The whole of that nameless modern movement which goes by a legion is names, whether it be called Political Correctness, Liberalism, Socialism, Collectivism, Totalitarianism, Humanism, Secularism, Hedonism or Nihilism, rests on one axiom of moral philosophy: moral agnosticism.
This axiom states that there is not and cannot be a well formed conscience, or a conscience which gives reliable, trustworthy, and universal information about the nature of right and wrong, on the grounds that there is no such thing as universal right and wrong, and that the conscience is a by-product of psychological conditioning by society.
The argument given by legion-named movement typically follows the form of questioning some traditional moral precept, such as chastity, and characterizes this rule is not being confirmed by science, and then takes some breach of that rule, such as incest or homosexuality, and justifies or glorifies it. Then if any man’s conscience troubles him over marrying his own sister, then the argument points at this as an example of the conscience misreading the nature of right and wrong.
Or, better yet, if a man’s conscience condemns the practices of sodomites living peacefully next door, teaching his children in school, or serving as his judge on the bench, but he himself suffers no immediate physical harm, this is also taken as a misreading by the conscience.
Moreover he, but not the sodomites, are condemned as standing in the breach of the public peace, on the theory that he teaching his children to disapprove of their harmless conduct will lead to discourtesy, then violence and oppression, whereas them teaching his children to embrace sexual deviance has no drawbacks.
The only cure, so say the moderns, to establish and peace and good will the man’s conscience threatens is to silence his conscience. He must be convinced that his conscience cannot tell him right from wrong, and that no one knows right from wrong.
Obviously this hoax convinces no one who believes the conscience perceives rather than invent moral reality; nor anyone who believes in the difference between a well-formed conscience and a malformed one; nor anyone who believe the conscience is the voice of God in man; no anyone who believes in the freedom of the conscience, or who believes it is wrong to coerce a man to act contrary to his conscience. This would imply that the conscience is a natural and objective faculty to perceive reality. This would imply that the conscience is natural.
The whole of that nameless modern movement rests on the axiom is that the conscience is manmade.
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