Everyone in America understands that deep political conversations are difficult. When the topic is taxes and foreign policy, the speakers generally remain civil. But when the discussion moves to issues such as abortion, transgenderism, gay marriage, and Constitutionalism the participants quickly engage in emotional proclamations and accusations of bigotry. In much of the public square – and even the home – rational discourse has given way to appeals to personal experience and attempted emotional blackmail. Indeed, the closer one gets to issues of fundamental morality, the more chaotic and unhinged the conversation becomes.
While issues of morality have always driven men to disputes – even deadly disputes – the absence of reason is a distinctly modern feature of Western political life.
One can trace this problem to a number of thinkers but in many ways Max Weber best explains the modern problem. Weber, a renowned German sociologist in the early 20th century, created the concept of a fact-value distinction. According to his analysis there exists a world of facts that can be scientifically discovered and a world of historically created values that cannot be rationally verified. Values are not the subject of scientific analysis and thus they cannot be said to be true or false. Thus, the social scientists must refrain from commenting upon right and wrong. The philosopher Leo Strauss aptly remarked that this would allow a scientific man to describe all aspects of a concentration camp but “we would not be permitted to speak of cruelty.”
In large measure, the modern West adopted this viewpoint. While few would hesitate to speak of the cruelty of a concentration camp, most agree with Weber’s fundamental point: there are facts and there are values. Richard Rorty, a famous philosopher in the 1990s argued that “All thought inevitably derives from particular historical standpoints, perspectives and interests” (quoted in West Four Texts on Socrates). Who are we to say what is truly good or evil in an ultimate sense? There may be a truth of the matter about molecular physics, but our intuitions about good and evil have no grounding in reality.
Culturally, we see the fact-value distinction at play in the modern acceptance of all lifestyles as equally valid. It is impossible to say what is truly good because each person has a set of subjective values that cannot be compared to any ultimate standard. In other words there is only “my truth”
Given that we no longer acknowledge the rich tradition of ethical inquiry stretching back to Socratic and Biblical times, one can say that our moral discourse now implicitly relies on the philosophy known as “emotivism.” Emotivists argue that the statement “this is right” equates to “I like this.” Similarly, “This is wrong” really means “I don’t like this.” Moral statements possess no inherent truth, they are mere expressions of opinion. In the emotivist world, everything becomes emotion.
Rational discourse about right and wrong cannot exist in an emotivist universe. When people differ over a question of morality they can merely give their opinion. Because reason cannot be used to determine which “value” is correct , emotional appeals, name-calling, and anger are all that remain. Hence the unintellectual and disrespectful nature of our political debates.
The path out of our unhinged discourse doesn’t lie in the belief that every way of looking at the world is valid. Far from leading to tolerance, such a view leads to the conclusion that emotional manipulation, anger, or even force are the only ways to win an argument. Alternatively, the belief that there exist objective truths encourages rational discussion in search of said truths.
Furthermore, a belief in moral truths encourages citizens to defend their heritage. The Founding Fathers didn’t struggle for a particular historical viewpoint. Nor did they fight for things they merely liked. Instead they fought for “self-evident” truths laid down by a Creator. Freedom and responsibility require a rejection of vapid moral discourse and recovery of philosophical reflection.
