Pending clarification, let's set the left aside and talk about the American right. To what moral absolutes does it subscribe in practice? Certainly some of the ones that are shared by the whole political spectrum. Slavery is wrong. So is rape. And genocide. Surely we can all agree that, on those significant questions, that neither the American left nor the American right are non-absolutists.

(Right?)

Okay, now how about torture. Is its immorality a moral absolute?

As I understand it, the right would be outraged if an American, even one guilty of a serious crime in a foreign country, were tortured by a foreign government. When Ronald Reagan signed a treaty attesting to torture as an absolute wrong, there wasn't much dissent from the right. Yet the Bush Administration had broad support when it instituted an official program of torture. It strapped prisoners to a board, prevented them from breathing normally, repeatedly forced water down their throat till it filled their lungs, and terrified them with the sensation of drowning -- and to this day, large swaths of the right defend their doing so, without the torture having prevented the detonation of any ticking nuclear bombs in Times Square.Is the rule of law sacrosanct?Debating immigration policy with conservatives you'd swear that they think so. One of the most common arguments against an immigration amnesty is that it would undermine respect for the rule of law. At minimum, the right believes those who came here illegally must pay some kind of penalty. Then again, conservatives aren't so attached to the rule of law that they want to prosecute Bush Administration officials who broke it, or telecom companies that illegally provided them with information. After all, they were earnestly trying to "keep Americans safe." What if a liberal, who was earnestly trying to keep Americans safe, suggested seizing lawfully purchased firearms? Well, that's different. An outrage. Haven't they read the U.S. Constitution?The right frequently touts its belief in what the Declaration of Independence held to be self-evident: that humans are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Do those inalienable rights extend to innocents at Guantanamo Bay who wound up there because of dishonest Pakistani soldiers cashing in on the bounty America paid in the chaotic days after 9/11? The conservative position was that even those prisoners could and should be held indefinitely, without any ability to challenge their detention, till al-Qaeda is defeated.In what moral absolute was that position grounded?I wonder if the examples I've offered would fit Lewis's notion of non-absolutism or moral relativism, which conservatives seldom define when they invoke it. I am not sure if they fitdefinition. There are people who hold the seemingly contradictory positions I've described who do so because they have different, perhaps wrongheaded understandings of the facts; or because they are drawing distinctions that, however much I may disagree with them, aren't grounded in moral subjectivity or relativism. It is often hard to discern whether a wrongheaded position is explained by relativism or irrationality or unwitting hypocrisy or any number of other factors.It nevertheless seems clear that at least some conservatives subscribe to a belief system whereby certain actions are regarded as obviously immoral, except when they are undertaken by the United States, which is exceptional and facing a brutal enemy, so that the means justify the end.To adopt Lewis's framework -- he says moral subjectivity causes us to "make policy decisions based on efficiency instead of compassion. Or we make decisions based on our own individualistic needs, not on what is right or good." Does he believe that the Bush Administration's interrogation program was grounded in what was compassionate, right, and good? Or what was thought to be efficient? Which description better fits the drone program that conservatives support?How about John Yoo's beliefs?In an infamous exchange, the former Bush Administration lawyer was asked whether the president would be legally permitted to crush the testicles of an innocent child in order to coerce information from his parent. He answered that it would depend upon why the president thinks he needs to do that. A lot of liberals and independents expressed moral horror at that statement, and at anyone who would give legal cover to such an obviously morally suspect act. But it hasn't stopped Yoo from being warmly embraced by the conservative movement. Is that because conservatives believe a lawyer's analysis of what the law is has no moral dimension? Or is it because they've implicitly embraced a kind of moral subjectivity in the War on Terror?If they do embrace moral absolutes, unlike the left, what are those absolutes?If Lewis doesn't think the examples I've offered prove moral subjectivity, fair enough . But if his standard of what constitutes non-absolutism is more exacting -- as would be reasonable -- what is it, and when has the left transgressed against it in a way that the right hasn't? I'd be surprised if he could persuasively argue for the conclusion he states, but perhaps I am missing something.