Yes, you read the title correctly. Recently there’s been quite the uproar over the electronic monitoring of women situation that is occurring in Saudi Arabia. Apparently men are alerted if their women arrive at the airport to leave the country. CNN reports:
When word started spreading last week that Saudi women — already some of the most oppressed and restricted in the world — were being monitored electronically as they left the country, activists were quick to express their outrage.
But what’s wrong with that? If cultural relativism is true. If Saudi Arabia wants to suppress women’s rights, then who are we to judge? You will remember that Ethical Relativism is:
…the doctrine that the moral rightness and wrongness of actions varies from society to society and that there are no absolute moral standards binding on all men at all times. Accordingly, it holds that whether or not it is right for an individual to act in a certain way depends on or is relative to the society to which he belongs.—John Ladd
Now the problem many expressing outrage in the “civilized west” face is this: Who are we to judge what Saudi Arabia does? On what basis? Their society has decided. And it follows from cultural relativism that this or any other issue for that matter is not a question of better or worse…just different. So on this view, we in the west aren’t better when we treat women with respect and dignity, just different.
But I think the absurdity of this situation in Saudi Arabia reveals at least two things. First, the bankruptcy of the idea that morality is relative to a particular cultural moment. And second, that moral relativists become moral objectivists really quickly when an issue they disagree with is promoted. In other words, people are moral relativists until someone else’s morality deeply affects them.
There are many powerful reasons to reject moral relativism (and I’ve written on them here). But the Reformer’s Dilemma is one of the most compelling. Who doesn’t admire someone who stands up for what’s right—even in the midst of passionate opposition? Figures like Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King come to mind. They were all countercultural. And most of us would agree that they affected change for the better. However, if moral relativism is true, then what is “right” is determined by whatever the majority of the culture believes. But this leads to the absurd consequence that those seeking to reform the immoral practices of society (e.g., eliminating racism or ending the oppression of women) are the immoral ones because they are acting against the cultural majority. This is a powerful reason to reject moral relativism.
So who are we to judge? Well, we are people made in the image of God who are rational and compassionate and therefore have all of the necessary capacities to make moral judgments. And when we see other human beings being mistreated and denied the dignity and respect that is theirs simply in virtue of being a special creation of God, we are right to react with moral outrage.
*You can read the whole article on CNN here.