After the service, MPC will screen the quarter final rugby match between the All Blacks and Argentina. Game snacks will be available for purchase; the proceeds will go towards our impending trip to America. Before the service, the MPC cafe will offer cheap meals (like mains around $3, desserts $1). So come along and make a night of it!

When: Cafe meals from 6.30pm – service starts 7pm, Sunday 9 October
Where: Massey Presbyterian Church, 510 Don Bucks Rd, Massey, Auckland
Cost: Free (unless you are purchasing food)

Facebook has an event page you can use to RSVP and invite others.

Cultural Ethical Relativism: An action is wrong for a person, if and only if, that person’s society or cultural group condemns that action.

Individual Ethical Relativism: An action is wrong for a person, if and only if, that person believes that the action is wrong.[1]

In the final section of my talk I gave several arguments against relativism so defined. One argument went as follows:

[1] If Cultural Ethical Relativism is true then an action is wrong for a person, if and only if, that person’s society or cultural group condemns that action.

[2] Some societies or cultural groups do not condemn practices like wife beating, racism, religious persecution and rape.

Therefore,

[3] If Cultural Ethical Relativism is true, it is right for a person in those societies to beat their wife, be racist, engage in religious persecution and commit rape.

I gave a parallel argument against individual relativism:

[1]’ If Individual Ethical Relativism is true then an action is wrong for a person, if and only if, that person believes that that action is wrong.

[2]’ Some people do not believe it is wrong to rape women and chop them up.

Therefore,

[3]’ If Individual Ethical Relativism is true then it is not wrong for such people to rape women and chop them up.

Now I maintain that the contention that it is permissible for a person to beat their wife, be racist, engage in religious persecution, commit rape and chop people up is false. It is not morally permissible to do these things; hence, as both cultural ethical relativism individual and ethical relativism entail false conclusions they themselves are false.

Deane contends this argument is “confused” and constitutes a “tirade.” Of course merely describing an argument in pejorative rhetorical language does nothing to actually refute it. It is also worth noting that if Deane is correct, it does little to turn back the critique I offered because, as I noted, this is just one of several arguments I against relativism. Showing that one argument against a position fails does not show that all do.

That said, I do not accept that Dean has shown that my argument fails in this instance. His claim that this argument is obviously “confused” appears to be mere bluster; it remains unclear as to exactly which premise Deane rejects. My argument is formally valid; the conclusion follows from the premises. Moreover, premise [1] and [1]’ are true by virtue of the definitions of relativism, definitions widely accepted in the literature. Premise [2] and [2]’ are also clearly true. It is historically undisputable that there have been societies and people who accepted the practices outlined in both. Finally, [3] and [3’] follow from [1] [2] and [1]’ [2]’ respectively. So it seems then that the only remotely plausible way a person could escape this argument is by biting the bullet and contending that sadist nihilists who chop women up and rape them are not acting wrongly and that members of societies that persecute religious minorities, permit wife bashing, racism and rape are not doing anything wrong when they do these actions. I, myself, find this conclusion extremely implausible.

The first two arguments Deane offers actually avoid addressing this argument at all and instead attack my character and alleged motives. Deane’s first argument is the insinuation that I oppose relativism because it produces “equality for women, freedom of homosexuals from legal persecution.” Two things can be said in response to this. First, even if this claim were true, it would show only that my motives for offering the argument were dubious; it would not show the argument itself is dubious. To do that Deane would have to actually address the premises and offer some actual argument supporting his assertion that they are false. Second, the claim is false. In fact, the argument [1] [2] [3] above, opposes relativism precisely on the grounds that it entails that certain forms of oppression of women are not wrong. It is an undisputed fact that many societies permit and even enjoin the oppression of women, Deane himself claims that 50 years ago New Zealand society approved of wife bashing, but if is wrong for someone to engage in conduct, if and only if, their society does not approve of it, as cultural ethical relativism maintains, then it follows that there was in fact nothing wrong with wife bashing 50 years ago. The New Zealand male who beat his wife black and blue in the 1950′s was acting perfectly appropriately. I find this claim to be clearly absurd. Deane is welcome to support an ethical theory that entails this if he wishes but if he does I strongly suggest that it is him and not I that supports and justifies the oppression of women.

Deane’s second line of argument fares no better. Responding to the second of the arguments mentioned above, Deane insinuates that I fantasise about raping women and chopping them up,

When Matt fantasizes about some weird behavior (and his favourite suggestion, for some reason, is a person who rapes, tortures and ‘chops up’ women…)

Deane here appears to reason that because I mention an activity as an example of unjust conduct that I must fantasise about doing it. The problem is that Deane in both his blog posts mentioned the persecution of gays and women as unjust practices; by his own logic then Deane is a misogynist homophobe who fantasises about harming women and homosexuals. Clearly this is not a valid response to the arguments above on Deane’s part here but an example of him engaging in another fallacious ad hominen.

