Moral Relativism vs Moral Context

I really like Dennis Prager. Usually. He is, as he is fond of calling himself, an articulate advocate for Conservatism and Believers.

I like Dennis Prager. But sometimes he can be so smugly self-congratulatory and self-righteous, I just want to dive through the radio and throttle him.

And he was just that the other day. And since I found myself shouting at the radio...I figured it might be good material for a post. As Dennis himself, likes to say: First the facts, then my opinion.

Prager had a show the other day about "Crossing Over", meaning, essentially Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos", which, if you live on another planet, encourages Republicans to re-register as Democrats in order to vote for Hillary Clinton in Democratic primaries, in order to prolong this bloody Clinton/Obama fight for the nomination.

Prager is against it.

First, he's misunderstood the reason for the tactic, assuming the purpose of the cross-over was to nominate Hillary as the easiest for McCain to beat, which he claimed was silly because it was impossible to know who, in several months would turn out to be the easiest for Republicans to beat. Indeed, he feels that Obie's been hurt by the exposure of what little substance of his true self we saw: Wright, Ayers, etc...that he has become ultimately un-electable in the general election. (Note Prager forecasts that which he claims others cannot.)

Second, he fails to note that it was the very prolonged nature of the process that allowed such revelations to find their way to the public consciousness. If Obie had swept to the nomination purely on his "hope" and "change" kool-aid mantra, he might still be Messiah material.

(Given McCain's terror at saying a word against Obie for fear of appearing racist...or worse, Conservative, it seems unlikely he'll be doing much "exposing")

But that, in any case, is only a side issue for Prager. His main thrust is that it is immoral to cross over parties. And he explains that when there are sticky issues in which it is sometimes difficult to determine the goodness or badness of a behavior, he applies what I call the "Golden Rule Standard":

If somebody did it to me would I like it?

And his answer in the case of cross-over voting is a clear and emphatic, "NO!". His conclusion is that to cross-over is to cheat, to make ends justify means, which allows one to do anything in order to win. This, he says, is exactly what's wrong with Liberals, and why they are so immoral, even though they might sincerely consider their foul "ends" to be good ones.

Prager states that to act in this way is to lower ourselves to the level of Liberals, to abandon the higher moral ground. To cheat is wrong, even for a good result. He believes that Republicans are no better than Democrats if they act this way.

Now, most of the time I admire Prager's pristine logic, his fairness, his honesty, and his insight. But in this instance, he is being simplistic, illogical, and so caught up in a false comparison of details that he actually misses the point.

He claims simply that since crossing over is wrong, then crossing over in order to prolong the primary campaign is wrong.

The fact that it is to increase the chances that Obie's faults are exposed, so that Democrats stop blindly considering him a Messiah, and mindlessly sweep to victory this near-Communist with all sorts of unsavory associations—which might very well doom the country, and that in anybody else, would assure him a quick and ignominious defeat...does not matter.

But, much as I prefer moral issues being being black and white, and despise Liberal moral relativism, there is such a thing as context!

Killing is wrong, too. And by Prager's logic, that being so, there is no context in which killing is justified. Obviously that is absurd.

Shortly after I heard him make his argument I saw a TV show in which the Hero, in order to get to the scene of an impending murder in time to save the victim, needed to steal a car. According to Dennis' tender moral sensibilities, he should not do so, because "stealing a car is immoral". (Golden Rule Standard: if he stole my car, I would not like it!) Is the rigid, fragile condition of the "moral" Hero's sensibilities more important than the life of an innocent victim?

Reminds me of the pacifist allowing his family to be murdered before his eyes because he doesn't believe in "killing" the bad guy.

Not much of a Hero, really.

Now, I am not suggesting that cross-over voting is justified in the same sense as the above, but that was not Dennis' point. He was claiming that since crossing parties in order to mess with the other party is immoral in an of itself, therefore, regardless of ends or reasons, it must not be done by a moral person.

And thereby, he argues that since stealing a car is immoral in and of itself, regardless of ends or reasons it must not be done by a moral person.

And that since killing is immoral in and of itself, regardless of ends or reasons it must not be done by a moral person.

And it is that simplistic, shallow, and, frankly self-righteous argument, that self-centered jealousy of the purity of one's own soul at the cost of great harm to others that I find so morally and logically repugnant.

And another thing. Prager actually uses moral relativism in his argument against cross-over, by suggesting that there is a moral equivalence between, not the ends Liberals and Conservatives desire, but their belief in the goodness of their ends. Since both parties believe their ends are good, cheating to further either end is equally morally wrong.

But wait. Is the old saw, "The Ends Don't Justify the Means", always true? I think life & morality is more complicated than simple truisms. Indeed, sometimes the ends are all that matter. And I think it is a human's moral responsibility to discriminate among them.

Prager claims there is no difference between Liberals cheating for their BAD ends - ends they believe to be good, and Conservatives cheating for their GOOD ends - ends they believe to be good.

But as usual with moral equivalence, it is a false comparison. Believing in unicorns is not equivalent to believing 2+2=4. One is absurd, one is true.

It matters what one believes—whether true or false, good or bad. And one's belief can be fairly judged against objective standards of truth and goodness. And in my opinion, certain means may be justifiable for objectively good ends that would be condemnable for objectively bad ones.

Cheating to elect Hitler is immoral. Cheating to keep him from getting elected isn't. Because one person really believes that Hitler is a good guy does not make his opinion as valid as that of the person who really believes Hitler is a monster, because Hitler IS A MONSTER!

I understand the moral quicksand potential here. But no one ever said being human or moral was easy, or simple, or always clear. That is part of the human struggle, the human dilemma.

I would be willing to do a lot of things to stop the rise of the Fourth Reich in America that I might not, under other circumstances, consider moral. And I just don't think my soul would be in peril if I did.

End Rant.

The Gunslinger