NY Times Op-Ed on Moral Relativism

[nathan1977]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/opinion/if-it-feels-right.html?_r=1

The interviewers asked open-ended questions about right and wrong, moral dilemmas and the meaning of life. In the rambling answers, which Smith and company recount in a new book, “Lost in Transition,” you see the young people groping to say anything sensible on these matters. But they just don’t have the categories or vocabulary to do so.

When asked to describe a moral dilemma they had faced, two-thirds of the young people either couldn’t answer the question or described problems that are not moral at all, like whether they could afford to rent a certain apartment or whether they had enough quarters to feed the meter at a parking spot.

“Not many of them have previously given much or any thought to many of the kinds of questions about morality that we asked,” Smith and his co-authors write. When asked about wrong or evil, they could generally agree that rape and murder are wrong. But, aside from these extreme cases, moral thinking didn’t enter the picture, even when considering things like drunken driving, cheating in school or cheating on a partner. “I don’t really deal with right and wrong that often,” is how one interviewee put it.

 

[Irvine511]

so kids today see the world in shades of gray rather than black and white?

seems like our political system could learn from them.

 

[yolland]

^ Politically my concern about 'shades of gray thinking' would be that it could lead to apathy and the politics of least resistance. For example, increasing recognition of same-sex marriage is no doubt facilitated by the thinking of, "I'm not really sure what I believe about this, but it's not for me to judge others' lives," but as a movement, it has been and will continue to be led by people with passionate convictions about equality, justice, and the value of family. Likewise from the other end you often get these extremely superficial pseudo-arguments, which may be pronounced with feeling (fear, mostly) but are ultimately just appeals to an aesthetic with no real ethical content underlying them.

It's not clear though from Brooks' summary whether the study is really describing true moral relativism (which has a long pedigree in Western thought, going back at least as far as the Sophists), or merely a difficulty articulating a nominally coherent system of moral principles, brought about by growing up in the near-aftermath of a time when a larger-than-average number of established social institutions (some of them now almost universally and unproblematically seen as evil, for example racial segregation) crumbled in the face of moral resistance. I remember one particular math class when I was in high school 25 years ago where cheating was so pervasive that there were only a few of us not doing it (did we report on the cheaters? no). I'm pretty sure most of those kids could easily have spouted various canned reasons why cheating is wrong--the integrity of the learning process, fairness towards peers, or even more rotely the virtue of honesty--but that didn't stop them from embracing en masse the contradictory rationalization that this teacher was a jerk and a schmuck (true, as far as it goes) and therefore didn't deserve the "respect." Only in the most abstract sense did they consider their behavior wrong, and there wasn't even any Machiavellian greater strategic purpose to their cheating--they just didn't feel like doing the work. Those kinds of garden-variety corruptions won't cause many people to seriously doubt the foundations of social morality, but when whole institutions go down in flames, they might.

HAMLET: Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ: Why then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind.

[Act II, Scene II]

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Maybe their parents take care of right and wrong for them.

I think it is disheartening, like he said. It's never too early to start thinking about those things.

 

[Pearl]

I agree with yolland that this sort of attitude may lead to political apathy. These days, with a troubled economy, a government that can't agree on anything and political groups - such as the tea party - that could harm the country with their radical ideas, there is no room for apathy.

But this is nothing new. When I was a college student 10 years ago, I saw this type of apathy. Even when 9/11 happened, there were a few students who were like, "Yeah, so?" Political and social apathy makes me sick because it comes across as deep self-centeredness (is that a word?) to me.

 

[INDY500]

Are we surprised a generation spoon-fed self-esteem, multiculturalism and non-judgementalism regurgitates moral relativism?

Youth is youth but even a teen should have a value system that allows them to differentiate between good & evil, virtue & vice.

I don't find moral ambiguity an appealing or desirable trait in the workplace, marketplace, personal relationships or in a political leader.

 

[Irvine511]

Are we surprised a generation spoon-fed self-esteem, multiculturalism and non-judgementalism regurgitates moral relativism?

Youth is youth but even a teen should have a value system that allows them to differentiate between good & evil, virtue & vice.

I don't find moral ambiguity an appealing or desirable trait in the workplace, marketplace, personal relationships or in a political leader.

what on earth is wrong with multiculturalism?

 

[mobvok]

I'm wary of any explanation/theory that goes "kids these days.....", since it seems like every generation to date has thought incoming youths are depraved or defective in some way

 

[PhilsFan]

Why do so many old people hate me?

