Note: This is part 1 of a series on morality and ethics. Here are the other parts: part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, and part 7 (plus additional posts on hypocrisy and free will). The entire series makes up the fourth chapter of my book, The Triple Path, which can be downloaded for free here in PDF and eReader formats or purchased at all major book retailers (in print and eReader formats).

 

What is morality?

Most broadly, it is recognizing that there is a difference between right and wrong, and then doing what is right. More than that, though, it provides a framework for how to live and be. It shows how to live with meaning—how to live the good life, as the ancient philosophers called it.

It is also about resolving conflict. Within you, different parts of yourself may disagree about what is best in the moment; more broadly, the you in the moment may conflict with your potential self as it beckons to you out of the future.1 Your personal interests, or those of your family, may conflict with other families’ or the community’s; your community’s interests may conflict with those of other communities or with the nation; and the nation’s may conflict with other nations and peoples. It is easy to inflate the fault of others and rationalize away your own mistakes, or those of your group. A lot of morality is about resolving these conflicts correctly, helping you, or your group, see where you are in error, so you can correct your mistakes and resolve your conflicts.

Morality is also part of our quest for truth. Moral questions are so inherently interesting to most people because of our yearning to find truth about the world as a forum for action. Our aspirations for what ought to be also motivate our quest for morality, with morality providing principles, guidelines, and rules to tell us how we should behave and how we should treat each other so that we can turn our aspirations into reality.

When it comes to rules, though, we each have a natural tendency to make exceptions for ourselves and rationalize our bad behavior. The higher someone rises in a hierarchy, the more he can enforce exceptions for himself; the more he can bend rules and make new ones to excuse his immorality. One check on this problem, however imperfect, is always having someone higher up in the hierarchy to prevent abuses of those under him. At the very top always used to be God, from whom all morality flowed. The Bible and traditions of the church could provide absolute standards that even the king and the church leaders, at least in theory, could not controvert.

But now that religion is in retreat—now that so many of us doubt the material, factual truth of much of the Bible or Christianity, what are we left with? Even if you believe in God, to where do you turn to know His will?

In the early drafts of this book, in this chapter I argued that it was possible to use reason to create a universally applicable rational moral system, and then I tried to elucidate that system. I failed in my attempt. I ended up just using logic and reason to justify the basic moral precepts of Western culture and Christianity that we already have. In the few places where my reasoning went beyond those traditional precepts, I now have strong doubts about whether I was right.

Plenty of philosophers and ethicists have tried to do the same thing as me and have also failed. Many have advanced our understanding of ethics and morality, but none has created a self-evidently superior, universal system of morality based only on reason and logic. This all goes back to the is-ought problem we have already discussed. Every moral system must start from some basic axiomatic premises that define the system’s objectives or the system’s highest ideals.

But how do you rationally and scientifically justify the system’s axiomatic premises?

Neuroscientist and New Atheist Sam Harris recently tried to do it by arguing that an ethical system should maximize the “well-being of conscious creatures” and that “science can tell us what values lead to human flourishing”.2 But how do you define “conscious,” “well-being,” and “human flourishing”? How do you measure them? And across what time span? How do you account for differing, contradictory preferences within the same individual, or between different individuals? When there are disagreements—and there will be disagreements—who gets to be the final arbiter of what constitutes “well-being” and “human flourishing”? The very fact that there will be those inevitable disagreements casts strong doubt on whether we can ever bring morality into the same realm as material facts and science.3

In the context of morality, this is how Professor Jordan Peterson defined the is-ought problem:

The painstaking empirical process of identification, communication and comparison has proved to be a strikingly effective means for accurately specifying the nature of the relatively invariant features of the collectively apprehensible world. Unfortunately, this useful methodology cannot be applied to determination of value—to consideration of what should be, to specification of the direction that things should take (which means, to description of the future we should construct, as a consequence of our actions). Such acts of valuation necessarily constitute moral decisions. We can use information generated in consequence of the application of science to guide those decisions, but not to tell us if they are correct. We lack a process of verification, in the moral domain, that is as powerful or as universally acceptable as the experimental (empirical) method, in the realm of description. This absence does not allow us to sidestep the problem. No functioning society or individual can avoid rendering moral judgment, regardless of what might be said or imagined about the necessity of such judgment. Action presupposes valuation, or its implicit or “unconscious” equivalent. To act is literally to manifest preference about one set of possibilities, contrasted to an infinite set of alternatives. If we will live, we must act. Acting, we value. Lacking omniscience, painfully, we must make decisions, in the absence of sufficient information. It is, traditionally speaking, our knowledge of good and evil, our moral sensibility, that allows us this ability. It is our mythological conventions, operating implicitly or explicitly, that guide our choices. But what are these conventions? How are we to understand the fact of their existence? How are we to understand them?