Nether of Deane’s first or second arguments then actually call any of the above into question. Nothing he says gives us the slightest reason for thinking that people who bash their spouse or persecute religious or ethnic minorities with cultural approval are acting justly when they do. Nothing he says leads us to dispute that there are societies which do approve of these things, and these facts jointly entail that cultural ethical relativism is false. If he is to actually rebut this argument as opposed to simply vent his disgust for me, Deane needs to address these claims.

Later in the post Deanne does attempt to offer some arguments against the inference [1] [2] [3] above. However, these arguments quite evidently fail. At one point Deane argues,

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!

Deanne here points out that it is not absurd to suggest “that a person or sector of society with very unusual morals might consider their behaviour to be morally good.” I agree entirely, the problem is that nowhere in my arguments above is this denied. I did not deny that some societies will claim that certain actions they engage in are morally permissible. In fact [2] explicitly affirms that some societies will claim that wife beating, religious persecution, rape and racism are permissible; hence, far from denying this claim I explicitly affirmed it. What I maintain as absurd is the contention that these societies’ assessments of their own norms are correct, that a person whom, with cultural approval, persecutes another or beats his wife actually is acting rightly and justly. Deane’s criticism here then attacks a point I did not make and fails to address the one that I did.

There is a hint at a criticism of [2] in the latter part of this paragraph where Deane suggests that societies that approve of abhorrent behaviour are rare. Unfortunately, this response is inadequate. First, even if it is true, it fails to address my argument. In [2] I maintained that some societies or cultural groups do not condemn practices like wife beating, racism, religious persecution and rape, not that many societies do. Second, with regards to the explicit examples I gave, it is untrue that only a few cultures and societies would support these things, a large number of societies have supported certain forms of rape, such as marital rape or raping women in war. Further, more than a few societies have supported religious persecution. Think, for example, of the execution of Socrates for heresy in ancient Athens, the persecution of Christians by the Romans, the inquisitions and the religious wars of Europe and the religious persecution in many Muslim countries today. Many have supported racist policies such as South Africa and the American South, not to mention the colonial and social Darwinist policies of the 19^th century as well as the documented acceptance of racism in many ancient cultures such as ancient Greece and Egypt. Premise [2] is very clearly true. Further [2], when conjoined with the definition of cultural ethical relativism spelled out in [1], entails that these policies were justified and that those who carried them out and advocated them were correct.

It is this latter claim that I think is evidentially mistaken. Instead of evading the issue Deane owes us an answer. Does he believe, for example, that Inquisitors who burned heretics to death at the stake were right to do so given that their society approved of this practice? Does he believe that when wife bashing was accepted that men who smashed in their wives faces acted rightly? If he does not then he cannot consistently maintain that an action is wrong for a person, if and only if, their society or culture does not condemn it.

Deane’s fourth line of criticism is to state,

Matt adds, “If you accept cultural relativism, essentially the norms of your society become infallible. They can’t be wrong. Because right and wrong is just 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.

Here, again, Deane does not actually address the argument [1] [2] [3] above but instead addresses a different argument that I made elsewhere in the same talk. This was the argument that cultural ethical relativism entails that a society can never be mistaken in its moral judgements. So, once again, even if Deane’s criticisms of this argument are correct they do not actually address [1] [2] [3] above. However, once again, even in response to this line of argument Deane fails to be cogent. He notes,

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.

Deane here states that I “assume” that a society’s norms are infallible. This, however, is false. In the quote he cites, I argued for this conclusion. I stated explicitly that the norms of a society “can’t be wrong because right and wrong is just what your society says it is.” The ‘because’ here notes an inference. If the property of ‘being right’ is the property of ‘being approved by society’ then it is impossible for society to approve of an action and for that action to be wrong. Deane is welcome to address this inference but ignoring it and then stating that I merely assumed the conclusion does not address my argument.

Deane does go on to offer some arguments to the effect that societal norms are not monolithlic and static, rather they are rather fluid; the societal norms change, develop, evolve, etc. However, nowhere did I deny any of these things. What I argued for was that relativism entails that these norms are infallible. No matter how fluid or changing cultural norms are, the fact remains that, according to cultural ethical relativism, at any given time T, if a society approves of an action then that action is right for any member of the society who performs it at T. At no point in time can a society be mistaken about what right and wrong is if right and wrong are identified with the norms of a society. Of course at T+1 the societal norm may change but if this is the case then this simply means that society has changed from one correct assessment of right and wrong to another. For the reasons I stated, which Deane ignored, Deane’s position commits him to the view that societies’ norms are never mistaken, and this, I maintain, is absurd. Clearly throughout history societies have made mistakes in their moral judgements and this fact shows us that societal norms and moral norms are not the same thing.

[1] Frances Howard-Snyder “Christianity and Ethics” in Reason for the Hope Within, ed Michael J. Murray (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans Publishing co, 1999) 376-377.

