Objective morality does not exist

The argument

Moral relativism applies to literature and art because there is no universal framework in which we can definitively measure what is good or bad, or what is right or wrong. Commonly accepted moral truths often differ by religious, societal, or cultural upbringing, and there’s even infighting within these groups as to what those commonly accepted moral truths should be (for example, American society is extremely polarized by the question of whether or not abortion is murder). Therefore, it is virtually impossible for an author to write a piece of literature that is completely ‘moral,’ because it’s impossible to create a piece of art that subscribes to the belief systems of every single person who consumes it. Because writing a universally moral book is impossible, there is no obligation or need for an author to write a moralizing narrative. In addition, literature can be interpreted in multiple ways by multiple different readers, and even if you write a novel with the intention of making it moralizing, it might not be interpreted the way you intended it to be. For example, Joseph Condrad’s novel, "Heart of Darkness," has been widely criticized by scholars as being a colonialist text laden with racism and bigotry. In 1975, “the distinguished Nigerian novelist and essayist Chinua Achebe assailed Heart of Darkness as racist and called for its elimination from the canon of Western classicism,” famously calling Conrad a “bloody racist.” Achebe’s concern was also later raised by Edward Said, a renowned scholar of postcolonial studies. “These writers pointed to Conrad's imperialist tendencies, his apparent inability to see Africans as equal to Europeans and his use of the n-word.” Conrad, through the eyes of his narrator, “repeats ad nauseam that the African jungle is just a big, blank, philosophically significant darkness — despite the fact that millions of people make their homes there. It's arguably the most racist thing about the book." In defense of Conrad’s word-choice, it can be claimed that “It's easy to go through 'Heart of Darkness' and find descriptions of Africans that seem to mirror rather than repudiate Victorian racism. And what else do you expect? What kind of fiction, in the early 1900s, would Conrad's critics wish him to have written?” Conrad’s language is not considered moral today, but it was at the time the novel was written, and although the novel can be interpreted as being sympathetic to the imperialist vision, it can also be argued that the novel is actually a criticism of European imperialism, meant to highlight how the Belgian invaders are the true “savages”- “Who has ever read Heart of Darkness and missed its massive, central expression of disgust at the white man's ‘Enterprise’?” This is an example of it being impossible to create a work of literature that is universally moral because the intended message of the novel is not always how it will be received by the wider audience.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The argument is damaged by the premise it leads with. If there is genuinely no framework by which right and wrong can be measured, then there is equally no ground for the language of obligation the position itself uses, and no ground for the critiques the argument endorses along the way. Achebe's charge against Heart of Darkness is that the book is racist — asserted as true, not offered as one framework's opinion — and the argument cites it approvingly while holding a view on which it could not be correct. Relativism, invoked as a premise, undercuts the conclusion as thoroughly as the target. The move from disagreement to relativism is also the standard error. People disagree persistently about historical, empirical and interpretive questions without anyone concluding that there is no fact of the matter; that moral views vary by culture and are contested within cultures establishes moral diversity, which is compatible with there being moral truths that are difficult to establish. The inference at the centre is invalid on its own terms. That no work can be universally moral does not extinguish an obligation to be moral, because unattainability of a perfect version does not release anyone from an aim. No work is universally comprehensible either, and no one concludes that authors have no obligation to be clear. The argument needs the step from 'cannot be achieved completely' to 'need not be attempted', and does not supply it. And the reception material — the Conrad case, handled with real care — establishes something narrower than the position claims. It shows that a moralising intention may not be received as intended, which is a claim about efficacy. A defender of moralising art can accept every word of it and reply that attempting the thing is still worthwhile, and that Heart of Darkness is a case in point: a book still argued over a century later precisely because it engages a moral question.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Disagreement about morality is not evidence that no moral truths exist — persistent disagreement occurs in historical and empirical questions too — and the premise proves too much: if no framework can measure right and wrong, there is no ground for the position's own obligation-talk, nor for the critique of Heart of Darkness the argument endorses, which asserts a moral claim as true. [Rejecting P2] Variable reception is a point about interpretation that holds whether or not morality is objective, and unattainability does not extinguish an aim: no work is universally comprehensible, which does not release authors from trying to be clear. At most this establishes that moralising is unreliable, which concerns efficacy rather than obligation.