviour. For if everybody openly claimed it was morally good, then – culturally – it wouldn’t be considered weird or kinky in the first place! When Matt fantasizes about some weird behaviour (and his favourite suggestion, for some reason, is a person who rapes, tortures and ‘chops up’ women, which places Matt in the position of patriarchal protector of women), the very fact that this behaviour is culturally abnormal is consistent with the claims of moral relativism. Moral relativism in fact claims that morally weird behaviour will usually correspond to culturally abnormal behaviour. Morality follows cultural norms. Just as we would expect from moral relativism.

So Matt’s so-called ‘counterexamples’ are nothing of the sort. Instead, these examples have all backfired on him. Matt’s examples are entirely consistent with the truth of moral relativism.

Thinking in Tatters: Moral Relativism and Hidden Objectivist Assumptions

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Matthew Flannagan, moral relativism

Matthew Flannagan

Matt Flannagan, who blogs with his wife Madeleine at MandM, contributes to a New Zealand-based conservative think-tank called Thinking Matters. These ‘conservative think-tanks’ crop up from place to place and the term is usually a euphemism for frustrated and atavistic reactionists who want to take away rights from women, homosexuals, and other minorities and restore power to the patriarchy. Some of the members of Thinking Matters don’t appear to be noticeably different in this regard.

In a talk available on YouTube, Matt Flannagan attempts to argue against that phantom nemesis of all conservative think-tanks, what they term ’moral relativism’. (Everybody together now: ‘Oooooh, yucky!’) His arguments are a mish-mash of illogical nonsense and rhetorical scaremongering. There is much to take issue with in his presentation, so there is no need to dwell on his sleight of hand in presenting obviously unsound arguments for relativism and then (marvelously!) disproving them to his captive evangelical audience – which he does for more than half of his talk.

One thing which is worth thinking about is that, at one point in his talk (Part 4; 5:00ff), Matt’s criticism reveals that he has failed to appreciate what a thoroughgoing moral relativism would look like. He just doesn’t get it. He cannot conceive of moral duties that are not objective. I suspect that this is an all-too-frequent barrier for moral objectivists. Their commitment to moral objectivism is such that they fail to properly conceive of a world in which every moral duty is simply the result of cultural norms. They can’t do it. And as a result, their protests already – circularly – assume moral objectivism.

Matt makes his circular argument when he adduces the following as a premise which he claims is held by some moral relativists:

Now, indulging Matt for a while, let’s ask this question: if a moral relativist did happen to hold to this premise, what would be the nature of the ‘duty’? Too obvious, you say? Well yes, the answer would seem to be too obvious. The  ’duty’ would clearly be relative for a moral relativist.

But Matt doesn’t get it:

“And notice too that the second premise is making a what? An objective moral statement. It’s saying that all people have a duty to be tolerant. But according to relativism there are no objective moral statements.”

Matt falsely attributes moral objectivism to a moral relativist, because he just cannot grasp the concept of moral relativism. However, in moral relativism, a duty, even if applicable to everybody in a particular society, would by definition be morally relative. A prevalent problem with moral objectivists such as Matt is that they haven’t ever grasped what a purely subjective morality looks like, how it operates. They keep trying to sneak back in assumptions of moral objectivity – the very thing that moral relativists deny. And so their attempt to raise an argument against it – by assuming the objectivity of morality – is revealed as a piece of illogical and circular nonsense.

Putting Faiths/Religion (anything really!) on the Same Level …

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bookshelves, juxtaposition, Religion, Theology

Here is a brilliant bookshelf idea that every Theology/Religious Studies Department should have!

The JUXTAPOSED: Religion Bookcase by BlankBlank plays by the numbers: it holds just 7 selected theological books, was made in a very limited edition of 50, and costs $2,500. Once you get past that, it’s easy to appreciate the unique attributes of this most unusual reclaimed hardwood shelf that puts very different religious books, for example the Bhagavad Gita, Bible, Qur’an, Analects of Confucius, the Tao Te Ching, Discourses of the Buddha and the Torah on the same level. Literally.

Other University Departments could design their own shelves: Politics could have space for Marx, Machiavelli, & Mill et al; Philosophy could have Butler, Baudrillard, & Buber et al! The scope for this is endless!

Thanks to The Weburbanist site for this information and to Geoff Pound for alerting me to it!

Philip Davies on Divine Command Theory: ‘Ethics out of a can’

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Ethics, Jean-François Lyotard, Just Gaming, Philip Davies, torture

In a recent article, “Are There Ethics in the Hebrew Bible?“, Emeritus Professor Philip Davies answers the question he poses in his title, in the main, with a resounding ‘no’.

Davies reasons that much of what passes for ethics in the Hebrew Bible involves only sets of “rules that are imposed and expected to be obeyed”. But this is the kind of approach to ethics we might take with children. By contrast, the internalisation of ethical reasoning – which is expected of an adult – is markedly absent throughout most of the Hebrew Bible. But “[e]thics develop in a society where individuals have to make their own moral judgments about intrinsic goodness.”

Why does the Bible fail to develop any depth of ethical reasoning, except for a few limited exceptions? “Because the Bible is culturally totalitarian—unsurprisingly, because it emanates from a totalitarian world of monarchic societies.”

We see this in the divine speech at the end of the book of Job. God appears and simply demands obedience without justification, thwarting the more sophisticated attempts at ethical reasoning in earlier parts of the book.

The French philosopher, Jean-François Lyotard says the same thing about the god of the Hebrew Bible in Just Gaming. Lyotard describes the Hebrew god as a god who never reveals the rationale for the obligation under which he places humans. And he’s funny:

“God commands. One does not know very well what he commands. He commands obedience, that is, that one place oneself in the position of the pragmatic genre of obligation. Then he commands a whole slew of small, unbelievable things: how to cook lamb, and so on. Which is surprising, because one does not expect God to hand out kitchen recipes, and it takes the Jewish people by surprise also.”

(Lyotard, Just Gaming, 52).

The practical upshot of all this is that the Bible doesn’t provide many very good solutions to ethical issues in the real world, unless its interpreters are prepared to cut and paste the bits of the tradition that they find useful… utterly subjectively.

“I am not sure the Bible would worry too much about torture: its god is quite comfortable with the idea… Now, I treasure the Bible. And I even think that religion does have many advantages. But ethics is not one of religion’s gifts to humanity, and the Bible cannot serve a modern democracy as a moral guide—unless of course we decide ourselves, on or own ethical principles, which bits of it we will follow and which ones we will not. Come to think of it, though, isn’t this really what most of its believers actually do? So why not come clean and stop pretending that our Western culture is built on “biblical values”: for, thank god, it isn’t!”

(Philip Davies, “Are There Ethics in the Hebrew Bible?”)

– Deane