RELATED POSTS:
A Response to The Dunedin School’s “Thinking in Tatters: Moral Relativism and Hidden Objectivist Assumptions”
Video of Matthew Flannagan Speaking on Moral Relativism
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism I
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism II
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism III

The original blog post, “Thinking in Tatters: Moral Relativism and So-called ‘Counter-examples’”, by Deane Galbraith of The Dunedin School is below

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

by Deane Galbraith
10 November 2009

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…), 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.

Deane’s critique appears to consist of three lines of argument. The first is a string of assertions about my alleged motives combined with pejorative terms to describe my conclusions. Deane insinuates that I am a “frustrated atavistic reactionists who want to take away rights from women, homosexuals, and other minorities and restore power to the patriarchy” and smugly contends that my arguments are “a mish-mash of illogical nonsense and rhetorical scaremongering.”

Unfortunately one does not refute a person’s arguments by simply asserting that their arguments are illogical. Even if Deane’s assertions about my motives were correct, and he offers no evidence to suggest that that they are, this would show only that I have terrible motives in making the arguments in question, not that the arguments themselves were problematic. Hence, this first line of argument can be dismissed as mere rhetoric.

The second line of argument is only marginally more substantial. Deane suggests that I spent more than half my talk “presenting obviously unsound arguments for relativism and then (marvelously!) disproving them to [my] captive evangelical audience”. Deane describes this as a “sleight of hand” on my part. Now exactly what this objection amounts to is unclear. Deane clearly dislikes the idea that my audience were evangelicals (which not all were) but the fact that my audience may hold to a particular religion does not show the arguments I presented to this audience were mistaken; in fact, Deane in conceding that the arguments I criticised were “obviously unsound” seems to agree with my conclusions about the merits of these arguments. Given this, it is hard to know what the problem is. Of course Deane describes my criticisms in a sarcastic tone but simply describing something sarcastically does not constitute an argument against it nor does deeming it “sleight of hand” show that it is mistaken.

What I think Deane is driving at is something more substantial. Some of what he says suggests he is accusing me of attacking a straw-man; he seems to be suggesting that I chose some really bad arguments, which anyone familiar with the discussions on relativism will know are not actually made by proponents of relativism and I criticised these arguments. I got away with it only because my audience are evangelicals, and hence, unaware that a straw-man has been presented.

Now apart from the suggestion that all evangelicals are ignorant, gullible people with no background in ethics and the assumption that the audience was made up of evangelicals (I suspect that the atheists present probably would not describe themselves as “evangelical”) the obvious problem with this claim is that it is false. The arguments I put forward come from the literature on relativism (as anyone familiar with the discussions on relativism can attest to).

In the talk I cite two arguments, an argument from tolerance and an argument from diversity. These arguments are often cited in secular ethics text books. Alan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind, for example, notes that the appeal to tolerance is one of the most common reasons proposed for relativism. The arguments I mentioned are also cited by Harry Gensler in his book Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction,  Louis Pojman notes these arguments in Ethics Discovering Right and Wrong and James Rachels raises them in The Elements of Moral Philosophy. Hence, far from being a straw-man that only an ignoramus would cite in the context of relativism, these are arguments for relativism cited in leading mainstream ethics textbooks.

The third of Deane’s arguments is more substantive. He suggests that one point I make in my talk is circular. Now the first thing to note is that this claim is, to some extent, fairly irrelevant. In the section in question I noted two arguments commonly put forward in favor of relativism and offered several lines of criticism against them, one of them Deane claims is circular. Now even if Deane were correct, pointing out that one line of criticism is fallacious does nothing to address the overall case I made. If one of several arguments are mistaken it does not follow that the rest are.

That said, Deane’s attribution of circularity to me is mistaken. In my talk I noted that one argument for relativism implicitly appeals to the following premise:

[2] All people have a duty to not be intolerant

At one point I made the following comment about this premise, “And notice too that the second premise is making a what? An objective moral statement. It is saying that all people have a duty to be tolerant. But according to relativism there are no objective moral statements”

It is here Deane thinks I have argued in a circle. He states,

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… 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.

Several things can be said about this. First, even if I did (as Deane contends) assume the objectivity of morality in my criticism here, this would not make my argument circular. A circular argument is one where the conclusion is assumed in the premises. To be circular then I would have to be making an argument for the conclusion that moral relativism is correct. But I was not. At this point in the talk I was criticising one argument for moral relativism. But criticising one argument for moral relativism is not the same thing as offering an argument for objectivism. Hence, even if one grants Deane’s substantive point, my argument is not circular.

Second, and more importantly, Deane is wrong to claim that I was, at this point, assuming the objectivity of morality and sneaking this assumption into my interpretation of [2]. If Deane had bothered to listen to the passage he cited in its context he would see that I immediately went on to argue that [2] should be interpreted as affirming an objective principle. What I said was:

if relativism were true [2] would actually be wrong. You would only have a duty to be tolerant if you yourself believed in tolerance. If you were a bigot you’d be perfectly entitled to be intolerant. And if your society was a bigoted society it would be perfectly appropriate for you to be intolerant. So the person who makes this claim actually shows that they believe in objective morality, they believe there is an objective value of tolerance.