This “problem of morality”—is there anything moral, in any realistic general sense, and if so, how might it be comprehended?—is a question that has now attained paramount importance. We have the technological power to do anything we want (certainly, anything destructive; potentially, anything creative); commingled with that power, however, is an equally profound existential uncertainty, shallowness and confusion. Our constant cross-cultural interchanges and our capacity for critical reasoning has undermined our faith in the traditions of our forebears—perhaps for good reason. However, the individual cannot live without belief—without action and valuation—and science cannot provide that belief. We must nonetheless put our faith into something. Are the myths we have turned to since the rise of science more sophisticated, less dangerous, and more complete than those we rejected? The ideological structures that dominated social relations in the twentieth century appear no less absurd, on the face of it, than the older belief systems they supplanted; they lacked, in addition, any of the incomprehensible mystery that necessarily remains part of genuinely artistic and creative production. The fundamental propositions of fascism and communism were rational, logical, statable, comprehensible—and terribly wrong. No great ideological struggle presently tears at the soul of the world, but it is difficult to believe that we have outgrown our gullibility. The rise of the New Age movement in the West, for example—as compensation for the decline of traditional spirituality—provides sufficient evidence for our continued ability to swallow a camel, while straining at a gnat.

Could we do better? Is it possible to understand what might reasonably, even admirably, be believed, after understanding that we must believe? Our vast power makes self-control (and, perhaps, self-comprehension) a necessity—so we have the motivation, at least in principle. Furthermore, the time is auspicious. The third Christian millennium is dawning—at the end of an era when we have demonstrated, to the apparent satisfaction of everyone, that certain forms of social regulation just do not work—even when judged by their own criteria for success. We live in the aftermath of the great statist experiments of the twentieth century, after all. . . . 4

Schools of Thought on Morality

Several schools of thought have developed different approaches about how to think about ethics and morality. Ostensibly, each explains what ethics is and provides a framework for how we can evaluate whether a given action is moral or not. Each’s proponents might claim that their school is authoritative and prescriptive. Really, though, each is more descriptive than anything else, mostly only telling us what people already generally agree to be moral and immoral (or, in a few cases, perhaps what the school’s proponents wish were moral and immoral), but then also offering that school’s own justification for why.

Even though most adherents of the different schools agree on most moral questions (such as murder, adultery, and stealing being wrong), their descriptions and justifications are useful ways for better understanding our general Western system of morals and some potential justifications for its principles and rules.

There are some differences between the schools, and they do occasionally come out on different sides of some questions. It is on those edge cases that we can best see the differences between the schools and argue their relative merits. We will shortly discuss one of those cases, the “lying to the murderer” scenario. Thinking about these edge cases can help us think more carefully about moral questions. Free tree to do so.

Overall, in spite of the intellectual merits of each school of thought, and in spite of the best efforts of their proponents, the justifications and explanations offered by the different schools cannot replace the effectiveness of the old order of traditional morality, which was justified because it came from God. The harsh reality is that if there is no higher, sacred standard of morality, then each individual feels somewhat free to determine his own standards. And if each person determines his own morality, he will all too easily make exceptions for himself when right conduct is hard or undesirable in the moment. Even within the framework of a given school of thought of ethics, if a dispassionate application of its tenets would yield an answer you do no like, it is not too hard to create reasonable-sounding rationalizations for whatever you want to do. The sexual revolution has shown us that.

If there is no easy way to derive a universal system of ethics, then to what do we look for our source of ethics and morals in our modern, post-Enlightenment world? Where can we find a source of morality and ethics beyond ourselves—something that we cannot rationalize away? And especially, how do we do this in the Triple Path—a religion that readily acknowledges “we see through a glass, darkly”5 and do not always understand very well the will of God?

The old order functioned as well as it did for two reasons: first, because its moral principles worked, and second, because people believed those principles came from God.

But even in those days, when everyone in the Christian West accepted as authoritative and divine the traditions of the church and the Bible, humans still were really the ones who made the traditions, and the church, and the Bible.

