Reference no: EM132756392
Fernandez-Armesto, in Truth: A History and a Guide for the Perplexed states that admirable aims, such as tolerance and mutual respect, "can have evil consequences. In a society of concessions to rival viewpoints, in which citizens hesitate to demand what is true and what is false, it becomes impossible to defend the traditional distinctions between what is right and what is false, which are relativized in turn. Unless it is true, what status is left for a statement like "X is wrong" where X is, say, adultery, infanticide, euthanasia, drug dealing, Nazism, pedophilia, sadism,...It becomes like everything else in western society today, a matter of opinion, and we are left with no moral basis for encoding some opinions rather than others, except the tyranny of the majority."
If the answers to all questions are subjective and relative, the truth does not matter because no right or wrong answer exists. But even relativists cannot escape the fact that they believe that they have the better answer.
Comment critically on Fernandez-Armesto, and so answer the question: Does truth matter?