Hence it is simply not the case that I assumed moral objectivism and sneaked this assumption into my reading of [2]. What I did was offer an argument that [2] had to be interpreted this way because unless one interpreted [2] in an objectivist manner, [2] would be false.

Now if Deane thinks that [2] can be interpreted in a relativist manner then the burden is on him to show that my argument is mistaken. To ignore the argument and simply state that I assumed the position I argued for and then assert that the position is wrong establishes nothing at all (well, it establishes nothing about my argument).

Ironically, if we accept Deane’s contention that [2] should be interpreted as asserting a relative duty and not an objective duty then, in fact, it is the relativist that is engaging in circular reasoning. Remember, at this point in the talk I was criticising an argument for relativism, [2] was a premise of this particular argument for relativism. If [2], therefore, expresses or presupposes that moral claims are to be interpreted in a relativist fashion then the relativist is presupposing the truth of relativism in the premises of one argument for relativism, and this clearly would be circular.

For the relativist to offer a non-question begging argument for his position he must appeal to premises that non-relativists are likely to accept and hence the premises of his argument cannot be interpreted in a relativist fashion.

There is a final point to make here, Deane makes heavy weather out of the contention that I cannot conceive of what a relativist morality would look like. He states,

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.

It is evident that an unjustified leap is being made here. Suppose, contrary to fact, I did err in one criticism I made of one argument for relativism. It hardly follows from this that I cannot conceive of what a thorough-going relativism would look like. All it would show is that on one point I made a mistake. But more importantly, even if it did establish what Deane claims, that I failed to appreciate what a thoroughgoing moral relativism would look like, it is not clear how this would constitute a criticism of my position. After all there are many things which I cannot conceive of that are perfectly rational for me to reject. I cannot conceive of what a square triangle would look like, it does not follow from this that I cannot defensibly claim that anyone who affirms that square triangles exist is mistaken and is uttering a nonsense. So once again Deane’s criticism amounts to nothing at all.

Of course Deane makes his points in a rhetorical, sarcastic, snarky manner and I am sure that for those who dislike evangelical Christianity, such writing is highly entertaining. Entertaining rhetoric, however, is never a substitute for substantive content; notwithstanding the entertaining rhetoric in this instance, the arguments Deane offers fail.

RELATED POSTS:
A Response to The Dunedin School’s “Thinking in Tatters: Moral Relativism and So-Called ‘Counter-Examples’”
Video of Matthew Flannagan Speaking on Moral Relativism
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism I
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism II
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism III

The original blog post, “Thinking in Tatters: Moral Relativism and Hidden Objectivist Assumptions”, by Deane Galbraith of The Dunedin School is below Thinking in Tatters: Moral Relativism and Hidden Objectivist Assumptions

by Deane Galbraith
10 November 2009

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.

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matt 7:1-2)

“Get out of our way,” they replied. And they said, “This fellow came here as an alien, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.

2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3″Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
6″Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces. (Matthew 7:2-6)

15″Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
21″Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matthew 7:15-23)

1 I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.
2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.
3 “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?
5 Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled.
6 I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.”
7 The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress. (Isaiah 5:1-7)

Counter Examples
Both cultural and individual ethical relativism are subject to several, straight-forward, counter examples.

Take cultural ethical relativism first. Consider a culture where it is accepted that that a husband has the right to beat his wife. Would an advocate of cultural relativism contend that in such a society criticism by a Christian minority of this practice and the advocacy of norms forbidding spousal abuse is an unacceptable imposition of a narrow, religious perspective? Would it be true that in such a society public policy could not be based on the ethical principle that it is wrong for a man to beat his wife?

Consider an Islamic society where the majority believe that conversion to a rival, mono-theistic religion is immoral and should be a capital offence. To not execute converts to Judaism or Christianity in such a society would, according to cultural relativism, be wrong.

In a society where a racial majority believes a racial minority is sub-human and this belief is widely accepted throughout the culture, it would be unjust to grant equal human rights according to cultural relativism.

The same line of argument applies against individual ethical relativism. Suppose an individual believes that it is permissible to rape, torture and kill women. If individual relativism is true it follows that this person is right to do these things and anyone who utters condemnation because they believe rape, torture and murder are wrong are mistaken.

You may think this is a hypothetical example but it’s not. In his discussion of relativism, Pojman recounts an interview with serial killer Ted Bundy,

Then I learned that all moral judgments are “value judgments,” that all value judgments are subjective, and that none can be proved to be either ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ I even read somewhere that the Chief Justice of the United States had written that the American Constitution expressed nothing more than collective value judgments. Believe it or not, I figured it out for myself – what apparently the Chief Justice couldn’t figure out for himself – that if the rationality of one value judgment was zero, multiplying it by millions would not make it one whit more rational. Nor is there any ‘reason’ to obey the law for anyone, like myself, who has the boldness and daring – the strength of character – to throw off its shackles…. I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable ‘value judgment’ that I was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked myself, who were these ‘others’? Other human beings, with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a human animal than any other animal, a pig or a sheep or a steer? Is your life more to you than a high’s life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than for the other? Surely you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as ‘moral’ or ‘good’ and others as ‘immoral’ or ‘bad’? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure I might take in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me – after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and uninhibited self.[1]

Moral Reform and Moral Progress
A second reason for rejecting relativism is that it implies that social reform is mistaken and those who engage in it are always wrong. Consider two historical examples; the first is Martin Luther King Jnr. Dr King campaigned against the racism and racial segregation that was practiced in the southern states of the US.

