A Morally Relativistic Gospel

Mark Shea directs my attention to a defense of torture by Rep. Aaron Schock, who doesn’t muddy the waters with euphemisms, but says plainly, “I don't believe that we should limit waterboarding – or, quite frankly, any other alternative torture technique – if it means saving Americans' lives." Shea draws out some flesh and blood ramifications of this sort of thinking. Of course, if physical salvation really is the greatest good, as it is all too often positioned, then anything of lesser value, which amounts to everything, can and should be sacrificed in its name. The saviors of Americans’ lives raise all manner of sins to virtuous and heroic deeds. Relativism reigns, as our saviors and their defenders, such Rep. Schock, posit a realm – acts intended to save Americans’ lives – as free from the applications of morality. If anything is justified as long as it saves American’s lives, then there is no moral truth that applies in all places, time, and circumstances. This is the ethic that accompanies the gospel of political and material salvation. (EC)