Books, Arts & Manners: Absolute Triumph

First Things, by Hadley Arkes (Princeton, 432 pp., $50)

Of all the bizarre local prejudices in the world, relativism—moral and “cultural”—must be about the strangest. No philosopher of the first rank has ever espoused it, but it has a horrible, vulgar power among the sort of minds that are numerous enough to make up a ruling elite. It generates frustrating sophistries and category confusions of the “Who says?” variety. Even if you know better, it’s devilishly hard to answer.

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Joseph Sobran

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First Things, by Hadley Arkes (Princeton, 432 pp., $50)

Of all the bizarre local prejudices in the world, relativism—moral and “cultural”—must be about the strangest. No philosopher of the first rank has ever espoused it, but it has a horrible, vulgar power among the sort of minds that are numerous enough to make up a ruling elite. It generates frustrating sophistries and category confusions of the “Who says?” variety. Even if you know better, it’s devilishly hard to answer.