Now if cultural relativism is correct, Dr King was wrong to do this; segregation was accepted by the society he was in at the time, hence, it was permissible for members of that society. Moreover Dr King’s own practices, which involved civil disobedience, were contrary to the laws of his day. In fact contemporaries of Dr King criticised his actions on this point. In his letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr King answered his critics by stating that above the laws and mores of one’s society was the law of God and that any law which contradicted this was unjust.

Now if we accept relativism, we have to conclude that Dr King was mistaken here. Dr King, in fact, was an intolerant bigot who imposed his private religious beliefs about racism onto others. The society he lived in accepted racism, hence racism is right for members of that society. But surely this analysis is completely lopsided? Dr King was right and his society was wrong; he was the opponent of bigotry and his society was perpetuating it.

Similarly, William Wilberforce’s campaign to end slavery would have to be considered unjust and mistaken if we take seriously the cultural relativist’s position. Slavery was, after all, accepted in the British Empire at the time. Wilberforce’s efforts were defeated by a majority of parliament on many occasions. Hence, if relativism is true, slavery was actually right and Wilberforce was wrong to oppose it.

Similar things can be said for the idea of moral progress. Normally we think that certain reforms such as women’s suffrage, the abolition of cruel and unusual punishment, ending child labour, etc are marks of progress, historical points where a society improves and gets better. However, if relativism is correct this is not the case.

Reform or progress is impossible; whatever a society believes is right, is right for members of that society. If something is right if a culture thinks its right, then it is impossible for a society’s mores to ever be wrong. Societal mores are in essence infallible.

But then it seems there is nothing to improve upon and hence, progress cannot occur. All that can happen is that societies can change one perfectly valid system for another and those who advocate the change are always mistaken when they do.

Further, a minority would never be justified in proposing its ideas until it was no longer a minority view. However, it cannot cease to be a minority view unless it is proposed in the first place. Consequently, this requires all societies to be frozen in whatever popular prejudices currently exist. The reforming minority that critiques contemporary culture would be effectively silenced.

This problem does not only apply to cultural relativism. An analogous argument can be applied to individual relativism. Reform does not just happen within societies; individuals can reform and make moral progress.

Consider a member of the Ku Klux Klan who thinks that lynching African Americans is justified or a Nazi who fervently believes in the extermination of Jews. If these people came to see the error of their ways and reformed their characters so that they came to view other races as people with equal dignity, made in the image of God, then it is plausible to say they have undergone moral reform and have progressed. However, individual relativism entails this is not the case.

The Klan member and the Nazi were right to engage in bigoted behaviour, because neither believed there was anything wrong with it. Moreover, the basis of this change, seeing ‘the error of their ways,’ is, in fact, hugely mistaken. According to individual relativism, there was no ‘error of ways’ at all and anyone suggesting there was is an intolerant bigot.

Equality of Cultural and Individual Practices
My final argument against relativism is to note that if cultural relativism is true then no practiced widely accepted by a culture is better than a practice accepted by another culture. According to individual relativism, no practice sincerely believed in by one person is better than another’s.

For individual relativism, if Ted Bundy believes it is permissible to rape women and kill them, then that is right for him and there is nothing wrong with him doing it. Similarly, if Mother Teresa believes helping the poor is permissible then she is permitted morally to do this. However, any suggestion that Bundy’s practices are worse than Mother Teresa’s and he should change and be more like her is mistaken. To do so is to suggest that the views of one person (Teresa) can be legitimately applied to another (Bundy) who does not believe in them.

Similarly, with cultural relativism; if a culture institutionalises and accepts the persecution of ethnic minorities then its members are justified in engaging in such persecution. If another culture grants equal dignity to all races on the basis of its beliefs then it too is justified in this. However, it is mistaken to think that one is correct and the other wrong. Both are correct and neither is wrong as there is no trans-cultural standard that one can appeal to, to claim one is better than the other.

Conclusion
I submit then that relativism has little going for it. When one unpacks the contemporary slogans one finds a position supported by bad and often incoherent arguments. A position that if correct, entails horrific and bigoted practices are as justified as any other practice and any attempts to change or reform people from engaging in such practices is wrong. Relativism essentially renders morality and ethics into pointless concepts.

[1] Louis P. Pojman The Moral Life: An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature (Oxford University Press: 2003).

