it is great text after virtue the
philosopher Alistair McIntyre laments
not so much the bad state of morals in
in the West though that's true enough
but he laments something deeper and more
fundamental namely the fact that we've
lost the capacity even to have a
coherent moral conversation that our
assumptions are so diverse that we've
lost a common vocabulary and set of
concepts for even approaching ethical
questions that we don't argue with each
other we talk past each other or more
likely we scream at each other about
moral issues well I thought of Alistair
McIntyre's observation recently when I
read an account of one of the days when
the Supreme Court was considering this
much vexed issue of gay marriage and
just as Eleanor Kagan just appointed by
by Obama was quoted as saying this she
said whenever a lawyer makes a moral
observation in a case such as this for
me the red flag of discrimination goes
up well as we struck by him because she
didn't say whenever someone makes a bad
moral argument the red flag of his
commission goes up it sue me whenever
someone makes a moral argument period
the red flag of discrimination goes up
now I'll lead to the side a fundamental
inconsistency I'm making a moral
objection discrimination to a moral
argument you know so I'll leave that to
the side but I'll say this
McIntyre coming to mind we've lost the
capacity even to have a coherent moral
argument so all we can do is simply X
Cory 8 our opponents as bigots or
practitioners of discrimination we don't
engage them in a serious argument or we
line up you know points of view and see
who's got it relatively right but rather
we simply excoriate our opponents
as bad people now this is precisely why
an awful lot of Christians are worried
around this issue because those who
voice any opposition to gay marriage for
example are usually characterized if so
facto as bigots or people simply
engaging in hate speech now if you doubt
me on this look especially at a country
like Canada where this has become a very
serious matter of even legal problems if
someone expresses publicly of you
against gay marriage it's someone who's
making a moral argument let's say
against this emerging consensus simply
engaging in hate speech or is the person
proposing a real argument I think that's
the breakdown that is evident in a
remark like Kagan's and it was predicted
very much by Alistair McIntyre here's
another sign of this breakdown our
obsession with poll numbers around moral
issues so and this is you for example we
hear almost every day that increasing
numbers of Americans are supporting gay
marriage especially among the young
here's the thing about poll numbers poll
numbers are interesting sociologically
they might be interesting politically or
psychologically but in themselves they
don't tell us one little thing about
what's right or wrong go back to the
year 1945 if you take in a poll in our
country let's say in the early summer of
1945 I bet I mean willing to bet 98% of
Americans would have said it's good to
drop the atomic bombs in Japan if it
brings the war to an end I think a lot
of very good people would have said yeah
go ahead and do it if it brings this
terrible war go conclusion that's ok
with me
poll numbers would have said well 98
percent of Americans say it's fine to
drop the atomic bomb on innocent people
or go back even further go back to the
early 19th century I'm have you taken a
poll of this country you would have
found very few
kids who would have said that slavery is
morally outrageous I bet most people
even North itself in 1825 would have
said no slavery is a legitimate practice
and they might even have appealed to two
religious sources to do it my point is
that poll numbers in themselves
don't tell us much about moral rectitude
sometimes a lot of people can find
something that's morally repugnant just
fine and sometimes only a tiny handful
can find what's really morally splendid
to be right and so it's another sign of
the MacIntyre problem here's it still
another sign of it what I call the
sentimentalizing of moral issues now
especially the issue that we're looking
at now of gay marriage what I mean is
this let's say in the past Oh 25 30
years increasing numbers of gay people
have come out of the closet so that now
more and more people recognize their
brothers and uncles and and friends and
so on as gay you know please don't get
me wrong I think coming out of the
closet for gay people is a very good
thing I don't think living lives of
self-reproach and recrimination all that
is a good thing so that in itself I
think is praiseworthy but the result of
this is that increasingly people say
well my uncle my brother my cousin is a
gay person and there are good people
there for gay marriage is a good thing
and see that's what doesn't follow I
think you can say in most cases should
say that uncle brother cousin cetera are
good people but it doesn't follow
automatically that everything a good a
decent person does or wants is morally
right what happens though is a
sentimentalizing of the issue where we
don't make arguments we have more of a
sentimental connection that's why for
example I'm not terribly impressed when
a politician says for example I've
discovered that my son is gay and
therefore I support gay marriage
well again I'm glad I'm very glad that a
politician loves his gay son I think
it's a terrific thing but it doesn't
follow therefore
that gay marriage is necessarily a good
thing when we made that move
we've sentimentalized we haven't made an
argument now the attentive viewer of
this video will have noticed that I
haven't made that argument and that's on
purpose that might be for another video
what I'm going to do though what I want
to do in this video was simply clear
away some of the fog because I find it's
very difficult even to approach this
issue because there's so many obfuscated
issues that prevent us from really
coming to terms with the arguments and I
think a lot of it does go back to what
MacIntyre noticed that we as a culture
have a very hard time engaging in and
making and taking seriously real moral
arguments