...Faith in the objectivity of ethics slowly eroded in the modern era and gave way to postmodernism. The road was paved by the Enlightenment, beginning in the 17th century with ideas like the Hobbesian “social contract” in which human beings decide their own “codes of law,” namely what is morally and socially acceptable for human living....
In the absence of a universal standard of law, the only way we can judge an ethical system is by our own ethical system, which is nonsensical.[4] If we believe that our ethical system gets better over time, then we concede that our current system is not ethically optimal. If we deny a universal rule of ethics, as moral relativism does [3], we are only able to judge the ethical system by our own ethical system, which we necessarily admit is imperfect if we expect it to progress in the future. Therefore, we cannot soundly judge whether a society is ethically progressing or not without a universal blueprint that is transcendent above human desire and judgment alone.
...In postmodern times, universalizable codes of ethics are condemned because of their lack of respect and appreciation for multiculturalism. For example, people supporting the ban on face veils in France for Muslim women are criticized as being culturally intolerant and disrespectful of the moral codes of others, and this critique is extended to lament the supposed universal ethics upon which the face veil ban is principled. But of course, if a code of ethics is wholly determined by human ideals and is claimed to be “universal,” those universal ethics will always be intolerant to some society, culture, or practice. While the progressive movement rightly criticizes the unrelenting and unchecked spread of the West’s wrongful claim of universal ethics, the real criticism must be directed towards the notion of moral relativism....
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Originally Posted by RMNIXON
