“About morals, I only know that what is moral is what you feel good after; what is immoral is what you feel bad after.” (Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon, p. 4)
The sociologist Christian Smith aptly concludes, in light of his massive survey of the experiences and perspectives of those whom he designates “emerging adults” (18-23 year olds), that today’s youth are following in the footsteps of Hemingway:
“By ‘moral relativism’ we mean the descriptive belief that moral standards are culturally defined–that the truth or falsity of moral claims and judgments is not universal or objective but instead relative to the particular historical and cultural beliefs, views, traditions, and practices of particular groups of people, which leads to the normative belief that everyone ought to tolerate all of the moral beliefs and belief-justified behaviors of others, even when they are very different from our own cultural or moral standards, since no universal or objective moral standard exists by which to judge their beliefs and behaviors…
[Emerging adults] mostly unquestionably presuppose that most things about the socio-cultural world are not fixed or given facts of nature but rather human constructions invented through shared social definitions and practices that are historically contingent, changeable, and particular. It apparently has not required emerging adults attending multiple anthropology, sociology, and postmodern humanities classes for most of them to have arrived at this view. For many, it appears that the sheer impact of the realization of the particularity of the conditions in which they were raised drives them to assume this de facto social constructionism. When they were younger, like anyone else, their personally experienced reality was, for them, simply reality. Now that they have grown older, have met some different people, and maybe have seen some of the world, they seem keenly aware that they were raised in a very particular way that is different from the way others were raised. Sociology and anthropology show that human cultures are indeed significantly socially constructed and vary in certain ways across time and space. That awareness by most emerging adults presses them–for better or worse–to relativize their own perspectives. For instance, they repeatedly frame and qualify their views on life with statements such as ‘Well, at least for how I was raised I feel that…’ and ‘For other people it’s different, but for me I tend to think that…’ For example, one emerging adult observed, ‘Being raised in a certain culture you have certain norms for what are moral. I guess for me there is a certain way to act based on my culture. But if someone else is coming up with a different perspective, they would maybe have a different outcome, based on what they believe.’ Often these are not intentionally expressed statements of feelings replacing thought or opinions replacing beliefs but rather unconscious habits of speech reflecting larger cultural norms.
To whatever degree it is intentional, however, the phrase ‘I feel that’ has frequently replaced the phrases ‘I think that,’ ‘I believe that,’ and ‘I would argue that’–a shift in language use that expresses an essentially subjectivistic and ’emotivistic’ approach to moral reasoning and rational argument; see Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1984). Consider, for instance, this emerging adult’s use of ‘feel’ 12 times in seven sentences: ‘Morality is how I feel too, because in my heart, I could feel it. You could feel what’s right or wrong in your heart as well as your mind. Most of the time, I always felt, I feel it in my heart and it makes it easier for me to morally decide what’s right and wrong. Because if I feel about doing something, I’m going to feel it in my heart, and if it feels good, then I’m going to do it. But if it doesn’t feel good, I’m going to know, because then I’m going to be nervous and I’m going to be tensed, and it’s not going to feel good. It’s not going to feel right. So it’s like I got that feeling as well as thinking.’ One of the apparent effects of this culturally relativistic view and the continual self-relativizing to which it leads is speech in which claims are not staked, rational arguments are not developed, differences are not engaged, nature (that is, the natural world, the reality beyond what humans construct) is not referenced, and universals are not recognized. Rather, differences in viewpoints and ways of life–including religious ones–are mostly acknowledged, respected, and then set aside as incommensurate and off limits for evaluation…
One last example: ‘I think you have to eventually answer to yourself and answer to God, but I mean, that’s your decision to do that, kind of cheat on yourself in the end.'” (Christian Smith, Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood, pp. 251-253)
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