RELATED POSTS:
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism I
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism II
Video of Matthew Flannagan Speaking on Moral Relativism
With God Anything can be Permitted: Another Bad Argument against Theistic Morality
On a Common Equivocation
Sunday Study: The Virtue of Judging – Jesus was not a Relativist

Arguments for Ethical Relativism
There appear to be two main arguments for relativism. The first appeals to the existence of diverse mores and traditions amongst cultures on particular issues. The second is a cluster of ethical concerns about such things as tolerance, avoiding bigotry, open mindedness, etc. I will examine both below.

Argument from Diversity
One argument for relativism, going back to the time of Herodotus, is based on the fact that different cultures and groups often appear to have radically different ethical norms and values. In some cultures, for example, homosexual conduct is permitted even mandated, in others it is condemned.[1] Some cultures practice polygamy, others monogamy. Many cultures have practiced infanticide allowing the parents a choice whether to kill a child after birth,[2] other cultures strongly disapprove of this. I could go on.

Further, within the same societies ethical judgments can appear to change over time. Fifty years ago abortion was illegal in New Zealand, now it is paraded as a woman’s choice. Four hundred years ago people were executed for witchcraft in Europe, now we watch “Sensing Murder” and “The Ghost Whisperer” for entertainment.

It is not uncommon to find some cross-cultural anthropological studies making claims such as the following,

[1] Ethical principles differ from culture to culture and from age to age.

Given that [1] is essentially the thesis of ethical relativism, it is suggested that cross-cultural studies demonstrate relativism. [This is clearly an argument for cultural ethical relativism. However it is clear that an analogous argument could be constructed for individual ethical relativism; it would not be hard to show that individuals often differ radically on moral issues, particularly in highly pluralistic societies.]

Two things can be noted in response. First, while it is true that different cultures come to different ethical conclusions, in and of itself, this does not mean they disagree over ethical principles. Sometimes this outcome is due to factual or non-ethical disagreements.

Consider witchcraft. Rodney Stark notes that one reason the execution of witches occurred was because of certain non-ethical beliefs that were prevalent at the time. In the 14th century, many educated people believed in the existence of witches. It was believed witches met together secretly and sacrificed children to the devil and then ate these sacrifices in a ritual feast. After this feast these people bound themselves by oath to the devil to use supernatural powers to inflict harm and kill innocent people.[3]

Now given these beliefs, it is quite understandable why some in that society felt this way. If, in our culture, people randomly killed and ate babies and then conspired to arbitrary kill, harm and maim innocent people, many would support their actions being subject to the death penalty. The point is that it is factual, not ethical claims, which are the major source of disagreement between cultures.[4]

The second and more important point, is that the argument is invalid. Frances Howard-Snyder notes[5] that [1] is ambiguous it can mean,

[1a] Beliefs about what is right and wrong differ from culture to culture and age to age.

Or it could mean,

[1b] What really is right and wrong differs from culture to culture and age to age.

To provide grounds for affirming relativism, anthropological studies would need to establish [1b] but they do not. At most, they establish [1a]. To get [1b] from [1a] one would need to assume that what a society believed was right was really right for that society. This, however, would be to assume relativism was correct. The argument would then be circular; one would assume relativism as a premise in order to establish it as a conclusion.

Argument from Tolerance
The second major argument proposed in favour of relativism appeals to virtues such as tolerance, absence of bigotry, open mindedness, etc. The idea is that if you apply your ethical standards to other people or other cultures, you are arrogantly assuming that they are wrong and you are right. In claiming that other people are mistaken or wrong you are failing to show them tolerance and are rather, imposing your morality upon them. This is, arguably, the major driver behind the appeal of relativism in culture today. This argument has the following structure.

[1] It is intolerant to claim that other people’s opinions are mistaken or wrong.

[2] People should not be intolerant.

From which it follows,

[3] People should not claim that other people’s opinions are mistaken or wrong.

Let me examine each of these claims.

Is it intolerant to claim that other people’s opinions are mistaken or wrong?
Contrary to [1], it is not intolerant to claim others are mistaken or wrong. Two line of argument show this.

First the person who proposes this claim seems to misunderstand the meaning of the word tolerance. Suppose you asked me what I thought about my wife’s cooking and I responded that I “tolerated it.” This would entail that my wife is not a good cook (and would probably make her mad). If she were a good cook, I would not say I tolerate her cooking, I would say she is a great cook. In the same way I can only tolerate other people’s behaviour and or opinions if I think there is something wrong or bad about them. If I do not think this, I would not tolerate their behaviour or opinions, I would endorse them.

Second, [1] is itself refuting. Note that the person who makes this claim is criticising the behaviour of objectivist. The claimant is asserting that the objectivist in “telling other people that they are wrong or incorrect” is doing something wrong or incorrect. Can you see the problem?

If [1] is true then the person who utters this argument is themselves intolerant by their own definition. It would also entail that any position based upon or committed to this view is also intolerant. However, [2] entails that the relativist should not utter this argument and if uttered, we should reject any view based upon this argument and any position committed to castigating others as intolerant.

