|
|
Title: A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews With an Absolutist
Purchase
Item
Manufacturer: Ignatius Press
List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $7.77
|
|
| Customer Reviews: |
| A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews With an Absolutist by Ignatius Press Outlines the usual arguments for both sides | This book is typical Peter Kreeft: it couldn't be boring if it tried. The book gives ten or so arguments, for and against, moral relativism. The moral absolutist is played by a Muslim. The relativist by a liberal feminist.
THE ARGUMENTS
Ben Isa argues that relativism is the most serious crisis to civilisation. He documents from history that all civilizations have presupposed some absolute moral code. Any civilization that operated on relativism, he argues, commits suicide.
The key arguments, that I have found most persuasive:
1) relativism has an absolutist premise in it: it argues that it is *good* to be relativist and *bad* to be absolutist. These are normative, absolutist judgments which are not consistent with the relativist claim.
2) The notion of progress demands an absolutist standard. If there is no absolute standard, and values are relative, how can a society make progress? To what is it progressing?
3) If relativism is true, then we must condemn men like Martin Luther King Jr, Ghandi, and abolitionists--people who are usually championed by relativists (I would have chosen different examples, but that's beside the point). They are known as cultural prophets, calling the evils of a society to account. But do you see the problem? If a society is the source and norm for values, and a society determines what is right and wrong (like slavery and the oppression of women), then who is the prophet to blame them? All of the cultural prophets have assumed a moral law to which society must be judged. This moral law, obviously, is absolutist.
4) Kreeft's arguments from the history of philosophy were quite impressive.
EVALUATION
Pros: the book was extremely well-written. It was very insightful and covered the standard arguments used in the debates. Some pages were so good one had to stand and applaud.
Cons: his choice of a Muslim will no doubt bother some readers. I, personally, would have chosen a different hero. True, Islamic morals are absolute, but if consistent, they look a lot different than biblical revelation. 2) Kreeft sold the farm on evolution. He masterfully refuted it and then in the next paragraph affirmed it. I know what he is getting at but this is a poor way to phrase it.
I recommend this book. | | A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews With an Absolutist by Ignatius Press Humorous, Intelligent and Fascinating |
Kreeft, an academic with a reputation for orthodoxy and narrow Catholic conservatism, does a wonderful job in presenting a topic of great timely interest in a relatively (no pun intended) light-hearted way. I must say that I was thoroughly impressed by this work and would recommend it to anyone who finds his or herself on either side of the figurative fence created by today's culture and it's precarious - and sometimes adversarial - engagement of religious absolutism.
Religious absolutism has gained, as Kreeft notes through the `interviews,' a rather polemical stigma in recent history. Closely tied to fundamental trends in the minds of many, absolutism is neither fundamental (in a pejorative sense) nor simplistic (in the idiotic sense). Kreeft does a fine job articulating that and helps to bring a refulgent tone to a formidable position.
A page-turning synopsis of a timely philosophical topic. | | A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews With an Absolutist by Ignatius Press Interviews with an intellectual bully | As a book in philosophy, this work fails. Kreeft presents unoriginal arguments in a largely incoherent fashion and consistently refuses to examine their flaws. To compound these errors, he relies heavily on equivocation, straw men, and guilt by association, among other fallacies. In fact, he doesn't even make the trivial effort it would require to ensure a fair representation of his opponent's view: the voice of relativism is, from the start, the villain of the book. Relativists (and philosophers in general who have respect for their craft) should be offended by this book's philosophical content.
However, relativists should also be worried. While this book utterly fails as a philosophical treatise, it succeeds admirably as propaganda. Untrained readers will surely accept his constant claims that the "debates" represent unbiased philosophy. From there, they'll readily accept that relativism will be the downfall of mankind. If anybody doubts its effectiveness, simply read through the other reviews. For this reason, I encourage relativists to take this book seriously and review its arguments online, for free (and with considerably less irritating one-sided banter) at [...]
To be sure, if you're interested in this debate, you'll hear these arguments again and again. In that way alone does Kreeft perform a public service by printing this drivel: there is no better way for a budding relativist to develop a strong foundation for his belief than to read these arguments and tear them apart. | | A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews With an Absolutist by Ignatius Press A series of enlightening interviews | | Kreeft structures his book around a series of interviews with a black moral relativist and activist, Libby, and a Muslim absolutionist and professor, 'Isa. The logic is solid and the interviews are entertaining. A must-read for anyone with philosophical or religious interests. | | A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews With an Absolutist by Ignatius Press Mission(ary) Not Accomplished | What Kreeft puts in the mouth of his opponent as "proofs" of the truth of relativism are so weak and at times sophomoric that Kreeft's supposed refutation of them is irrelevant to the core of the relativist challenge, which is that no one can provide objective support for a claim to have an absolute foundation for moral values. Kreeft doesn't even acknowledge this central issue.
Here's an example of how Kreeft, who claims his book offers "respectable logical arguments" from a "clear and very intelligent" viewpoint, in fact abuses language and logic. To defend the idea that changing situations "change how you should apply the rules, but they don't change the rules" he gives the example of lying to a Nazi searching for hidden Jews: "The Nazis had no right to know that truth" so it wasn't wrong to "deceive" them. "Lying is always wrong, and that wasn't wrong, so that wasn't a lie." To safeguard the absoluteness of the rule that says "Lying is always wrong," Kreeft redefines "lying" from "the speaking of a falsehood" to "the speaking of a falsehood when it's not permissible to do so," and so the rule becomes "The speaking of a falsehood when it is not permissible to do so is wrong." Besides the irony in a professed absolutist ignoring the common meaning of a word to suit his purpose-and in particular redefining "lie" in defense of a belief in absolute truth-this raises the problem of how we're to know, by objective standards, when "speaking a falsehood" is permissible and therefore not lying, otherwise this rule is wholly vacuous. If his semantic juggling is to be of any use, Kreeft needs to prove his claim to have such standards, a claim implicit throughout the book, and he fails to.
Kreeft's argument in favor of absolutism rests primarily on what he calls the data of moral experience, which comes down to the claim that "Conscience immediately detects real right and wrong, just as your senses immediately detect real colors and shapes ... [This] shows that absolutism is scientific." Actually, what this shows is that Kreeft believes his conscience is absolutely infallible because he believes God made it so, and although he doesn't tell us how he knows this is true, presumably he believes it is because the tradition he believes in told him it is, and he believes that tradition is true because his infallible conscience tells him so. And round and round, with nothing on which to rest this self-reinforcing circle of certainty. A fuller discussion can be found elsewhere (pkoplin.blogspot.com).
Kreeft also throws in quite a bit of invective against people and principles he disagrees with, but he never addresses the following question: What are your objective, universal, and timeless reasons for claiming that your foundation for absolute values is true? The assertion that God came down to Abraham with the "real religion" (with the implication that Kreeft and his fellow Catholics have an absolute understanding of exactly what moral rules follow from this) isn't good enough, and in fact, taken in conjunction with the rest of Kreeft's performance, raises the question of just what qualifications are required to teach philosophy at Boston College. |
| |
