SO—IS MORALITY a good thing?
In the previous posts I've pointed out that humans are innately moral beings: we can't get through a day without gauging whether a particular act, or our own or others, is good or bad—whether we should or shouldn't do this or that.
And, of course, it leads to the kinds of problems that proponents of the first two approaches—like Osama bin Laden or Sam Harris—would like to avoid.
But it's also true that these constant moral judgments lie behind both our best behavior and our worst.
Our cultures are full of moral maxims like "spare the rod and spoil the child" which advocate things like child beating.
Contrary to popular usage, the term "moral" doesn't necessarily mean "good" or "wise".
There are many different ways to try to unravel this paradox at the center of human morality, to try to explain it away.
Here are three:
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The authoritarian, hierarchical understanding of morality which we have already found wanting.
According to this theory "true" morality is simply whatever the master—the king, the priest, the boss—says it is.
So, if someone commits a "moral" act, and we think it is "bad" that simply means that we or they are mistaken about what the master wants.
If the master wants us to beat our children, then I am simply mistaken to think that child-beating is bad—if the master agrees with me, then the child-beater isn't really being moral, no matter what he or she believes. -
There's another approach which is really quite similar, but more abstract.
This is the idea that moral law is a fact of the universe, an objective reality of some kind, which is just as real as, say, the law of gravity.
Usually this approach appeals to some overriding, deductive principle as the foundation of morality, from which we can then deduce, at least in theory, the "right" thing to do at any given juncture.
That principle might be something like "happiness" or "the well-being of conscious creatures" or "the golden rule".
It resolves the paradox much the way that the first approach does: by giving a simple rule by which we can simply write off some "moral" behavior as really immoral, because it does not conform to the basic principle.
Both of these first two approaches agree that morality is an external guide, which is needed to control our fundamentally immoral human behavior.
And both of them have a fatal flaw—people disagree about who the master should be, or what the principle should be, and there seems to be no way to tell for sure.
Unlike gravity, there's no way to put a moral system on an objective scale that everyone can, even in principle, agree upon. -
A third approach, which is also very popular at the moment, is to view ethical and moral decisions as simply cultural customs.
According to this approach, there simply is no objective way to say for sure whether anything is right or wrong in some absolute sense.
What's right in one culture may be wrong in another, because right and wrong are defined by culture, and that's all the morality there really is.
You might notice that even this approach is somewhat authoritarian—since, from the viewpoint of an individual, morality is something defined by an external authority.
It has simply replaced the master, or the principle, with the culture.
And, of course, it leads to the kinds of problems that proponents of the first two approaches—like Osama bin Laden or Sam Harris—would like to avoid.
We all believe that there are things going on over there that are immoral and should be stopped, no matter what that culture thinks.
We all think there should be some way to morally criticize our own culture, as well.
So, where does that leave us?
Next: The way forward...
