Morality

Morality

Morality is somehow a difficult topic for people.  That's too bad.  It's quite easy for me.  I remember taking a college class on philosophy and thinking that I was way smarter than some of the most respected philosophers.  The study of philosophy and morality seems to be the study of the history of how people got things wrong.  Every subsequent philosopher seemed to disagree with the former one which we'd studied.  However, the correct answer was never revealed.  My reason for writing this post is to reveal it.

But first, let me give some more background.  In my college philosophy class years ago, I was struck by how respected Immanuel Kant was in the realm of morality, even though he had very little to show for it.  For example, he thought that "lying" was wrong no matter what.  One of the more interesting applications of this is with the "inquiring murderer".  Kant said that if you are hiding an innocent would-be victim and a murderer is looking for this person in order to kill him/her, you are obliged to tell the murderer the truth.  How someone can take anything else Kant says about morality seriously is beyond me.  And somehow, in class, this attitude was somehow thought of as a step up from the ideas of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

Of course, many religious people discard the non-religious philosophical ideas of morality (or don't even know about them to begin with).  They think that a god is needed in order for there to be an objective morality.  However, they are mistaken.  In fact, their morality can only be subjective.  God declaring that something is right (which with Yaweh has included genocide, slavery, and eternal torture) is no different from the whim of any person.  In fact, it is the whims of the authors who wrote the "holy" books.  Even if God's "essence" is a certain way, that doesn't make it good, unless you conclude that "good = whatever God does".

Enough background.  Let me cut to the chase.  Below, I will tell you how to find objective morality.

Objective morality consists of empathy and justice.  If everyone had empathy, then morality would simply be a synonym for that.  However, because many don't have empathy, then justice must also play a part.

The "empathy" part of morality has a more important part and a less important part.  The more important part is:  Do not make other suffer (unjustly).

"Others", in this case, means "any sentient being"...that is, anything that has the ability to suffer...to feel any negative effect.  The wrongness of your action is linked with the amount of suffering (negative feelings) that you inflict on others.  But who's to judge that making others suffer is wrong?  THE OTHERS.  They are the judges.  That is the only way that morality can be objective.  Whenever someone is unjustly made to suffer, that is wrong.  Morality can't be just up to you (or God).  It must be up to those who actually suffer from it.

One other thing that should be kept in mind is that we should treat others as if they are omniscient.  That is, doing things behind their back that would make them suffer if they ever found out would still make this action wrong.  (This would of course apply to cheating on someone or killing someone in their sleep).  Also, doing something to someone that will benefit them later (such as forcing a kid to study for an important test) is not bad, even if the kid doesn't like it at the time.  (However, abusing a kid so that he'll get into the university of your choice would of course not be acceptable.)

The less important part of the empathy aspect is:  Help others.

This is less important because being hurt is worse than the extent to which being helped is good.  It is good to help others.  In fact it can be great to help others.  But the difference between hurting someone and doing nothing is much larger than the difference between doing nothing and helping someone.

One very important thing to keep in mind is that each act is a moral act in itself, and nothing can take away a morally wrong action.  Nothing can undo it or make up for it.  So, for example, if you murdered one innocent individual to save the lives of two individuals, then you have done two (slightly) good things but one reprehensible bad thing.  And the good things can never make up for the bad thing, because the suffering can not be undone.  Now, imagine that you murder one innocent individual to save the lives of one million other individuals.  You might have good reasons for doing what you did, and you might have created a lot of good feelings, but that murder can never be undone.  You'll always have that mark...that stain on you, and no amount of good that comes from that can ever make up for it.

Of course, your reason for hurting others is important, and there are certain instances when you can be blamed less (or not at all) for hurting others.  One important aspect that determines your blame is "justice".  Like I said, if everyone were perfectly empathetic, justice would not need to play a part, but that is not the case, so justice must be included.  That is why I support the death penalty (if it's applied in open-and-shut cases).

If you only say that you should never make other suffer, then imprisoning a serial killer would be wrong because the serial killer would rather be out racking up more victims.  Obviously, there are times when hurting others is not wrong.

When one does not follow compassion, then that individual gives up the right to be treated with compassion.

There are different levels, of course, and the more suffering they (intentionally) cause, the less compassion they should receive.  So, if one kid taunts another kid on the playground, it is not acceptable for the other kid to pull out a gun and blow the brains out of the bully.  But if one individual murders another in cold blood (not in some unfortunate manslaughter accident), then it is perfectly acceptable for that individual to be executed in return.  Also, if one person attempts to murder another, then that potential victim can definitely protect him/herself in any way up to and including killing the would-be murderer.