Do people have a duty to be tolerant?
Turning to the second premise [2], despite often being expounded in contemporary society as a self-evident truth, [2] is clearly false.

First, in many contexts, intolerance is appropriate and is a virtue. Imagine a society that tolerated rape, child molestation, infant sacrifice or spouse beating. Such a society would be “tolerating other people,” after all, rapists, paedophiles, child killers and wife beaters are people… However, this society would be wrong to do this. Hence, tolerance is not always a duty, sometimes it is a vice. Secondly, if unqualified, the assertion that people have a duty to be tolerant entails that one should tolerate intolerance, something deeply paradoxical.

Third, in the context of an argument for relativism, [2] seems to put the proponent of this argument into a contradiction. Remember that according to relativism there are no objective ethical principles. On cultural ethical relativism, an action is wrong for a person only if that person’s culture condemns that action. On individual ethical relativism, an action is wrong for a person only if he or she believes the action is wrong. However, it follows that, if relativism is true, there is no objective duty to be tolerant. Any culture that accepts and practices intolerant and bigoted practices is permitted to do so. Any individual who believes that certain intolerant practices are permissible is justified in being intolerant. The relativist, then, cannot consistently ask the objectivist to give up the intolerant position that they believe on the basis that doing so is wrong. If relativism is true then the fact that objectivists believe in an intolerant position means tolerance is not wrong for them but in fact permissible.

Many of the arguments behind relativism are thoroughly confused. In my next post I will argue that there are good reasons against accepting it.

[1] David Greenberg The Construction of Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
[2] Lalia Williamson “Infanticide: An Anthropological Analysis” in Infanticide and the Value of Life ed. M. Kohl (New York: Prometheus Books, 1978) 61-73.
[3] Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004) 201.
[4] The witchcraft example comes from C S Lewis’ discussion of relativism in Mere Christianity.
[5] Frances Howard-Snyder “Christianity and Ethics” in Reason for the Hope Within ed Michael J Murray (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1999) 378; see also James Rachels Elements of Moral Philosophy (New York: Random House, 1986) 19.

RELATED POSTS:
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism I
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism III
Video of Matthew Flannagan Speaking on Moral Relativism
With God Anything can be Permitted: Another Bad Argument against Theistic Morality
On a Common Equivocation
Sunday Study: The Virtue of Judging – Jesus was not a Relativist

Oddly enough, however, when it comes to many questions on social policy or on ethics in general, people offer the date as a justification for their stance. I often hear people justify some ‘progressive’ policy by informing me that is the 21st century or that we no longer live in the dark ages.

Recently in there has been controversy over whether women should be allowed to ride motorbikes down our main street topless to promote a pornography erotica festival. There were predominantly two responses articulated by supporters in the media reports on the controversy: “it’s the 21st century” and “we live in a liberal society.”

Let’s unpack both slogans. The first claims that being topless in public is acceptable because in the 21st century the fashions trends are for acceptance of such activities. In the past people opposed such actions but they shouldn’t anymore because society’s attitudes have changed. Note the implicit assumption here, that right and wrong is determined by what society currently accepts. The same assumption is even more evident in the second slogan. The assertion here is that New Zealand is a liberal society, that is, kiwis today have liberal attitudes towards pornography and public nudity. Suppose this is true; this entails that pornography and public nudity are permissible only if right and wrong are determined by societal attitudes.

This is not an isolated incident. When I was studying the abortion issue for my PhD research I often found people who stated they were personally opposed to abortion but would not condemn others who did it. This, of course, suggests that one can accept a principle opposing abortion, apply it to oneself and yet think it inappropriate to apply it to others.

Similarly, we often hear slogans such as “who are you to judge,” “don’t force your morality onto me,” Both suggest that one person cannot make moral judgments about another and that their moral scruples only apply to those who also hold them.

It is not uncommon to hear people say things like, “if you don’t like abortion don’t have one” or “if you don’t agree with what’s on TV turn it off.” Both responses assume that a person should not apply their moral standards to other people’s actions. They should follow these standards themselves if that is their belief but other people who disagree with them are not required to.

Behind these responses is a position known as ethical relativism. In a series of three posts I want to explore what relativism is, the common arguments for it and provide some reasons for rejecting it.

[This series was developed from my talk on the topic for Thinking Matters]

What is Ethical Relativism?
Frances Howard-Snyder[1] suggests that relativism comes in two forms, cultural ethical relativism and individual ethical relativism. These views can be formulated as follows:

Cultural Ethical Relativism: An action is wrong for a person, if and only if, that person’s society or cultural group condemns that action.

Individual Ethical Relativism: An action is wrong for a person, if and only if, that person believes that the action is wrong.[2]

Two things follow from this view of ethics; first, humans create right and wrong, either by societal consensus of some sort or by an individual choosing to adopt and/or believe in, certain principles of action. Second, moral principles only apply to people or cultures who accept them. A few of examples will illustrate this.

