Before I close this chapter and return to the larger argument of the book, let me make one implicit point explicit: even though all values are tentative for humans, and a bewildering array of values codes have been tested violently against one another in the past, no values or beliefs should be called arbitrary. That word implies that our testing of cultures against one another is terrible but trivial. In truth, wars are not due just to the whims of egotistical leaders. Much deeper matters - namely the worldviews of whole nations - have been, and are still being, tested by war. Thus, discussing our values matters more than anything else we could possibly be talking about. The question for humanity now is: Can we learn to re-write and update our "ways of life" by reasoned, conscious choice instead of by war? If we can, then we can master ourselves and stop making war on each other, but still remain vigorous as the thinking species.   

Our world, including the parts of it that we make, is always changing, so our morés and values must also. However, new values and morés are not arbitrary—that is, they are not all of equal merit, because they do not all lead to the same long-range survival odds for a nation or for the human species. Some new values and the morés they foster work well, some don’t. Some move society in unhealthy directions entirely. Values have huge consequences for those who hold them; they are too crucial to be described by a term as casual-sounding as the word arbitrary. 

For example, if we’re rational, we note and exploit energy supply opportunities and remedy energy supply problems out of choice, not luck. Nations’ energy policies are not arbitrary.

As I noted above, the variety of morés and value systems of our societies has led some social scientists and philosophers to claim that every system of values is correct in its own context, and none is correct in any objective sense. This is a false and dangerous view to take. These people have the best of intentions: they want to encourage us all to feel tolerant toward one another’s cultures and to get along. 

But their moral code is not assertive enough. If it can be said to aim at all, it aims to fill the gap left after they have deconstructed all existing moral codes. That task, like calculating an irrational number, does not repeat and does not terminate. This analogy tells us that modern social science with its view that values are arbitrary leads to moral paralysis. It does not enable action. Therefore, the postmodernist stance is not good enough. It will lead us into war, and that option, we have seen in this chapter, is no longer a rational option. 

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 global model of what is right, one that has a sense of direction and purpose and that is grounded in something we can all see, namely physical reality. In the analogous situation for scientists themselves, they couldn’t do research without models and theories that guide them to plan their experiments. Without a model to guide her research, a scientist would be a buffoon wandering through rooms full of computers, gauges, and beakers, with no clue as to what she was doing there. With no moral code grounded in reality to guide us, we become the buffoons. 

So let me be blunt: moral relativism leads to a practical consequence of resigning this planet over 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, pain, and horror. 

The Western Allies in the 1930's did not call themselves moral relativists, but relativist ways of thinking were 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 early on that he was impressed by what Mussolini was doing in Italy.³⁾ The consequence of these leaders’ confusion and indecision was WWII with the deaths of fifty-five million people. Parallel situations fill the history texts right into our own time.

                                 

                                   

                                  Benito Mussolini (credit: Martianmister, via 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 their nation is the best one, and thus, they must spread their culture until it encompasses all of humanity. In such states, democracy is seen as a pitiful delusion. 

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 discuss our options at all. But in the end, relativism paralyzes all motives. We must do better.