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Title: The Myth of Morality Author: Sidney E. Parker Date: 3 June 1990 Language: en Topics: morality, religion Source: Retrieved on 6 October 2018 from http://www.sidparker.com/essays/the-myth-of-morality/ Notes: A lecture given to the South Place Ethical Society on June 3 1990. A much abridged version appeared in The Ethical Record for February 1991.
Morality is concerned with rightdoing and wrongdoing. Thou shalt cannot
be separated from thou shalt not. I have found, however, that many who
are eager to praise something as morally good or condemn something as
morally bad are not as eager to describe why they think that something
is morally good or bad. In a way I do not blame them for their
reluctance. Perhaps they suspect that if they started to strip off the
tinsel wrappings of what they call “morality” they might find that there
is nothing there—that morality is a myth. There is also the problem that
those who are supposed to be experts on the subject very rarely agree as
to how to define it. For example, in A Dictionary of Philosophy,
published in 1976 by Routledge, it is stated that a “moral principle
might be defined as one concerning things in our power and for which we
can be held responsible … or a moral principle might concern the
ultimate ends of human action, e.g. human welfare. Other views have it
that a moral principle is one which people in fact prefer over competing
principles, or else which they should prefer. Others again make
principles moral if a certain kind of sanction is applied when they are
violated. Universalizability has also been used to define moral
principle.”
Is such a verbal hotchpotch what most people have in mind when they talk
of morality? I do not think so. What they mean when they say something
is moral is that that something ought to be done. What they mean when
they say something is immoral is that that something ought not to be
done. As the moralist Stuart Smith wrote: “The supremacy of the moral
law means that that law should not be broken, even if by doing so we
gain something which is good, or even if by keeping it we have to endure
things which are bad…We do not regard a man as keeping the moral law who
observes its requirements towards some of his fellows and disregards
them towards others. We only regard a man as keeping the moral law who
sees that law as binding in his relations to all men…A moral man is not
a man who is moral to those he knows and likes…but one who is moral
towards all men, for the sake of the moral law.”
Smith is clearly and unambiguously of the opinion that morality consists
of obedience to the moral law, that the moral law is above all other
laws, and that it applies to all human beings without exception. It is
such a view, I think, that lies behind what most people mean when they
talk of morality. I am aware that there are moralists who will dissent
from such a view, labelling it extreme or unworkable, but to me it
appears the only consistent attitude that can be taken by someone who
believes in the need for a moral code. To introduce qualifications such
a workableness is to introduce the question of expedience, and the
expedient is not the moral.
The question for me, however, is: Why should I be “moral”? What is the
justification for demanding my obedience to a moral code?
Until recently, one of the most common of these justifications was an
appeal to “God” and, indeed, it has not completely disappeared. This god
tells us what is right and what is wrong—so runs the belief. However,
even supposing that such a god exists, I have no way of knowing whether
the moral commandments ascribed to this god are uttered by him, her, or
it. I am simply told that I must obey them. If I refuse to obey, then I
am told that this god will punish me. By threatening me in such a
manner, however, the moralist has changed the question from one of
morality to one of expediency, to one of my avoiding the painful results
of not submitting to someone or something more powerful than I am.
Of course, there are those who do not believe in a god who are
nonetheless believers in morality. These moralists seek a sanction for
their moral codes in some other fixed idea: the “common good”, a
teleological conception of human evolution, the needs of “humanity” or
“society”, “natural rights”, and so forth. A critical analysis of this
type of moral justification soon shows that there is no more behind it
than there is behind “the will of God”. Although for example, there is
much talk about the “common good” any attempt to discover what precisely
this “good” is will reveal that there is no such animal. All there is is
a multiplicity of diverse and often conflicting opinions as to what this
“common good” ought to be. Freedom of speech is held by many people to
be in the “common good”, but a good number of these would deny that
freedom to those holding what are considered to be “racist” views. To be
free to express such views, it appears, is not in the “common good”. On
the other hand, the so-called racists might well argue that freedom to
express their views is in the “common good”. The “common good”,
therefore, is not something about which there is a clear and common
agreement. It is merely a high-sounding piece of rhetoric used to
disguise the particular interests of those making use of it.
It is exactly this dressing up of particular interests as moral laws
that lies behind morality. All moral codes are the inventions of human
beings who want what they believe to be “right” to be accepted by all to
whom the code is meant to apply. An individual, or group of individuals,
wants to promote his or their interests and preferences. To make known
these interests plainly, to say that I or we want you lot to behave in
this fashion because that would serve my or our interests, would reveal
the demand for what it is, that is a demand to to this or that for the
benefit of those making the demand. I want to promote my interest and I
want to persuade other people to support me. If I am frank about this, I
might get the support of those whose interest coincides with mine, but
that is all. If, on the other hand, I claim that I am speaking in the
name of God, or Humanity, or in the interest of the Nation, then my
claim becomes much more impressive. This way of demanding gains me the
advantage that anyone who disagrees with me I can denounce as being
“evil”, since they are opposed to the moral good. Bullshit baffles
brains and it is certainly true that in the sphere of morality the
ability to use a guilt-inducing technique in an effective manner is an
invaluable emotional weapon. Without such bullshit, so-called moral
demands would lose their allure and would be reduced to simple commands
whose carrying out would depend solely on the power of those making
them. Might would make right—until a greater might came along.
