Imagine if the next time someone says to you, “Don’t be so judgmental,” you gently pushed back and said, “Excuse me. Are you judging me?” Imagine the conversation going something like this: Friend: ...

If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and [for] men who claim to be bearers of an external objective truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than fascist attitudes. —Benito ...

In his homily to the 2005 conclave that would soon choose him as the successor of Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger warned those attending, “We are moving toward a dictatorship of ...

Four years before he was hoisted to Speaker of the House, a smooth-faced Representative Paul Ryan declared, “If you ask me what the biggest problem in America is, I’m not going to tell you debt, ...

"Isn't all morality relative?" I often get this question from students, as there seems to be a fairly pervasive acceptance of moral relativism in much of our culture these days. However, the answer to ...

Extreme relativism probably isn’t explicitly accepted by even the most scatterbrained of postmodernists or sociologists of science. Most postmodern views certainly lead to extreme relativism, and in ...

Most of you, no doubt, have heard the term “moral relativism.” Moral relativism is the belief that that are no “universal or absolute moral principles” and that essentially anyone’s values are as good ...

Pope Francis uses this section on anthropocentrism – or the belief that human beings are the most important entity in the universe – to teach us that "there can be no renewal of our relationship with ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Suppose you believe abortion is permissible.

The novelist Virginia Woolf once said, "on or about December 1910, human character changed." (see Jackson Lears). She was kidding about the specificity of the date but in earnest about the change.