Product Description

"An extremely well-researched, intellectual approach to the problem of relativism and its effect on education, public policy, and our everyday lives." --Youthworker

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #137417 in Books
• Published on: 1998-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

About the Author
Francis J. Beckwith is associate director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, and associate professor of Church-State Studies, Baylor University, where he is also associate editor of the Journal of Church & State. He currently serves as a member of Princeton's James Madison Program Council on Moral and Political Thought. He has written several books including the award-winning Politically Correct Death. His articles have been published in numerous journals across a diversity of disciplines. Find out more at francisbeckwith.com

Customer Reviews

There are no absolutes!
This book shows the inherent contradictions and bizarre world views that result from relativism (the authors define at least three kinds of relativism). The book describes relativism as it relates to life, society, individuals, jurisprudence, and eduction. It also contains strategies for dealing with such self-refuting objections like "Who are you to say?" and "Don't impose your morality on me." Plus one of the authors is Frank Beckwith, so you know it's an amazing read.

The best book on this subject
Deep and yet easy to understand. An indispensible resource for understanding, responding to, and refuting relativism and post-modern thought. This is a MUST READ.

Absolutism: No Feet at All
As usual in books of this type, the authors caricature their opponents and then attack their nasty, selfish, ignorant victims for the views the authors have ascribed to them. They then ask the reader to join them in their dance of triumph over the dead bodies of enough straw men to light up a good-size fire, the sort of fire to which the medieval Church--not known for its relativism--used to consign heretics.

Instead of dealing with their overheated mischaracterizations, let's consider the authors' arguments for moral absolutism. They point out, quite correctly, that the observation that different cultures and traditions may have different values doesn't mean that no given culture or tradition can have values that are absolute. But they fail to realize that the observation of cultural difference is not meant to refute absolutism, but to raise a fundamental question: If "absolute" values disagree, how does one establish, on an objective and absolute basis, which one, if any, really is absolute?

According to the authors, "objective truths ... are realities in the external world that we discover ... External facts are what they are, regardless of how we feel about them" (p28). In other words, "We don't invent morality; we discover it like we discover multiplication tables" (p29).

How do we discover the "objective" truths of absolute morality? By intuition: "Intuition is a foundational way of knowing that does not depend on following a series of facts or a line of reasoning to a conclusion. Instead, intuitional truth is simply known by the process of introspection and immediate awareness" (p56).

"Intuitional truth doesn't require a defense--a justification of the steps that brought one to this knowledge--because this kind of truth does not result from reasoning by steps to a conclusion. It's a truth that's obvious upon consideration" (p56).

But what about people who disagree with the authors' intuitions about what constitutes moral truth? Clearly, one can't reason with such dissidents, because their intuitions are no more subject to the requirements of reasoned defense than are the authors'. Instead, one dismisses them: "They have something wrong with them" (p59).

That's it. Our intuition is right because we know it is; your intuition is wrong because there's something wrong with you.

People who find comfort in that sort of approach will enjoy this book.