The Problem with Morality

So…  it turns out that I define “Morality” entirely differently than theists, which shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone, now that I think of it, but I got into an interesting conversation about the nature and definition of morality itself.  My opponent (I think of it as a debate) believed that universal, objective morality was handed down by (the JudeoChristian/Islamic) God, while I believe in subjective moral systems that exist largely in the groups in which they developed (as I explained here).  Needless to say, it was a situation analogous to two unstoppable forces running in to each other:  there was some deflection and nothing was really accomplished.

The problem, I feel, arises from the way we derive morality as a concept.  Whether or not we know it, the act of making a moral claim requires that we derive “ought” (subjective prescriptions for action) from “is” (objective statements of fact).  It’s an inherently subjective process, even at its most basic level, because, in order to derive what we should do in any situation, we have to process all of the relevant information, filtering it through our values and experiences, before we establish a basis for and course of action.

The question of where our moral system(s) come(s) from immediately becomes more complicated when we recognize the subjectivity of it all.  I argue for a naturalistic origin story, and, to that end, I will use a little bit of science, a lot of logic, and a few swipes from Occam’s Razor.

In my previous post (linked earlier), I argued (albeit incompletely) that our evolution as social creatures has lead to a genetically ingrained predisposition towards a value structure that has us placing the needs of members of our “in group” above members of “out groups” and leads us to work towards the betterment of our communities.  There is evidence of this in the way we act now (nationalism, family ties, friendship, empathy, etc.) and in the moral systems of the past.

Hell, if you look at the Old Testament you see a command in Deuteronomy to kill members of other groups (those who worship other gods) and a specific allowance in Leviticus to enslave (force into involuntary servitude, the thing that had to have happened when someone can be bought or sold) only members of other nations (read “Non-Jews”), and, in the New Testament you see a muting of the murderous commands of the earlier books (though it still mentions the innate superiority of certain groups over others), saying, in essence, downtrodden early Christians should not rebel against their masters (the Pagan Romans or Christians in high places) that people who oppressed them (those same Romans, but not the Christians) will be tormented for eternity in the afterlife (also a convenient way of keeping Christians from leaving the group)–all ways of getting Christians to not rebel against the infinitely more powerful (at the time) Pagans in Roman society, thus preventing the Romans from simply eradicating them.  Also, the fact that these books were chosen by the Council of Nicea (which was convened by the Pagan Emperor Constantine, who nominally converted on his death bed) is another evidence that the New Testament was designed to keep enslaved, downtrodden, and impoverished people from fighting for social change, ensuring some measure of internal peace in the Roman Empire (for a short time).

In fact, the differences in tone between the New and Old Testaments can be just as easily attributed to the differing social positions (Jews that were in charge vs. Christians who were decidedly not in charge) of the populations for whom they were intended.  More generally, religious books are written for specific populations to act in specific ways while, ensuring the innate superiority of that population; more examples lie in the Koran, but I don’t have as good of a knowledge of that book or its history.

(A quick side note:  Occam’s Razor is useful here.  I believe that we can agree that all holy books were written by men to prescribe certain behaviors for certain populations.  It takes more (somewhat difficult to prove and not readily observable) assumptions to say that: the god(s) described in any book exists to the exclusion of all others, exists in the manner in which the book says that he exists, chose a specific group of people to the exclusion of all other groups, and that the writers, who were flawed men, wrote a flawless book that somehow contradicts itself).

Alas, I digress, the question is whether an objective morality came from any god(s) or whether subjective moral systems came from the development of various societies.  Strangely, holy books act as evidence of both sides:  the literal text support the arguments of the book’s adherents and the historical context of the book’s writing support the view of naturalists.  I personally believe that using a holy book to prove the existence of any god(s) constitutes the fallacy of begging the question (God exists.  The evidence is in this book, which was inspired by God, who exists, but written by men).  Saying that the Bible proves God’s existence or Jesus’ divinity is a lot like saying that Dianetics proves the tenets of Scientology, the Koran proves the tenets of Islam, or the Iliad proves the existence of the Ancient Greek Pantheon–it eventually becomes impossible to vouch for its veracity.  They were all written by men and were, supposedly inspired by some sort of supernatural presence, but, somehow, there is a ruberic for believe in one above all others.

For some evidence for a naturalistic view of morality, let’s look to psychology and psychopharmacology (I love that word).  We have an innate value set (or a predisposition towards a value set) that is genetically ingrained, but there are aspects of our moral systems which are entirely Pavlovian.  For example, we steal a cookie from the cookie jar as a kid, and our mom smacks us on the wrist.  We learn that specific actions are wrong because we are conditioned to believe that they are wrong.  Through our childhoods, we learn, through our interactions with others and the discipline given by parents, schools and other authority figures, our society’s conception of a moral system.  If you theists doubt this, then you might have some repressed memories, or you might have fallen asleep in all of those Sunday School classes.  When either the genetic predisposition is warped or the Pavlovian aspect of moral development breaks down, we get various personality disorders, many of which are treatable with completely nonspiritual means (Scientology hits at this by saying that psychology is evil), be it through counseling (with psychologists), drugs (prescribed by psychiatrists), or personal, nonspiritual introspection (the way I got through depression issues in High School).  Some of these disorders have genetic causes (passed down from parents), and some of them have social causes (trauma, etc.).  It is less a question of good and evil and more of a question of healthy minded and sick minded.  In fact, many of the people we consider “evil” in our society have delusions and act on them to the detriment of society.

Yes, I derive “ought” from “is”, but I feel that I do so not from a position of personal enlightenment (as many religious people do), but from a position as a member of a society that has certain expectations of its members.  Do different groups have different moral systems?  It doesn’t take a genius to say yes, but the answer isn’t due to a misunderstanding of some god’s will or the work of evil force, it has to do with each groups’ different developmental circumstances and what promotes stability in that society.  Can we judge other cultures?  Of course we can (“Should we?” is a different question all together), and, as history shows, we, as a species have gone from travelling in bands, to tribes, to cities, states and nations, always involving more and more people are we expand and grow.  Recently, there has been a push towards a more universal conception of the “in group”, as a group that encompasses all men.  Of course, we have fighting from the various groups that don’t want to be phased out against that ideal, but that is where the battle of ideas comes in.  Would you rather think of the world as being run by an unforgiving god who chooses to have certain people suffer for unknowable reasons, or would you rather think that we are masters of our own destiny.  I prefer the latter, and I hope that more will be swayed.

I don’t want to get into a deep, convoluted argument about the origins of the universe (the method of which has no bearing on my daily life–sure, it’d be interesting, but go ask an astrophysicist) or evolution (not my forte, ask an evolutionary biologist–I recommend P.Z. Meyers or Kenneth Miller) or abiogenesis (definitely not my forte, but some of the naturalistic theories are extremely interesting).  As an economist, I am really interested in how people interact with each other (economics is, after all, the study of a type of interpersonal interaction), and a naturalistic approach to the creation of moral systems, which necessitates the decisions of groups of semi-rational people acting in their own self-interest, is something that is very interesting and something that I can comfortably believe in through inductive (the evolutionary bit, though monkeys have morals) and deductive (the bit about psychology) reasoning.

Have a Nice Day

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