Musings on Morality Part 2: Conflicting Moral Systems

While they often disagree, you might actually be surprised at how often these two belief systems are actually on the same side.

Well, last week I spent a little time talking about the nature of morality, and concluded that while there must be an ultimate morality (i.e. an absolute moral law), all of our attempts to identify and understand this ultimate morality are subject to our own biased perspectives, and thus woefully inadequate.  However, this does not mean that any moral system will do.  Just because we don’t know what the right answer is doesn’t mean we can’t identify wrong answers.  For instance, I could not tell you the square root of 5,182 (at least not off the top of my head, I’m sure I could figure it out eventually with a calculate and a math text).  However, I can promise you that the square root of 5,182 is not 5,183.  The same principle can be applied to morality.  We cannot effectively identify what the ultimate morality consists of, but we can identify some things that are certainly not included.  For instance, murder is an easy example.  Murder is a legally defined term: i.e. killing which is against the law (for all you pro-lifers out there [I’m one of you], this is why you can’t argue that abortion is murder [so stop it].  Abortion is not against the law, thus regardless of whether a fetus is a human life, abortion is not murder.  What you can and should argue is that abortion should be considered murder).  Considering that every moral system (at least every moral system that I know of) outlaws some kind of killing, we can safely say that murdering people is not allowed under the ultimate morality.  However, this is not generally a simple thing to do, and with so many conflicting moral systems trying to identify things that can absolutely be disallowed becomes a bit of a crapshoot.  So, the first step in examining this issue is to examine how moral systems conflict, and how to deal with conflicting moral systems.

WW2 is an excellent example of how moral conflicts between nations lead to war.

So, what exactly are conflicting moral systems? That is simple.  When the same action is run through multiple moral systems sometimes the moral/ethical nature of that action changes.  For instance, in the Judeo-Christian moral system suicide is wrong (pretty much always).  However, under the Japanese code of Bushido seppuku (ritual suicide) is a means of restoring honor lost through dishonorable actions, and thus is right (pretty much always).  In fact, a given moral system might change the way an individual sees not just an action, but an entire circumstance.  For instance, a woman is raped (actually raped, not claiming rape): is the Judeo-Christian moral system that woman is the victim of a crime and is not responsible for the actions of the man who raped her.  However, under the Islamic system (at least some versions of it) that woman allowed herself to be raped (i.e. obviously somehow put herself in a situation she shouldn’t have been in), and thus bears culpability for the crime approximately equal to the man who raped her.  Furthermore, in allowing herself to be raped she dishonored her family, and that honor must be restored by her death (this is one basis for Muslim ‘honor killings’ that have made the news in the past few years).  Here, two moral systems vastly conflict, not on whether the rape was wrong, but on where culpability for the rape should be paced and how the individuals involved should be treated.

1) I love Star Wars! 2) The Jedi and the Sith are a very clean example of conflicting moral structures trying to achieve the same goal.

Determining which moral system is correct is something that philosophers have been trying to answer for… pretty much as long as we’ve been asking it.  Seriously (again), read Republic.  Plato gives a whole discourse on the nature of justice and right action (actually… I think those might be two separate discourses, it’s been a while since I read it).  We have contract based ethics (i.e. Whatever everyone agrees on is right), values based ethics (i.e. whatever such and such holy text says is right), reason based ethics (i.e. Kant’s categorical imperative – whatever it would be good for everyone to do is the right thing to do), etc, etc, etc, etc.  However, ultimately, what it all comes down to (as Hobbes and a few others point out) is that might equals right.  As much as we value ‘justice’ and ‘the rule of law’, when it comes down to it the person with the most power determines how we should/shouldn’t act.  If two people disagree on what is right, then they take it to a magistrate (judge, arbiter, etc) and he decides what is right.  If two arbiters disagree on what is right, then it is taken to a ruler (government, supreme court, etc) and they decide what is right.  If two rulers disagree on what is right, then they go to war and the winner decides what is right.  If you believe in a god, then ultimately he decides what is right because he can make anyone who disagrees go away.  So, while without government, law, justice, etc we would live in Hobbes ‘state of nature’ (i.e. everyone does what is right in their own eyes and when they disagree they fight to the death), which would be a bad thing, ultimately it is force that decides what is considered right action.

Ultimately there are as many belief systems as there are people on the planet, because no one quite agrees.

However, does this mean that force determines what right action is, or just what we consider right action? What is the difference? Simply put, the difference is this.  If everyone else was going to jump off a cliff, would you jump off with them?  I think that every mother in the history of the world has said something like this.  Just because force determines what we consider right action, doesn’t mean that force determines what is right action (this has some interesting implications for the morality of deity as well).  We can find generous real world examples of this (i.e. the Nazi regime, American slavery, eugenics projects, etc), what we consider right is not necessarily what is right.  And this leads us back to our starting point: how do we determine what actions are in accord with the ultimate morality?  One giant, thought provoking circle.  I know I’m crazy, but this is actually a lot of fun for me.

Alright, well, I’m over a thousand words, which is what I try to limit these too, so I’m going to leave off for now and I’ll pick this back up next time… next time being next week, not tomorrow.  Don’t worry, I won’t dump too much of this on you at once.  Just remember this, historically speaking moral conflicts (at least on a grand scale) are usually solved with violence, because ultimately this is the only way to solve them.  Either be prepared to respect your neighbors moral philosophy, or be prepared to go to war with him eventually.