 

[Irvine511]

Why do so many old people hate me?

because you refuse to hate people different from you?

 

[cobl04]

Why do so many old people hate me?

my reaction too. seems like it was just set up to exploit the assumption that all young people are stupid and apathetic. are these the same people that decided it'd be a good idea to ask Justin Bieber his opinion on gay marriage or whatever it was?

 

[Axver]

I'm wary of any explanation/theory that goes "kids these days.....", since it seems like every generation to date has thought incoming youths are depraved or defective in some way

Yep. There seems to be a steady stream of editorials in Melbourne newspapers at the moment about the problems with "kids these days", "Generation Y", "the iGeneration", or whatever, so steady that you can just about set your watch by it. It's quite tiresome, not to mention usually very ahistorical. It seems that once a generation becomes old and comfortable, they forget that a couple of decades ago, they were the subject of "kids these days" articles. I've read articles from the 1860s that, with only a couple of slight modifications, could easily be reprinted today as some baby boomer's lament about the failings of Generation Y.

And the "I know we weren't perfect when we were young but THESE KIDS ..." has become the "some of my friends are black" of this style of editorial.

 

[indra]

To all decrying "kids these days" comments...you'll be saying it in thirty or so years too. Just you wait.

It's how you know you're old.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

what on earth is wrong with multiculturalism?

Because thos Moslims come to take good, hartd working American's jobs.

 

[cobl04]

Or, in Australian, IF YOUR A TOWELHEAD FUCK OFF WERE FULL

 

[Vlad n U 2]

We were full? Goody, there's room to move now!

 

[BVS]

Are we surprised a generation spoon-fed self-esteem, multiculturalism and non-judgementalism regurgitates moral relativism?

Youth is youth but even a teen should have a value system that allows them to differentiate between good & evil, virtue & vice.

I don't find moral ambiguity an appealing or desirable trait in the workplace, marketplace, personal relationships or in a political leader.

And am I suprised that someone who has time and time again showed that his vision can't extent beyond his own hand is regurgitating the same type of answers that people used to opposed integration, equal rights, and argues a monopoly on moralism?

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

because you refuse to hate people different from you?

It's not about that for everyone, and I wasn't talking about that at all. For me there aren't shades of gray as far as my personal moral code, especially as far as hating people who are different.

I hardly think that all young adults aren't thinking about moral questions, but for sure at least some, and possibly many, aren't. Some/many older ones aren't either-or they're morality hypocrites.

 

[Pearl]

I think one reason why some young people don't think about moral issues or any issues is because they are still at the age where it isn't cool to analyze, be concerned about important issues, etc. Not all are like this, of course, but quite a few are.

 

[cobl04]

Absolutely. I just really despise the tone of the article.

 

[yolland]

You guys complaining about "kids these days" rhetoric do realize that neither the column nor the study are claiming young people's moral behavior is worse, right? (The column emphasizes repeatedly that it's not making such claims.) It's an observation about the language used to conceptualize moral problems, combined with some speculation as to what that suggests about the thinking underlying it. There's plenty to question in that approach (why was there no control group? does the way the conscious ethical process works matter that much if behavioral outcomes are the same? doesn't the reluctance to cite moral absolutes date back at least as far as 'Gen X'? might these kids' Philo 101 profs have a different take on what they're capable of articulating if pressed in a structured way? etc.). But usually "kids these days..." talk suggests that actual moral behavior is worse; that's not the claim here.

 

[INDY500]

Why Young Americans Can’t Think Morally - Dennis Prager - National Review Online

Why Young Americans Can’t Think Morally
Dennis Prager

Last week, David Brooks of the New York Times wrote a column on an academic study concerning the nearly complete lack of a moral vocabulary among most American young people. Here are excerpts from Brooks’s summary of the study of Americans aged 18 to 23. It was led by “the eminent Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith”:

● “Smith and company asked about the young people’s moral lives, and the results are depressing.”

● “When asked to describe a moral dilemma they had faced, two-thirds of the young people either couldn’t answer the question or described problems that are not moral at all.”

● “Moral thinking didn’t enter the picture, even when considering things like drunken driving, cheating in school or cheating on a partner.”

● “The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste.”

● “As one put it, ‘I mean, I guess what makes something right is how I feel about it. But different people feel different ways, so I couldn’t speak on behalf of anyone else as to what’s right and wrong.’”

