The Big Questions by Simon Blackburn

Author:Simon Blackburn
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2013-01-01T21:00:00+00:00

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Agreeing to differ is often a way of denying that something is a moral issue after all, but perhaps a matter of taste or lifestyle.

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This conservative hankering cannot be satisfied. But that is not a victory for the relativist. Remember the relativist’s position is above the fray, taking the lordly, God’s eye view of any debate. The relativist interjection, “That’s just your opinion,” is not a move even within a moral debate. It’s a move to close the debate. But some debates cannot be closed, since over some things we cannot agree to differ. Agreeing to differ is often a way of denying that something is a moral issue after all, but perhaps a matter of taste or lifestyle. If you think capital punishment is a good thing, and I think it is never under any circumstances permissible, then we differ, and we may have to sort out our differences. It is not a matter of taste or lifestyle. If we try to sort the difference out, the relativist interjection of “that’s just your opinion” is spectacularly useless. Of course we are putting forward our opinions, since unless we are lying or insincere that is what it is to make an assertion. But we are putting them forward as opinions to be shared, or rejected. We are putting them into a public space, a space of discourse and reason. Their survival in that space is not a matter of their having a hotline to the Book of the World. Their survival is a matter of what to think: whether capital punishment is permissible, or capital punishment should not be allowed, or whatever the issue may be. The issue is the issue, not philosophical theory about the nature of the issue.

With deflationism firmly in mind, we can also see that there is nothing particularly imperialistic or colonialist about affirming some things to be true, and others not. Nobody could live a human kind of life without believing some things and disbelieving others that contradict them. And that is enough to license you to think that some things are true, and others not. It is not only hidebound colonialists who believe things.

Respect

If you think about it, it is curious that relativism presents itself as the philosophy that best respects “difference,” and that stands opposed to imperial and colonial attitudes to others. It sounds good to celebrate open horizons of thought, to admit that in the house of truth there are many rooms. But it is not particularly respectful to say that a tribe or a people or a person hit upon some truth, if you allow yourself to call true anything they happened to hit upon.

And relativism itself attracts suspicion and hostility for a good reason. Suppose I voice an honest and heartfelt opinion about anything, from mathematics to ethics to aesthetics. The conversation-stopping remark “That’s just your opinion” is not only beside the point, but more importantly dehumanizing. It signals that my words do not deserve to be taken seriously, but only taken as symptoms, like signs of a disease.

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