Politics and the Problem of Moral Relativism | Prof. Francis Beckwith
The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute
4.8 • 873 Ratings
🗓️ 31 August 2022
⏱️ 39 minutes
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Summary
Prof. Beckwith's slides can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/2p982fwr This lecture was given on April 22, 2022 at Ashland University. For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Francis J. Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy & Church-State Studies at Baylor University, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Philosophy. Among his over one dozen books are Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Politics For Christians: Statecraft As Soulcraft (IVP, 2010), and Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2015), winner of the American Academy of Religion's prestigious 2016 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Constructive-Reflective Studies. He is a graduate of the Washington University School of Law, St. Louis (MJS) as well as Fordham University (PhD, MA, philosophy).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This talk is brought to you by the Tamistic Institute. |
| 0:03.8 | For more talks like this, visit us at tamistic institute.org. |
| 0:11.1 | This afternoon, I'm going to talk about a subject having to do with the intersection of politics and morality. |
| 0:20.7 | And I call the lecture politics and the problem of moral relativism. |
| 0:25.2 | So let me explain what I mean by that. |
| 0:27.7 | What is the problem of moral relativism? |
| 0:31.3 | So you should all have a study guide. |
| 0:35.2 | I still am kind of old fashioned. |
| 0:36.9 | I don't have PowerPoint. I just have, |
| 0:38.8 | I have a bias towards the physical. So if the purpose of politics is to advance the common good, |
| 0:47.1 | but relativism says there is no common good, then how is it possible to have a political regime? So I want to get to that, to |
| 0:57.8 | answer the question, I'm going to take us on a circuitous route. We're going to begin with |
| 1:06.7 | just an overview of what is moral relativism and why people are moral, why are people |
| 1:14.9 | moral relativists, and then take us into the idea of natural law, which is found in the |
| 1:23.7 | work of Thomas Aquinas. So let's begin with what I have here are I list here some moral |
| 1:30.6 | rules. And I'm going to just go over that. Love your neighbor as yourself. Thou shall not commit |
| 1:38.8 | adultery. Do not intentionally kill the innocent. Do not take what is not yours without permission. |
| 1:46.0 | Parents ought to care for their infant children. Shun ignorance and try to live at peace with your neighbors. |
| 1:52.4 | One ought not to rape anyone. Now, if you believe that these moral rules and perhaps others that I haven't mentioned ought to be obeyed by everyone, |
| 2:02.4 | regardless of time, place, or culture, then you are a moral objectivist. That is, you believe |
| 2:10.7 | that there's such a thing as objective morality that human beings can know. On the other hand, if you believe that morality |
| 2:21.2 | depends exclusively on one's time, place, or culture, that there are no universal moral, |
... |
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