This hilarious course at UC Berkeley noted by Mean Mr. Mustard (via InstaPundit) reminds me of a similar incident...

I was filling in some credits over summer break at the community college near my home, taking Sociology. Interesting stuff. When we got to the chapter on "Relativism", I thought, Oh oh, now I'm going to get it. The professor, a Harvard graduate, asks the class which of them think all morality is relative. I'm lost in a sea of raised hands (50-70 people packed into the small classroom). The prof wants something else, he can't sort out who is who. He asks: "Which of you think some behavior is inherantly right or wrong." I and perhaps three other students raise our hands. Here it comes... I think, bracing myself for the public humiliation.

The professor then launches into a discussion about his own history: He was always taught all morality was relative, but he's come to believe otherwise. He believes there are certain acts which are inherantly evil, regardless of social context. For example, he said that he was convinced that it was wrong to take a baby and plunge it into boiling hot water, regardless of what that society felt. (We're not talking tradeoffs here, just that act on its own.)

He also noted several major problems with moral relativism, and launched into a discourse about those. I only remember: For one, you can't have a meaningful argument since all positions degrade to "Because I feel its so." Not very compelling material. Second, he points out that even if "no behavior is inherantly deviant" in a given society the victim thinks otherwise. In societies where gang-rape is part of the culture, he points out, the woman isn't going: Gee, this is very moral. Instead, she's horrified. When the Nazis went for the Jews, the Jews still knew it was wrong even if the majority of their society was convinced otherwise.

He concludes by saying that he felt part of our reason for existence was to determine what was moral, and to try to find some basis for morality, religion or God, if you will. And that we were skipping this particular chapter.

I am shocked.

I don't mind skipping the chapter, I have already read the whole thing already anyway just to prepare for the attack I thought I had coming: Despite being titled "relativism", the chapter only discusses deviance, a stastical term which is very different than morality. I would guess were supposed to confuse the two and unquestioningly accept the tacit assertion that "morality" is determined by societal acceptance.

Later, he called me into his office, and strongly encouraged me to go into sociology: I liked the material, he said, and I was interested in the discussions. True enough. But I told him I was already set on a computer science major. Later, I also suspected his goal was to recitify what he'd done for years, and send a few non-relativist warriors back at the machine.

When I got back to my alma mater they closed the department of sociology.