The Hypocrisy Of (Many) Moral Objectivists

As I have spoken with moral and aesthetic objectivists throughout the past handful of years, I have noticed a bizarre hypocrisy which is both subtle and obvious.  Ethical objectivists will usually claim that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", implying that nothing is objectively beautiful, or that a variety of matters are simply "personal taste" which do not correspond to some higher objective reality; however, the moment one offers the same claim about ethics they will object and demonstrate that the conclusion never follows from the premises and that true relativism is an impossible absurdity.  This inconsistency is infernally annoying on many levels.  All at once, moral objectivists prove that disagreement or subjective ideas about morality do not prove that no intrinsically-correct ethical standard exists while advocating aesthetic relativism or relativism in other areas due to disputes about the nature of those concepts.

Observing other people has illuminated a fascinating truth.  Intriguingly, an objectivist must live like a relativist and a relativist must live like an objectivist.  This paradox is one few acknowledge, but it is inescapable.  An objectivist must admit his or her inability to know many (or any) of the objective criterion which reveal truths about certain things and must resign himself or herself to the fact that the best humans can often do is to attempt to seek objective truths using subjective perceptions [1].  Likewise, relativists must inevitably act as if their subjective perceptions are objectively true in order to even engage in normal human life if they want to honor what they call their "opinions".  In a fascinating and unavoidable paradox, relativists and objectivists must at times live differently than how their own worldviews alone would lead them to behave.

This post is not the first time I have targeted inconsistent use of objectivism [2], and I probably will write about this irrationality further in the future.  I just wanted to explain in an abbreviated fashion the hypocrisy I have detected.  Hypocrisy can be difficult to avoid, however, for the very nature of reality almost forbids us from abstaining from it entirely.


[1].  Objectivism's veracity does not mean we are capable of knowing what makes something objectively good, evil, beautiful, funny, and so on.  Ironically, moral objectivists--who understand that objective moral facts can exist independent of and irrespective of human disagreement about them and unawareness of them--will often call things like beauty, aesthetics, funniness, boredom, and sexiness matters of subjective opinion or preference for which there are no objective truths.  In other words, they say that nothing is objectively beautiful, funny, boring, and sexy as they claim the opposite about ethics.  Amusingly, they are succumbing to the exact same arguments used to promote ethical relativism but are applying them to other matters.  Moral objectivists often live in blatant hypocrisy.

[2].  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-objectivity-of-entertainment-quality.html