“…there’s no right and wrong just winners and losers…” — a criminal in the movie

All Things To All Men

“…there’s no black and white….just shades of grey…” — a corrupt executive in the movie

No Way Out

The quotations above suggest a rejection of the notion that some things are always right and some others always wrong. In other words, a rejection of absolutes and a possible acceptance of relativism — the belief that nothing is intrinsically right or wrong; it all depends on situation or circumstance.

Relativism is the default [albeit private] position of most thinking people around in whatever sector of society you choose — parsons are not exempt.

If relativism is true or defensible ethically then societally we need to reduce the ethical noise and radically alter much at the heart of our cultural mores or behavioural expectations.

So what’s wrong with foreign companies selling tainted petrol with or without the complicity of governmental officials and others within the Jamaica Gasolene Retailers Association if relativism is ethically defensible?

If no sexual behaviour is intrinsically right or wrong, why maintain regulations against homosexual sex, or why the cultural stigma against premarital, extramarital, bestial, bisexual or other kinds of sex acts?

By the way, if relativism is ethically defensible we would need to rewrite the absolutist oath that we demand witnesses to take in a court of law!

And, while we are at it, if relativism rules and is defensible, why is volition re sex held up as some kind of virtue? What if a man cannot get it up, or at all, unless he takes it by force, why the ethical furore, if relativism is defensible. Uncomfortable line of reasoning right? And I am not sorry at all for doing that to you because we must face the possible consequences of our free choices and have the intellectual courage to defend our positions publicly if necessary.

That is why, though I may disagree with Maurice Tomlinson’s position on homosexuality, I respect him for his public stance on the issue. His response to my article re John Finnis’s essay on sexual orientation is evidence of his preparedness to defend his views. I registered something odd in his response to me though.

When a member of the genus/species of homo sapiens and an educated lawyer who specialises in human rights law, to boot, suggests or implies a justification of human behaviour by an appeal to the behaviour of lower animals, then I say, “Clients, beware” or, as the proverbial Chinese gentleman is alleged to have said concerning a puzzling development, “Someting wong!”

When Tomlinson treats ‘wearing glasses’ and ‘taking airplanes’ as unnatural he is taking indefensible liberties with language and logic. We may soon hear from him that shaving a beard or combing/cutting one’s hair is also unnatural, possibly too, heaven forbid, showering daily or at all!

I take it on Tomlinson’s legal authority that the buggery law is from 1864, but so what? How does the age of a document necessarily negate its wisdom or current value? As I mention on my CD Homosexuality: Clinical & Biblical Perspectives, “A comparative survey of ancient near Eastern law codes is quite instructive: the old Hittite laws of 1650-1500 BC; the 1800 BC Babylonian code of Hammurabi, or the oldest Egyptian law all have taboos that have modern legal descendants of a kind.”

Three crimes can be found in all law codes in ancient history, murder, stealing, and adultery. But for adultery, they are still outlawed in modern law.

Perhaps, unlike Tomlinson, I believe that laws are designed to set a minimum standard of expectation, thus setting [moral] parameters between freedom and licence in the interests of individual and community life.

Modern societies are free to choose the ethical underpinnings that inform legislation, but we need to recognise that some choices are indeed quite cruel if we factor in consequences.