Does Relativism Promote Tolerance?

Relativism is often pitched as the more tolerant worldview than views that embrace the existence of absolute truth. But is this true? In this Ready Reasons video, Karlo Broussard shows why relativism is not the friend of tolerance that relativists think it is.

Transcript:

Does relativism promote tolerance?

Relativism is often pitched as the more tolerant worldview than views that embrace the existence of absolute truth.

But is relativism actually the friend of tolerance that relativists think it is? I say no, and here are some reasons why.

First, a relativist’s appeal to the good of tolerance doesn’t make sense on the grounds of relativism. To say that we ought to be tolerant assumes that tolerance is an objective good that we ought to pursue. But there can be no objective goods within the mental framework of relativism. Therefore, a relativist has to make a choice lest he remain in his incoherence: either give up relativism for the sake of tolerance or reject the objective good of tolerance in order to keep relativism.

Second, relativism actually undermines tolerance. Remember, relativism holds that a belief is true if it corresponds to the set of beliefs of an individual or a society.

But what if an individual, or group of individuals, believes that intolerance is a good thing? Suppose someone claimed, “For me and for my culture, it’s morally good not to tolerate any opinion that disagrees with ours.” According to relativism, there would be nothing wrong with this view of intolerance regardless if the intolerance were just or unjust.

So, rather than relativism promoting tolerance, it actually works against it.

The key to preserving just tolerance in our society is that which the relativists reject, namely, an absolutist worldview of the likes of Christianity, where every human being has equal dignity and such dignity must be protected even when a person is wrong or immoral. That’s a worldview that people of good-will and reason should want to embrace.

If you want to learn more about this topic and others like it, visit our website at catholic.com. Also, visit catholicanswersspeakers.com to learn how you can bring me out to speak at your next event.

For Catholic Answers, I’m Karlo Broussard. Thanks for watching.