Moral relativism and its discontents

The NY Times published an interesting article yesterday about the state of our American youth today in terms of morality and ethics. It is part of a larger study on the state of American youth conducted by a group of researchers including sociologist Christian Smith. They interviewed young adults across America about various moral issues, and found the results to be rather ‘depressing’ – as David Brooks states.

But I am not the least bit surprised. I have been blogging about the disastrous effects of moral relativism and emotivism for a long time now, and this ‘depressing’ outcome is only natural.

Let’s see what the study says.

“The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste. “It’s personal,” the respondents typically said. “It’s up to the individual. Who am I to say?”
Rejecting blind deference to authority, many of the young people have gone off to the other extreme: “I would do what I thought made me happy or how I felt. I have no other way of knowing what to do but how I internally feel.”
Many were quick to talk about their moral feelings but hesitant to link these feelings to any broader thinking about a shared moral framework or obligation. As one put it, “I mean, I guess what makes something right is how I feel about it. But different people feel different ways, so I couldn’t speak on behalf of anyone else as to what’s right and wrong.”

[ALSO]

…Smith and company found an atmosphere of extreme moral individualism — of relativism and nonjudgmentalism… Allan Bloom and Gertrude Himmelfarb warned that sturdy virtues are being diluted into shallow values.
…In most times and in most places, the group was seen to be the essential moral unit. A shared religion defined rules and practices. Cultures structured people’s imaginations and imposed moral disciplines. But now more people are led to assume that the free-floating individual is the essential moral unit. Morality was once revealed, inherited and shared, but now it’s thought of as something that emerges in the privacy of your own heart.”  (“If It Feels Right”; David Brooks)

We can draw two things from this study; one, that extreme individualism, emotivism and nonjudgmentalism have become the new all-encompassing social norm in America (but I’d argue this statement holds true for much of the globalized world), and two, that relativism cannot sustain a morally structured and sound society.

I’ve already argued in another post that, at least for Muslims, morality is defined in relation to God, not ‘feelings’ nor the ‘self.’ Morality therefore transcends the individual ‘I’, it transcends ‘time’ and ‘history’, ‘culture’ and etc. When Morality becomes truly Objective and Absolute, one will do what is ‘right’ even if it were against his/her own ‘self’ (to borrow our prophet’s peace be upon him great wisdom). So it doesn’t matter what your feelings are, if your objective is to do what is morally good, then you will do it regardless of your relative/ subjective emotions.

But who is the real culprit in this degenerative social phenomenon? The article doesn’t really go into this subject, so I’ll briefly comment on it here.

Secular liberalism is closely related to all these ideals; individualism, relativism, nonjudgmentalism, placing much focus on the ‘self’ (as Freud so religiously preached), and of course a neo-liberal capitalism that celebrates a very unhealthy hyper-consumer culture. And above all, pride.

I mean think about it, secular humanists and neo-atheists are rigorously augmenting against religion why? Because we are supposedly ‘indoctrinating’ and ‘brainwashing’ our youth to think morally - to think selflessly, to be kind to their neighbors, to their parents, to respect elders? No, because a Moral society, by definition, necessitates an Objective and Transcending Source – in Islam this Source is Allah. And Brooks seems to acknowledge this problem in the last paragraph; “morality was once revealed, inherited and shared, but now it’s thought of as something that emerges in the privacy of your own heart.”

What happens when there no longer is an Anchor for our morality? We see what we see today… something short of chaos. Family values have completely withered, premarital relations have become absolutely normal, everyone is evading their responsibilities and duties toward the other, elders are disrespected, and all authority is rejected. We are in a state of social anarchy. Morality has been disintegrated into whimsical wants and desires. Humanity has fallen to the levels of an animal.

But we are not just mare animals. We have the potential of becoming something much greater. We have a choice, in the end. We should be asking ourselves, whether we are making this choice because we ‘feel’ it is right or because we ‘know’ it is right because certain Objective Truths exist in this world, and these Truths tell us it is the right choice to make?

How many of us are unafraid/ready to be judged? If we cannot even take some criticism from fellow human beings, how are we going to handle Judgment from the Almighty?