Rorty's Definition of 'Relativism' and its Illiberal Consequences

Richard Rorty's writings put me off for several reasons, not the least of which is the way he distorts issues and definitions for his own benefit. The man is obviously a relativist as anyone can see, but he doesn't want to accept that label. So what does he do? He redefines the term so that it applies to no one:

"Relativism" is the view that every belief on a certain topic, or perhaps about any topic, is as good as every other. No one holds this view. Except for the occasional cooperative freshman, one cannot find anybody who says that two incompatible opinions on an important topic are equally good. The philosophers who get called "relativists" are those who say that the grounds for choosing between such opinions are less algorithmic than had been thought.

[. . .]

So the real issue is not between people who think that one view is as good as another and people who do not. It is between those think our culture, or purposes, or intuitions, cannot be supported except conversationally, and people who still hope for other sorts of support. (Consequences of Pragmatism, U. of Minnesota Press, 1982, pp. 166-167.)

Can anyone take seriously a philosopher who writes like this? He begins by defining a position that, by his own admission, no one holds so that he can then maintain, vacuously, that he is not an occupant of that position. How's that for fancy footwork?

In his fourth sentence he speaks of "grounds" being "less algorithmic than had been thought." Since an algorithm is a decision procedure, it is less than clear how grounds could be more or less algorithmic. But that's a quibble. The main problem is his confusion of relativists with fallibilists. I readily concede that with respect to all sorts of opinions there are no algorithms for deciding their truth. (Who said there were?) But that is consistent with holding that the true opinions are true absolutely.  See here.

What Rorty calls the real issue is indeed a real issue. Is the only support conversational or is there some other kind? But it it clear that one who maintains that the only support for our culture, purposes, intuitions, beliefs, is conversational is a kind of relativist. For he is saying that there is no ground of our beliefs, purposes, etc. except our agreement with one another. But our agreement now is different from our agreement then; and their agreement is different from our agreement. Agreement is a local affair, and time-bound to boot. What the Muslim Brotherhood will let you get away with saying is different from what Rorty and his gang will let you get away with saying. Their warranted assertibles are different from Rorty's. So if truth is warranted assertibility, truth is relative.

Rorty's position seems to have a pernicious and illiberal consequence. Suppose a member of al-Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood or any such group swots up Rorty's writings and becomes convinced that truth is just warranted assertibility (Dewey) or the good by way of belief (James), and that there is no transcendent truth, and no transcultural Reason whereby transcendent truth can be discerned. Then wouldn't this Islamo-headchopper be fully justified in decapitating Rorty and the boys for the greater glory of Allah? What more justification could he have on Rortian principles? He has the agreement of his co-ideologues that exterminating Jews and Crusaders is the path to the door of the 72 black-eyed virgins. He has all the conversational support he needs.

Not believing in transcendent truth or universal Reason, our Rortian headchopper has no reason at all to see in his infidel opponent anything that unites them across the barriers of language and culture. Why should the Rortian Islamist respect the infidel?

What Rorty's relativism does is remove a reason, perhaps the only reason, for one person to respect another when the Other is radically different culturally. That reason is Reason, common, universal Reason of the sort that Kant and indeed the whole rationalist tradition believed in. It is because you, like me are a rational being that I have a reason to respect your personhood despite our differences.

Once God and Reason are dismissed, is there any basis left for respect for persons? We shall have to return to this question.

I argued earlier that absolutism does not entail dogmatism. But it is also the case that relativism is no guarantee of nondogmatism. A relativist about truth and rationality can be just as dogmatic and fanatic as any absolutist.

So again I ask: What is liberal about Rorty's position? A genuine liberalism must appeal to transcultural Reason, something Rorty denies. What keeps his position from collapsing into a bad conservatism, a hidebound traditionalism that takes its guidance from some book like the Qu'ran? That is not what Rorty wants, of course, but does he have a principled means of avoiding it?

Other Rorty posts in the Rorty category.