Confronting relativism |
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| Authors: | William B Irvine |
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| Institution: | (1) 221 Witherspoon Street, Second Floor, 08542-3215 Princeton, NJ |
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| Abstract: | Conclusion After dealing with student relativism for decades, I have come to the conclusion that it is a view students can fairly easily
be talked out of. It is not at all difficult to reveal to students the extent to which they are closet absolutists. It is
also not difficult to reveal to them that their fondness for relativism is in large part due to their misunderstanding the
nature of absolutism. A number of misconceptions surround absolutism, and students fall victim to these misconceptions. It
doesn’t help matters that many of their college professors have fallen victim to these same misconceptions and as a result
encourage student relativism. In their minds, by encouraging relativism, they are encouraging tolerance in the classroom.
As we have seen, though, absolutism is not synonymous with intolerance. Morality allows us to be tolerant in some cases, but
requires us to be intolerant in others. By confronting relativism in the classroom—by correcting students' mistaken beliefs
about absolutism—college professors are taking an important step in fostering their students' development as moral beings.
Editor’s Note: This essay by William B. Irvine and the subsequent article by Charles Landesman are loosely tied by subject matter. They
both address academic dimensions of morality. The former charts from its author’s experience in the classroom a landscape
of the relativism that prevails among today's undergraduates. The latter explores the realm of the academic moralists, where
we find scholars and philosophers projecting their political longings as unconditional imperatives for a just society. The
two territories trade on each other's needs. The dreams of the moralists for diversity or multiculturalism provide alternatives
to genuine ethical deliberation in a packaged philosophy that affords students the luxury of never having to formulate their
own moral framework.
William B. Irvine is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio. Paragon
House is to release his Doing Right by Children: Reflections on the Nature of Childhood and the Obligations of Parenthood in 2001. |
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