Relativism about morality has come to play an increasingly important role in contemporary
culture. To many thoughtful people, and especially to those who are unwilling to derive their
morality from a religion, it appears unavoidable. Where would absolute facts about right and
wrong come from, they reason, if there is no supreme being to decree them? We should reject
moral absolutes, even as we keep our moral convictions, allowing that there can be right and
wrong relative to this or that moral code, but no right and wrong per se. (See, for example,
Stanley Fish’s 2001 op-ed, “Condemnation Without Absolutes.