Consider first cultural ethical relativism. Suppose two cultures have differing positions on the morality of pre-marital sex. In one culture it is seen as a serious sin, in the other it’s a normal courting ritual. Cultural ethical relativism entails that pre-marital sex is wrong for members of the first culture but not wrong for the second. Consequently, if a person in the second culture mocks a member of the first culture for holding repressed ideas about sex or conversely if a person in the first culture criticises someone in the second culture for engaging in pre-marital sex each is making a serious mistake. Premarital sex is only wrong for people in the first culture and denying your sexual urges is only wrong for people in the second.

A similar result follows from adopting individual ethical relativism. If a person believes that pre-marital sex is wrong then it is wrong for him and he should refrain from engaging in it and can be condemned if he does not. However, he cannot apply his own standard of sexual conduct to the behaviour of others who do not accept his views. If a person does not accept his view then pre-marital sex is not wrong for them.

This suggests a corollary that hypocrisy will be seen as the worst kind of evil (indeed the only evil) and sincerity will be highly praised. The hypocrite violates his own views and the sincere person embraces them. (Of course the problem is that an individual or culture might believe there is nothing wrong with hypocrisy and despise sincerity, this would lead to the conclusion that hypocrisy is ok and sincerity is evil.)

A final implication is that as cultures and individuals often disagree on moral questions there is no set of moral precepts which bind all people, regardless of their culture, at all times. Given this, it is not surprising that people commonly respond to ethical and social policy questions by providing the date.

Before looking at the arguments for relativism I want to contrast it with objectivism. In this context objectivism is not a form of Libertarianism expounded by Ayn Rand, it is the view that actions are right or wrong independent of whether anyone believes them to be so.

Robert Adams defends the thesis that ethical wrongness is (i.e. is identical with) the property of being contrary to the commands of a loving God.”[3] [Emphasis original] I have defended divine command theories in various places on this blog, in this post, however, I want to simply note that a divine command theory, like other meta-ethical theories, grounds right and wrong in in facts that hold independently of human volition or cognition.

If God exists, he existed before I came into existence and will continue to exist after I die. He does not depend on me in any way for his existence rather I depend upon him for my existence. The same is true for the commands he issues; if right and wrong are constituted by divine commands then, it follows, right and wrong are objective properties of actions and do not depend upon us for their instantiation.

Two implications of objectivism are noteworthy. First, ethical rules are not created by human beings but rather discovered by them. Second, whether an action is right or wrong is a factual question in much the same way as the question is the earth round? The shape of the earth is something human beings have discovered. If some people, such as the 4th century Theologian Lactantius or some culture, such as the ancient Babylonians, believe the world is flat then they are mistaken. Despite what they think Lactantius and the Babylonians lived on a spherical globe; no matter how sincerely they believed otherwise, there was no change to the shape of the earth. Objectivism sees moral properties such as right and wrong as being on par with factual claims about the shape of the earth this is respect.

As the slogans above suggest, objectivist views of ethics are widely disparaged in popular culture in favour of relativism. Of course, the fact that a position is widely disparaged does not mean it is mistaken. To determine this we need to ask whether the arguments in favour of relativism are compelling. It is to this task I will turn in my next post.

[1] Frances Howard-Snyder, “Christianity and Ethics” in Reason for the Hope Within, ed Michael J. Murray (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans Publishing co, 1999) 376-377.
[2] The same basic distinction is found in Pojman who distinguishes between what he calls conventionalism and subjectivism
[3] Robert Adams, “Divine Command Meta-Ethics Modified Again,” Journal of Religious Ethics 7:1 (1979) 76.

RELATED POSTS:
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism II
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism III
Video of Matthew Flannagan Speaking on Moral Relativism
With God Anything can be Permitted: Another Bad Argument against Theistic Morality
On a Common Equivocation
Sunday Study: The Virtue of Judging – Jesus was not a Relativist

Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism

Dr Matthew Flannagan PhD, MSocSci, BSocSci

When: Tuesday 2nd September
Time: 7 – 9pm
Where: Bethlehem Community Church Center – 183 Moffat Rd, Bethlehem, Tauranga
Cost: Free
Event Format: Live Presentation followed by Q&A and discussions

Christian moral obligations are often seen as bigoted and intolerant. It is widely held that it’s wrong to impose “private moral perspectives” on to others. In this talk Matthew will critically examine the arguments for relativism and look at some of its implications. He will argue that popular moral relativism is confused and incoherent, and that Christians should not be intimidated by it.

Dr Flannagan currently teaches part time at Laidlaw College. He holds a Masters degree in Philosophy from the University of Waikato and a PhD in Theology from the University of Otago. His research interests are Ethics, Apologetics, and Philosophical Theology.

Thinking Matters
Thinking Matters is an inter-denominational group where you can come to analyse and discuss some of the deeper issues of the Christian faith in the areas of Philosophy, Science and Apologetics (see definitions here).

The purpose is to make Christian truth claims more relevant to an increasingly sceptical and secular culture, showing the reasons why we believe what we believe and providing answers that simply make sense.

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