But how did they make it? Christianity is a fusion of first century apocalyptic messianic Judaism with significant elements of Greek and Roman culture and philosophy. The initial, recognizable beginnings of the system date back at least 30 centuries, when the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans each began to emerge as peoples. There were hundreds of thousands of people (and very likely millions) who had significant impact on how it all developed—authors and scribes and compilers who made the texts; religious leaders who established and enforced traditions, rules, and practices; and many laypeople who followed those traditions, rules, and practices and, in following them, molded and adopted them to their lives, passing their modifications to their children. Many of these people tried to do their best to represent God’s will. Some did not. The whole system, though, grew up gradually, over a long stretch of time. What we have now was distilled out of thousands of years of experience and practice. No one person made it.

Now that so many people recognize that the system is man-made, can it still survive? Well, the moral principles have not changed—they still work when people follow them. The problem is the growing lack of belief that God is at the head of the system. This makes people less likely to follow it.

So then with what do we replace God at the head of our moral system? The Triple Path’s solution is to put God back at the head, but without the grand unsupportable claims of the past. We can do this by seeing the slow development of our traditional moral system as a gradual manifestation of God’s will to us.

Traditional morals were put to the test over many years by many individuals. The parts that brought people closer to the divine and to living the good life were more likely to win continued acceptance over the years. Similarly, the parts that did not lead people closer to the divine and to living the good life were more likely to fade away as they proved ineffectual. Just as the process of natural selection and evolution can be understood as the way God created modern humans, the process of the natural selection and evolution of tradition and religious practices can be understood as the way God revealed his will to us about morality and how to live.

On a spiritual note, I believe that God can speak to us through divine impressions, and maybe even visions to some, but considering the experiment in the last chapter that compared people’s descriptions of their spiritual experiences, it appears those manifestations from God often do not come with the clarity and precision of mathematics, or even spoken language. They can thus be easy to ignore or misinterpret without paying careful, humble, attention. Even so, I believe those divine impressions—foggy and faint, but always pointing the same general direction—have been nudging us to move the right way as well.

Let us thus acknowledge that the system we have inherited is imperfect and not necessarily a perfect representation of God’s will, but it is also the best we have got. And let us recognize that breaking a complicated, well-functioning system is a lot easier than fixing it—this means change must be careful and very, very slow.

When slight modifications to the traditions of the past are needed, we should rely on the collective wisdom of elders who have proven themselves over a lifetime of moral conduct to decide to make those changes. And these changes should be small and happen gradually and incrementally, after much time for deliberation and examination. As stated later in this book:
Truth lies open for all; it has not yet been monopolized. There is plenty of it left for us and our posterity to discover. The teachers of the past are not our masters, but our guides. We usually follow in their footsteps on the old road they have trod before. If we find a way along the path that appears shorter and smoother to travel, let us scout out miles far ahead to verify the soundness of the proposed change. And let us always beware that we do not shortsightedly fool ourselves into following what ends up being a dangerous or faulty path, when the safety of the old road was there all along.6
The chapter on Church organization and Practice in this book outlines a general system of Church governance that follows these principles—respect for tradition, and modifications made only gradually and slowly by elders with a proven track re­cord of moral conduct.

I acknowledge that, just like the other schools of thought on ethics, what I set forth above is only a descriptive justification for traditional morality. The difference, though, is that whereas post-Enlightenment culture (and most particularly post-modern culture) has weakened our moral system by removing God from its head without offering a compelling replacement to submit to, the Triple Path puts God back at the head, but in a way that is compatible with modern cosmology and science.

In spite of my criticism of Sam Harris above, there must be a role for science and reason in morality. We should use reason to help us understand and evaluate rules and competing interests. We should use the scientific method to assess the outcomes of different choices and life courses. We should never, however, be so arrogant to think that our own reasoning can be the primary source of our morality. In matters of morality, it is too easy to use reason to justify things we want in the moment, but which are ultimately bad for us. We should be on guard to not let reason mislead us and always remember to let all reasoning be silent when experience gainsays its conclusions.7

As we have already seen, and will see again below, research supports many aspects of traditional morality, showing that people who live according to the old, traditional standards live happier, more fulfilling lives.

To get a better picture of the current state of moral thinking, let us discuss briefly some of the various schools of thought on morality, and then let us discuss some foundational principles of Western morality.

In many ways, as far as practically applicable morality, humanity still has not advanced much beyond the Golden Rule, so that is where will start in part 2.

 

Footnotes

1. See The Triple Path, Hope 8:5.

2. Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, 2010.

3. This is the “open-question argument”. See G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica, 1903, § 13.

4. Jordan B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief, 1999, p. 21-22.

5. 1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV).

6. See The Triple Path, Hope 9:11.

7. See The Triple Path, Wisdom 1:24.