So familiar, so commonly used, yet so misused and so misunderstood. These words, together with other words that have moral meanings, really need to be looked at more closely to try to find out what they actually do mean. We need to know whether they have a relativistic meaning or whether they are absolutes.
Words like these, or right and wrong, nice and nasty, come in pairs. If we have one then the opposite, far removed in meaning, is not far away from our thoughts or our memory. On the other hand there is the tendency, so patronizing from post modernism as it exists in popular culture, to say. “Oh well, that is right (or wrong, or good or evil, or nice or nasty) for you.
Implicit in these words, until modern ideas such as existentialism came along, is the despair of ever finding absolute meanings. Post modernism, of course is only existentialism with arrogance and overweening self confidence, as if all the problems raised by existentialists were solved. I has given up the idea that there are any absolutes at all and insists that everything is relative. In this they implicitly deny any possibility of communication and they pull out the moral rug from under their own feet.
The people who make these meaningless assertions fail to see that when there are clear opposites then the things in opposition are absolutes. There may be degrees of evil. And everyone thinks their particular sins are less evil than those of other people, but in fact this is not true. Hatred, harboured against someone is the same as murder. Lingering lustful glances are as bad as unfaithful, illicit sex. But then there are people now who want to argue that no sex is illicit and that some forms of murder are alright because convenient.
Foolishly the folk who use these words as if they were merely relative fail to understand that they have actually changed the goal posts by implying that the words do not mean what they have always meant. When you say, “that is right (or wrong) for you,” they imply that right and wrong no longer mean "right" or "wrong".
They are saying that the words actually express a preference or that the person using them means what is expedient for him. When I say "right" I do not mean "what I like" nor "what is expedient at this present moment for me". When I say "right" I mean what is right at all times and in all places, and not just for me but for the whole population of the universe.
Secondly it is often the case, in this sort of discussion, that someone will say that lots of people disagree as if just because a majority tend to have a certain opinion, it must, therefore, be right. “There is a limit,” writes J.S.Mill, “to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence.” (On Liberty p68.) He goes on to say. “Men's opinions,…on what is laudable or blamable, are affected by all the multifarious causes which influence their wishes in regard to the conduct of others.”(ibid, p69) In other words the motives of all people are always mixed and from this mixture of motives and confusion of thinking we cannot achieve a rational consensus which is bound to be right.
We could add that something is not good, just because the majority happen to like it. A thing is not made right simply because people vote in favour of it. The deaths of both Socrates and the Lord Jesus are indications of how mistaken a majority can be.
The meaning of these words is to correspond with reality, or there is no meaning at all. If a child's answer to a sum does not correspond with the rules of mathematics then it is bound to be wrong. Provided we use decimal notation then two plus two will always equal four. That answer is right and will always be. To build a wall the right way is to build it according to good practice of builders and architects. To do otherwise is to construct something that will soon fall down.
A builder who consistently does this and who cheats his customers by claiming to use the best materials while in fact building with inferior ones, and who charges the highest prices for his less than competent work is judged as a fraud. If he does this consistently, all the time, will be judged as an evil man. He only does right and good when his work is of acceptable standards and he gives his clients good value for money.
Whether we use these words, in the realm of ethics or in practical day to day matters, they are absolutes. The objector may want to say that circumstances change things and that something may be right in some circumstances but not in others. This is another way of shifting the goal posts. Of course if our builder's client is short of money the builder cannot guarantee that certain work will last as long as it might have done. In this, as in all such practical matters there is some relativity. That is understood. hat what is right is to abide by good practice so that the client is assured of value for money. He also knows the limitations of what he has paid for. He does expect to carry out maintenance on the property but he does not expect it to fall down after a couple of years.
