Suppose there were a group of people who insisted that there is absolutely no objective standard for morality and that all moral norms are based on subjective preferences that are foisted on us by material evolutionary forces.Yes, it would, but they do. Here’s a second scenario:
And suppose there were a group of people who are so serenely confident of their own moral rectitude and the indisputable goodness of their policy prescriptions (which policy prescriptions are driven by their moral viewpoint) that they are determined to force the entire nation to conform to those prescriptions.
Now suppose that these groups are one and the same. It would be mind blowing if such a group actually existed would it not?
Suppose there were a group of people who insisted that all political structures are, without exception, based on power dynamics in which the strong impose their preferences on the weak, and all supposed logical justifications for any particular political structure are merely smokescreens employed to further one’s agenda in the power game.When a secular materialist condemns racism, unwelcome sexual overtures, "homophobia," "transphobia," Islamophobes, climate deniers or anything at all on moral grounds they're exhibiting precisely the behavior Arrington highlights. Lacking any metaphysical support for making moral judgments they're nevertheless adamantine in their own moral certainties.
And suppose there were a group of people who advanced logical justifications for a political structure based on arguments grounded in words like “justice” and “equality.”
Now suppose, once again, that these groups are one and the same. Again, it would be mind blowing if such a group actually existed would it not?
One need not suppose at all. Neither scenario is hypothetical. The group in question in both scenarios exists and it has a name: materialist progressives.
The logical contradictions progressives are able to juxtapose in their minds never cease to amaze. Their entire worldview is irrational. Is it any wonder that they attack rationality itself (“It’s an arbitrary ethnocentric, patriarchal social construct!!”) as part of their program?
By denying or rendering irrelevant any transcendent foundation or source of moral obligation the secularist reduces all moral claims to expressions of personal taste. Not all progressives who make moral judgments are secular, of course, but those who are are behaving irrationally. They're contradicting their secular, materialistic worldview every time they condemn behavior on moral grounds.
A commenter responding to Arrington's post remarks:
Oh dear. I remember a conversation with a science teacher friend where I had to implore her: Stop thinking of progressives as if they had a logical basis for their beliefs. They don’t. It’s the secret of their success that they don’t.Indeed. One thing folks need to understand about the spasms of moral outrage on our streets and campuses is that they're not really about morality at all. Moral language is merely a tactic, a weapon.
Like a wolf pack bearing down on prey, they don’t need logic when they have force. I fear Americans are in for a bad time if they don’t know that. It appears that they don’t know what will happen.
What these protests and demonstrations are are power plays - attempts by the wolves to use moral ideas to persuade the unwary prey still living within an objective moral framework, grounded in a transcendent moral authority, of the righteousness of the wolves' cause so that the prey will surrender to their demands.
Secular wolves, if they have a modicum of philosophical sophistication, don't believe in objective morality. They believe only in power.