Humans need strong, affirmative guidelines to live by. What the moral relativists seem to be aiming to produce is a cynical outlook that is above critique because in the realm of morals, it affirms nothing and, therefore, cannot be critiqued. 

But real humans have to make decisions in real life. We need a model of what is right, one that provides direction and purpose. In the analogous situation for scientists themselves, they couldn’t undertake research without models and theories that guide them to plan their experiments and studies. Without models to guide his research, a scientist would be a buffoon wandering through rooms full of gauges, beakers, and computers, with no clue as to his purpose there.

Moral relativism leads to a practical consequence of resigning this planet to the bullies. When the tolerant citizens can say only what they are against and never what they are for, the bullies with their “will to power” (Nietzsche’s term) will sway the masses and get their way—by trickery, promises, threats, or blood. The Western Allies in the 1930's did not call themselves moral relativists, but the moral relativist way of thinking was already loose in the West, and the consequence was that most of the leaders of the nations that might have stopped Hitler and Mussolini had no stomach for such action. In fact, many prominent citizens in the West admired the fascist states and leaders and said so openly. (Even Franklin Roosevelt said he was impressed by what Mussolini was accomplishing in Italy.³⁾ The consequence of these leaders’ confusion and indecision was WWII and the deaths of fifty-five million people. Parallel situations abound in the history texts right into our own time.

                                   

                                                Benito Mussolini (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

The practical problem for the moral relativists of the West is that, while they may see morals as being relative, other nations’ cultures are programming their citizens to believe that they must spread their culture, by war if necessary, and that democracy is a dangerous delusion. Their belief system tells them to eliminate the other cultures of the world. Aggressive, self-righteous cultures have always existed. Democracies have to be motivated to face them if we are to have a world in which we can have discussions of our options at all. Moral relativism provides no motivation whatsoever.