● “Morality was once revealed, inherited and shared, but now it’s thought of as something that emerges in the privacy of your own heart.” (Emphases mine.)

Ever since I attended college I have been convinced that “studies” either confirm what common sense suggests or they are mistaken. I realized this when I was presented study after study showing that boys and girls were not inherently different from one another, and they acted differently only because of sexist upbringings.

This latest study cited by David Brooks confirms what conservatives have known for a generation: Moral standards have been replaced by feelings. Of course, those on the left only believe this when an “eminent sociologist” is cited by a writer at a major liberal newspaper.

What is disconcerting about Brooks’s piece is that nowhere in what is an important column does he mention the reason for this disturbing trend: namely, secularism.

The intellectual class and the Left still believe that secularism is an unalloyed blessing. They are wrong. Secularism is good for government. But it is terrible for society (though still preferable to bad religion) and for the individual.

One key reason is what secularism does to moral standards. If moral standards are not rooted in God, they do not objectively exist. Good and evil are no more real than “yummy” and “yucky.” They are simply a matter of personal preference. One of the foremost liberal philosophers, Richard Rorty, an atheist, acknowledged that for the secular liberal, “There is no answer to the question, ‘Why not be cruel?’”

With the death of Judeo-Christian God-based standards, people have simply substituted feelings for those standards. Millions of American young people have been raised by parents and schools with “How do you feel about it?” as the only guide to what they ought to do. The heart has replaced God and the Bible as a moral guide. And now, as Brooks points out, we see the results. A vast number of American young people do not even ask whether an action is right or wrong. The question would strike them as foreign. Why? Because the question suggests that there is a right and wrong outside of themselves. And just as there is no God higher than them, there is no morality higher than them, either.

Forty years ago, I began writing and lecturing about this problem. It was then that I began asking students if they would save their dog or a stranger first if both were drowning. The majority always voted against the stranger — because, they explained, they loved their dog and they didn’t love the stranger.

They followed their feelings.

Without God and Judeo-Christian religions, what else is there?

I didn't get into the religious angle but yes, when you substitute a moral code of absolutes (Judeo-Christian) for a non-judgmental code based on equivocality what else would you expect other than moral uncertainty.

 

[Irvine511]

Gee, I kind of like a less harsh, judgmental world characterized by acceptance and inclusion valuing individual conscience over arbitrary hierarchy that feigns sole knowledge of the whims and desires of the infinite.

You're a rugged individualist INDY, if you don't want your government spend g your money why do you want a religious Institution telling you how to live and treat others? Can't you make up your own mind? Why do you have to be told what to do by the ultimate Big Brother?

Sounds like moral socialism to me.

 

[Irvine511]

Also, Prager is an idiot who's column is loaded with words that conservatives find sexually arousing.

 

[Irvine511]

Also, I know some very moral Buddhists, who have no God or saviour, and moral Hindus, who have a whole bunch of gods.

 

[INDY500]

Also, Prager is an idiot who's column is loaded with words that conservatives find sexually arousing.

I'm afraid to ask.

 

[PhilsFan]

You guys complaining about "kids these days" rhetoric do realize that neither the column nor the study are claiming young people's moral behavior is worse, right? (The column emphasizes repeatedly that it's not making such claims.) It's an observation about the language used to conceptualize moral problems, combined with some speculation as to what that suggests about the thinking underlying it. There's plenty to question in that approach (why was there no control group? does the way the conscious ethical process works matter that much if behavioral outcomes are the same? doesn't the reluctance to cite moral absolutes date back at least as far as 'Gen X'? might these kids' Philo 101 profs have a different take on what they're capable of articulating if pressed in a structured way? etc.). But usually "kids these days..." talk suggests that actual moral behavior is worse; that's not the claim here.

My issue is with the idea that seeing different shades is somehow a bad thing.

 

[BVS]

I imagine if people were being honest and you presented them individual cases they would admit shades.

It would be an interesting challenge.

 

[PhilsFan]

It was the realization that conservatives want everything to be black-and-white that made me first realize I wasn't conservative. I was 15. Up until that point I was Alex P. Keaton, sans the liberal parents.

 

[nathan1977]

I don't think the issue is having an expanded moral filter, or being able to think in a nuanced manner about moral issues, or having shades of grey. The issue -- in the initial article posted, anyway -- is that there is an increasing lack of moral filter, period...an inability to frame issues within a moral context. The ramifications for a host of issues that have fundamental judgments at their core -- from human trafficking to civil liberties -- are or should be obvious.