Immoral Relativism

What about the moral relativism of the Third Reich?  Certainly they
took pains in defining away, then killing the absolute right to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness with their oppression and genocide of
the Jews and extended it likewise to those who opposed them.  This
relativism was its own "religion" of beliefs based on hatred.

- Clarissa DiFrancis, in response to “In Praise of Moral Relativism” (Luc Nadeau, Purgatorius, Jul-Sep 2004)

Nadeau Responds

While some Nazis may have used moral relativism to justify their actions, isn’t it more likely that their views were closer to those of fundamentalists today? They believed that their actions were right according to the ethics of their religion (Christianity). I think our society has taken some valuable lessons from the Bible, but the Bible is obviously open to a broad array of interpretations, and is in many respects ethically antiquated. Fundamentalist interpretations of religious texts are often used to justify actions that most humans see as wrong today – slavery, genocide, terrorism. 

Moral relativism shouldn’t be confused with amoralism – moral relativists can hold very strong moral beliefs (they simply understand that that’s all they are – beliefs, not absolute laws handed down from on high). Nihilism may occur when a moral relativist decides that, because there are no absolute morals, there is no sense in buying into the human-created structure of ethics – this is a foolish and selfish logic, in my view. As a moral relativist I have very strong beliefs in what is right and wrong, I don’t need divine instruction to determine that what the Nazis did was wrong.
- Luc Nadeau



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