Is It Wrong to Say That Something Is Right?
The objective morality of moral relativity
The question presented in the title is really a matter of morality. In our current moment, to say that something is objectively right and therefore deeming other options wrong can be seen to be wrong itself. But to say that it is wrong to deem something right is itself an objective moral judgement—It’s the same game.
What’s presented in moral relativism is that there is no morality and instead we choose for ourselves what is right or wrong. Yet what is functionally practiced is a personal moral ethic that operates with an objective moral force.
“It is wrong to say that something is objectively right.” If so, on what grounds? Why should we not tell someone what they shouldn’t do? Do you see the moral language? As soon relativity begins to use language like should the conversation steps back into the world of objective morals—the very claim relativity seeks to upend. The reason that this kind of relativistic thinking has become popular is not because people believe there are no morals but, rather, because this moral framework liberates the individual to be self-determining.
The Autonomous Self
This postmodern way of living creates a sense of freedom that removes any moral or cultural framework that would hinder one from living out their “authentic self”. Or to put it another way, “Nothing out there should hinder what I feel to be true in here.” The assumption is that authenticity demands autonomy. The freedom to choose then becomes the necessary—and only—virtue worthy of being championed. “I should not be told what is right or wrong but I should do what feels right or wrong to me. And to hinder that choice would be wrong.” However, hidden in that belief is an objective moral framework. Charles Taylor, a modern-day cultural philosopher, puts it like this:
“…the general lesson is that authenticity can't be defended in ways that collapse horizons of significance. Even the sense that the significance of my life comes from its being chosen—the case where authenticity is actually grounded on self-determining freedom—depends on the understanding that independent of my will there is something noble, courageous, and hence significant in giving shape to my own life.”1
In short, to say that choice carries significance assumes that there is something objectively good about choice itself. However, the core of this belief is actually self-defeating: stripping life of all objective morality—that there is nothing inherently good—is needed to make the autonomous choice a good to be pursued. But this does not lead to significance. It produces nothing but vain indifference. A dull world. Followed to its end, the fruit of an individualistic autonomous relative morality is a world in which nothing is right because nothing is wrong.
The Empty Significance of Choice
Therefore, choice itself cannot contain the “significance” needed to truly live an authentic life. Again, to say that liberation from moral frameworks for the freedom to choose what is good is itself an objective moral framework. And in our current moment this can sound like, “It is wrong to say that something is right.” Yet, to be able to engage in the language of virtues, or morality, or “goodness” is itself to step back into the world of morality. To borrow a term from Taylor, every declaration of significance demands a “moral horizon” upon which that choice finds significance. Meaning, what carries moral significance cannot be in the choice itself. If there is significance in the choices, then it must come from outside the choice and in the thing being chosen. Otherwise, placing the significance on the choice itself would strip everything of significance. Doing so creates a reality void of meaning, because it’s built upon a belief that there is no real significance apart from what we deem significant. An empty universe. Again Taylor, our philosopher up north, says:
“...anthropocentrism, by abolishing all horizons of significance, threatens us with a loss of meaning and hence a trivialization of our predicament. At one moment, we understand our situation as one of high tragedy, alone in a silent universe, without intrinsic meaning, condemned to create value. But at a later moment, the same doctrine, by its own inherent bent, yields a flattened world, in which there aren't very meaningful choices because there aren't any crucial issues.”2
Nothing is true because nothing is false. Nothing is beautiful because there is no category for beauty. Life has no meaning because…well, there is no meaning. This type of subjective individualism leads to emptiness, not significance.
The Need for Objective Morality
Therefore, an external and objective moral order is needed to make sense of reality. As already shown, following moral relativism to the bottom leaves us void of the authentic and significant life it claims to provide because it strips all of reality of any significance. On top of that, to say that relativism is a good that ought to be pursued is actually an objective moral argument and therefore a self-defeating statement. What we’re left with is to conclude that by their own argument relativists show the necessity for an objective framework.
In order to live a good life, there must be good things to pursue. In order to live a virtuous life, there must be virtues that exist outside of me. I’m not claiming that this necessity immediately evidences the Christian moral framework. That’s another article. Rather, I’m trying to show the need for objective morality in our everyday lives in order for them to be significant and meaningful.
So, the question we are all really asking is not “How do I want to live my life?” Because we are all pursuing an end we think is good. Objectively good. Therefore, the question we must answer is, “Is that end I’m pursuing good, true, and beautiful?” And when objective truth is our end, we are not screaming our significance into the void of a meaningless universe. Instead we become truth-seekers, beauty-beholders, and virtuous individuals in pursuit of that which is actually good, true, and beautiful.
So, is it wrong to say that something is right? No, not if it is actually right. Because in order for something to be wrong, there has to be something out there that is right. And if there are things that are right, then may our lives be lived in pursuit of what is truly good, true, and beautiful. In doing so we will live significant lives.
Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018), 39.
Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, 68.