Morality's Great Divide

In a recent article, Tara Isabella Burton (click here for a bio) has recently written an article for Religion News Service about the influence that Iris Murdoch has had on Millennials. Iris Murdoch is a 20th century British literature writer and atheist who would have just turned 100 years old. She wrote about seeking the good in life without a belief in God. And in so doing, she has encouraged Millennials to embrace moral relativity in terms of their personal morals, that is to look for what is right for just them. But something rather different from that occurred in how Millennials reacted to social justice issues (click here for the article).

 For in terms of social justice issues, Millennials have tended to  pursue universal morals. That pursuit was partially inspired by Murdoch's call to 'unself' when it comes to the world. For in that call to unself is a call to look to the world is to realize that something else exists besides oneself. Thus, to unself is a call to both love and truth.

Burton then makes the point that Millennials are more likely to embrace moral relativity in terms of personal morals than previous generations. However, Millennials are looking for universal morals in terms of social justice. And the question is, are those from generations that preceded Millennials  looking to embrace universal morals in terms of social justice or do they prefer moral relativity regarding social justice issues?

It is at this point, that perhaps Burton has discovered, or at least mentioned, the moral divide that has been a part of Americans for at least a half a century. The moral divide is that there are two distinct sets of moral standards for which one can either hold to universal morals or moral relativity. One set concerns itself with personal morals and the other set is concerned with social justice issues.

For religiously conservative Christians, moral absolutes and moral relativity have always concerned themselves with individual moral choices, especially those choices that revolve around sexual practices. To hold to traditional values, especially regarding sex,  is to hold to universal values. At the same time, because older Christians tend to be nationalists, or base too much of their identity on their ethnicity, or cling to some ideological allegiance, they tended to embrace moral relativity when it came to at least some social justice issues. Because of those loyalties that are competing with loyalty to God,  all of a sudden  the moral standards that older Christians expect others to follow depended on the group others belonged to. For example, many older Christians morally oppose the idea of certain other nations  trying to at least partially act like the U.S. in policing their corner of the world. Such a view is an exercise in moral relativity since the same morals are not being applied to the nations in question.

And what that points to is that one doesn't have to fail to hold to universal morals regarding personal behavior to also practice moral relativity. For in accepting one's nation's attempts to rule over other nations while opposing other nations from doing the same is to reject a universal moral standard and thus embrace moral relativity.

Thus, both following and avoiding the  practice of following moral relativity becomes more complicated than just following traditional values about one's personal behavior. It also involves how one approaches social justice issues. For those who refuse to work for social justice have embraced moral relativity for they have shown preference as to how some can exploit others.

So perhaps Millennials and older Christians have something to teach each other when it comes to following universal morals. While older Christians will tend to be able to teach Millennials about universal morals regarding personal behavior, Millennials can teach older Christians how to apply universal morals to social justice issues.


 


References

1. https://religionnews.com/2019/07/19/millennials-moral-relativism-and-iris-murdoch/
2. http://www.taraisabellaburton.com/
3. https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_moral_universalism.html
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_universalism
5. https://chomsky.info/20020702/
6.