There are some who might well agree with much of what I have said so far
on the grounds that it refers to a belief in a moral absolute or some
objective moral standard, neither of which, they will argue, exist.
Authentic morality, they believe, can only be experienced on an
individual, subjective level and rests upon what an individual feels to
be “right”. They look neither to God, nor to the “common good” or its
variants, as sanctions, but to feeling or intuition.
The problem for such people is that they have no way of proving that
they are morally right to do such and such, and that someone doing
something opposite is morally wrong. If they are confronted with someone
who is acting in a way that violates their feeling of moral rightness,
but which that someone claims, on the basis of his feeling, to be
morally right, what can they do?
Suppose I believe that abortion is morally wrong, because I have a
strong feeling that it is, and you believe that abortion is morally
right, because you have a strong feeling that it is, how can the matter
be resolved? If we both stick to our conflicting feelings then we have a
situation in which one moral right is in direct opposition to another
moral right and no compromise is possible since one can only abort or
not abort—one cannot half-abort. I accumulate all the evidence I can
about the dangers of abortion, I issue sensational statements about
crying foetuses and invoke varying degrees of indignation about denying
the sacredness of life. You point out the dangers of having unwanted and
unloved children, the right of women to control their own bodies, the
physical and mental risks of having too many children, all too often in
circumstances where they cannot be given a good life, and so on and so
forth. Neither of us convinces the other. The result is a moral deadlock
that can only be broken by going beyond what is “moral” and finding out
who is the strongest party—those who oppose abortion or those who
support it.
Morality is therefore a myth, a fiction invented, as I have said, to
serve particular interests. As a myth, it nonetheless has its uses, and
it is because of these that I do not anticipate that, any more than
religion, it will disappear. I have no vision of muddled moralists being
replaced by clear-headed amoralists, much as I would personally like to
see it.
One of the most popular uses of the moral myth is to add a garnish to
the often unsavoury dish of politics. By turning even the most trivial
of political pursuits into a moral crusade, one can be assured of the
support of the credulous, the vindictive and the envious, as well as
giving a pseudo-strength to the weak and the wavering. A good
illustration of this was the moral diabolization of the former prime
minister Margaret Thatcher. To have read and heard what her political
opponents had to say about her role as someone of unparalleled
wickedness is to have thrown into stark relief what I said about
morality being used as a cloak to cover particular interests. Whether
one believes that under her rule the country went from glory to glory or
sank ever deeper into a terrible mess, it was quite clear that she alone
could not have been responsible. Nevertheless, even those who hold that
individuals amount to nothing and that “social” or “economic” forces
determine everything did not hesitate to berate her as a kind of demon
queen. It was, indeed, astonishing how the mere mention of her name was
enough to turn historical materialists into hysterical mysterialists!
But then, the turning of political conflicts into campaigns for moral
salvation and purity is often a paying proposition for politicians. Many
millions have been slaughtered in the cause of creating a new moral
order or defending an old one. As Benjamin de Casseres once pointed out,
those who claim to love “humanity” are usually sentimental butchers.
It is true, of course, that those who engage in such crusades are not
always mere cynical manipulators of the credulous crowd. There are
undoubtedly those who sincerely believe in the validity of the moral
principles they preach, however many exceptions reality may compel them
to make. But it will be interesting to see how many of these sincere
moralists will grapple with certain global applications of their
beliefs. Take, for example, the birth rate which, according to a recent
United Nations report, is increasing at a phenomenal rate in certain
parts of the world—this decade alone will see the addition of another
billion to the world population. If this rate of increase continues then
a time will come when all the ingenuity of the agronomists will be
exhausted and the amount of food available will drastically diminish in
relation to the amount of food needed. Expanding needs will run headlong
into finite resources. Suppose that among those who will have to decide
who is to live and who is to die, there are those who firmly believe in
the “right to life”, that is that every human being, by the mere act of
being born, therefore has the moral right to all that is necessary to
ensure their life and well-being. How will they confront the choices
that will have to be made? They will only have two alternatives: to
discard their moral principle or to be paralyzed by the inability to
apply it. Either way, their particular moral stand will be exposed for
the sham that it is. The use of the moral myth clearly has its
limitations. Like all myths, it may have its soothing properties and
useful deceits, but when taken literally, it can be poisonous.
To say that something is morally good or morally bad boils down in the
end to nothing more than that something is said to be morally good or
morally bad. What will be said to be good or bad will depend upon the
belief of the moralist making the statement. When moral judgements
clash, behind all the verbal pyrotechnics there is simply one idea
lodged in one head and another and different idea lodged in another
head. The passion with which they are expressed is merely a symptom of
the unfulfillable desire to prove the unprovable.
For myself, I have no use for the myth of morality, except as a source
of amusement or data for a study of slavery to fixed ideas. As Hajdee
Abdee el Yezdee put it:
There is no Good, there is no Bad:
these be the whims of mortal will;
What works me well: that I call Good;
what harms and hurts I hold as Ill;
They change with place, they shift with race;
and, in the veriest space of Time
Each Vice has worn a Virtue’s crown;
all Good was banned as Sin and Crime.