Some will say that the death penalty "makes us just as bad as the criminal".  That's completely incorrect and misguided.  When you consider its implications for more than a few seconds, that claim falls apart.  Firstly, if a murderer kills an innocent person (that is, a person of relative innocence compared with the perpetrator), then the situation is that an innocent person has been killed.  However, when we kill the murderer, the situation is that a guilty murderous person has been killed.  The killing (just like the lying in Kant's case) isn't wrong in and of itself.  It's wrong when it's directed against a compassionate being.  It's unjust.  If you're still not convinced, then let me try this one on you.  If killing a murderer makes us just as bad as a murderer, then imprisoning for years a man who imprisoned his child for years in his basement makes us just as bad as the original imprisoner.  You don't really believe that, do you?  Obviously, his crime of imprisoning his child cannot be compared to society's action of imprisoning him after the fact.  The reason, of course, is that the first imprisonment (of the child) is unjust and the second imprisonment (of the criminal) is just.

One other part of morality is "apparent guilt".

Imagine that you trick someone.  That person thinks that he is doing something good when in fact he is doing something bad.  Let's say that you secretly rig someone's phone so that when he enters the number 911, that will be the code to launch nuclear missiles which will create widespread death and devastation.  You pretend to be someone who is seriously injured.  You get the person to enter 911.  The missiles are launched, and the suffering ensues.  Whose fault is that?  The person who entered the number actually sent the missiles on their way, but that person was tricked.  The guilt would be on your hands, not on the person who was tricked.

However, someone who is tricked can only be completely blameless when there is no reasonable way of finding out that he was causing suffering.  Brainwashing and self-deception might somehow lessen the blame compared to how much it would have been had the same person done it out of malice...but being stupid and throwing away rationality increases your blame.

For example, imagine that you think that the world is going to end tomorrow, and that the only way to save people from Hell is speaking in tongues right in front of them and then shooting them in the head immediately afterwards so they can go straight to Heaven and have eternal bliss.  You might think that you're saving others from endless torture in the fires of Hell, but you're completely wrong and you're just murdering people.  This might be a reason why "insane" people are often judged less harshly than others (although I would argue against those using an "insanity" defense getting a more lenient sentence).  In this case, the killer might not feel guilty, but there is ample evidence that he committed heinous wrongs.  Rationality and morality go hand in hand, and being irrational is not a good excuse.

Morality has two parts: the actual consequences of actions, and the malice directed at (potential) victims.  The actual consequences - the unjust suffering caused (or prevented) that can be reasonably foreseen - is completely up to the victims.  The perpetrator's feelings are not to be taken into account.  This is the good or bad done on a completely objective scale.  A perpetrator's level of malice when inflicting suffering unjustly on victims can be added on top of the first layer to say something about how good or bad a person is.  Of course, someone who is fully aware that s/he is hurting others and delights in it makes that person worse than one who does the same action to save his/her own life.  Also, complete accidents which couldn't be foreseen can still cause suffering, and that suffering can be as bad as if the action was done out of malice, but the perpetrator should not be blamed to the same extent.

One thing to make clear is that moral consideration is for every sentient being.  Any being that is capable of physical or mental suffering is part of this system of morality.  All eumetazoa (that is, all animals except for sponges and placozoa) have nerve cells (called neurons).  The kinds of neurons most responsible for human physical pain are nociceptors, which, again, can be found throughout nearly all animal species, from leeches to sea slugs to fruit flies to squid to fish to all livestock animals and humans.  Any animal with nociceptors can feel pain, and those with even rudimentary brains can feel pain in the same ways that we do. Most of the animals humans use for food, tests, and other things have brains which are highly advanced and nearly no different from ours in terms of that.  Many species might not be able to solve math problems or communicate in highly complex ways, but the hardware and wiring for pain is there just like in us.  Keep in mind, too, that pain has very little to do with intelligence.  Sure, emotional pain can be severe, and emotional pain (which is present in many animals, too) does require relatively advanced brain systems, but all you have to do is look at a baby (or even your pet) to see that you can't discount the feelings of beings that aren't able to do math or communicate well.

So, it makes sense that if beings have to be used (as food, shelter, etc) to sustain life, then those beings should lack pain receptors.  They should also, as much as possible, lack awareness of any kind.  Plants do not have nociceptors.  It does not make sense for plants to be able to feel pain, because unlike animals, they cannot escape from danger.  (Those beings with an ability to escape would evolve pain as a way to make them want to get away from a danger and thus survive.)  Yet even plants can bend towards light, or in a few cases, move when stimulated.  Plants are still living beings.  Thus, I don't pull leaves off of trees just because I'm bored, and only use plants because the alternatives are worse.

To sum up, morality has to do with empathy and justice.  You should not knowingly make any other being suffer (unjustly), and the more you do, the worse your actions.  Your blame for those actions is determined by how much you can know (based on rationality and information) that what you're doing is causing suffering, and the extent to which you are causing suffering out of malice.