Moral Relativism Quotes

• We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Moving, Goal, Ego

  "Profile: Pope Benedict XVI". www.foxnews.com. April 19, 2005.

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• The American elite is almost beyond redemption. . . . Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush--sophistry washed down with Chardonnay. The ordinary citizens, thank goodness, still adhere to absolutes.... It is they who have saved the republic from creeping degradation while their 'betters' were derelict.

  Charles Dickens

  Class, Ordinary, Citizens

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• It is possible that the distinction between moral relativism and moral absolutism has sometimes been blurred because an excessively consistent practice of either leads to the same practical result — ruthlessness in political life.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Moral Absolutism, Practice, Political

  Richard Hofstadter (2011). “The Age of Reform”, p.16, Vintage

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• Moral relativism has a reputation for being compassionate, caring and humane, but it is an extremely useful philosophy for tyrants.

  Peter Kreeft

  Philosophy, Caring, Moral Absolutism

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• You cannot build your life with a consistent worldview that is on the shifting sands of moral relativism.

  Lee Strobel

  Shifting, Moral, Sand

  Source: www.patheos.com

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• Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled today as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine," seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Attitude, Teaching, Wind

  "Homily of His Eminence Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Dean of the College of Cardinals". Remarks by Pope Benedict XVI during a Mass at St. Peter's Basilica before the conclave of cardinals, www.vatican.va. April 18, 2005.

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• In argument about moral problems, relativism is the first refuge of the scoundrel.

  Roger Scruton

  Firsts, Moral, Argument

  Roger Scruton (2012). “Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey”, p.42, A&C Black

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• No culture in history has ever embraced moral relativism and survived. Our own culture, therefore, will either (1) be the first, and disprove history's clearest lesson, or (2) persist in its relativism and die, or (3) repent of its relativism and live. There is no other option.

  Peter Kreeft

  Culture, Lessons, Firsts

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• If you depart from moral absolutes, you go into a bottomless pit. Communism and Nazism were catastrophic evils which both derived from moral relativism. Their differences were minor compared to their similarities.

  Paul Johnson

  Differences, Evil, Pits

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• An e-mail from a reader says that liberals like to take the moral high ground, even though their own moral relativism means that there is no moral high ground.

  Thomas Sowell

  Mean, Moral High Ground, Mail

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• No age has been more prone to confuse the sin with the sinner, not by hating the sinner along with the sin but by loving the sin along with the sinner. We often use "compassion" as an equivalent for moral relativism.

  Peter Kreeft

  Hate, Compassion, Age

  "The Pillars of Unbelief - Machiavelli" by Peter Kreeft, www.peterkreeft.com. January/February 1988.

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• I want to give moral relativism the good spanking it deserves.

  Peter Kreeft

  Giving, Catholic, Absolutism

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• Moral relativism says morality is relative, not absolute, I want to show moral relativism, in its popular form, is logically incoherent.

  Peter Kreeft

  Absolutism, Want, Morality

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• we have made an extraordinary transition. From moral absolutes to moral relativism. ... Moral problems become medical ones and yesterday's sinners become today's patients.

  Ellen Goodman

  Yesterday, Transition, Today

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• The American elite ... is almost beyond redemption. Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush -- sophistry washed down with Chardonnay.

  Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

  Class, Redemption, Sophistry

  Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (1997). “The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories”, Regnery Pub

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• For nearly a century, the moral relativism of science has given faith-based religion--that great engine of ignorance and bigotry--a nearly uncontested claim to being the only universal framework for moral wisdom. As a result, the most powerful societies on early spend their time debating issues like gay marriage when they should be focused on problems like nuclear proliferation, genocide, energy security, climate change, poverty, and failing schools.

  Sam Harris

  Powerful, School, Ignorance

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• We need strong Christians who can persevere against hardship, who can sustain hope through tragedy, who can lift others by their example and their compassion, and who can consistently overcome temptations. We need strong Christians who can make important things happen by their faith and who can defend the truth of Jesus Christ against moral relativism and militant atheism. What is the source of such moral and spiritual power, and how do we obtain it? The source is God. Our access to that power is through our covenants with Him.

  D. Todd Christofferson

  Christian, Spiritual, Jesus

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• My first fundamental premise of our faith is that God is real and so are eternal truths and values not provable by current scientific methods. These ideas are inevitably linked. Like other believers, we proclaim the existence of the ultimate lawgiver, God our Eternal Father, and the existence of moral absolutes. We reject the moral relativism that is becoming the unofficial creed of much of modern culture.

  Dallin H. Oaks

  Father, Real, Ideas

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• A quest for knowledge is not a war with faith; spirituality is not usually an infelicitous amalgam of superstition and philistinism; and moral relativism, taken outside midfield, leads inexorably both to heresy and to secular wickedness, which are often identical.

  Conrad Black

  War, Taken, Quests

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• What the historian Elie Kedourie called "the Chatham House Version" - that toxic amalgam of smugness, moral relativism, and cherished feelings of guilt about the achievements of Western civilization - everywhere nurtured the catechism of established opinion.

  Roger Kimball

  Civilization, House, Achievement

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