A "death panel" is a fictional hospital committee that makes triaging decisions on patients-- who lives and who dies.
Two questions.
1. Would you like to serve on such a committee? Why or why not? 2. What ethical or religious principles, values, or parameters would you invoke in determining resource allocation-- doctor time and money for terminal patients?
For example, how would you priortize a two year old who has one year to live and a eighty year old who has one year to live?
My initial response is to say to prioritize the two year old over the eighty year old b/c the eighty year old has lived a full (long) life and that extra time wouldn't represent as large of a portion of his life and thus wouldn't be as meaningful. But I'd have to know more about the situation including the patients' relatives and the patients' potential for getting better to make this kind of decision.
Would the patient's position (say, a senator), role (say, a mother), background (say, a criminal) , or wealth (say, a philanthrophist) honestly play into your decision making?
How do you balance a patient's choice-- say to self-termination-- against the wishes of the family-- against self-termination, without respect to financial outgo.
I think a terminally ill patient should be allowed to die. It's my personal take on the issue based on the fact that I don't have any beliefs that make such a thing immoral, and that such a person shouldn't be obligated to live a life of suffering if they don't feel that it's worth it. I respect that some family members might not appreciate this, but I don't think it's a terminally ill patients' responsibility to stay alive just to make other people happy.
Most large hospitals have a triage procedure. Many more institutions have a triage procedure at least in the planning stage for a pandemic. Medical people know how to do this sort of thing. They have, in many cases, thought long and hard about priorities. Many medical personnel are unwilling to even "snow" a terminally ill patient. It doesn't seem possible that many would be willing to participate in any sort of action based on other than raw medical necessity.
A reader answers both questions:
1. Yes! I'm the man for the job. 2. Oh. Nevermind.
All humans are selfish by nature, and those who attempt to deny themselves for others, cannot succeed in their attempt, unless it ends in their own demise. Not even these people are selfless though, because they are attempting to be moral--according to the morality of altruism-- because they want to do what is right, and they want to do so for some selfish reason, even if it is to be free themselves from the shame that they are supposedly immoral. Because of this, a man cannot be truly selfless (while remaining in existence at least). I am not the best person to explain this rational belief (I say rational, because many associate belief with faith, and it is not a belief based off of faith, but based off of reason), so in answer to name and question of the original topic, I will refer you to the philosopher, Ayn Rand, who's philosophy I "believe."
I respond:
I understand normative ethics to be the study of what makes an action right or wrong. Thus, the motivation behind that action-- selflessness or selfishness-- is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the behavior-- not the thought that animates that behavior-- is ethical. Also, any such action must be rational, so long as it is predicated with thought, or, to use a philosophical expression, an a priori. That principle might be "does it pay" (pragmatism) or "the greatest good for the greatest number" (utiliterianism) or "do your duty for the Dear Leader" (the leadership principle). So long as actions coherently derives from such principles, such an action would be both ethical and rational by definition. Is it possible to construct a meta-ethics that transcends such deductions? I find the deontological ethics of Kant the most persuasive, as it attempts to cast actions as inherently good or bad, based on a realistic picture of humans as autonomous, freedom-seeking, and intentional.
A reader responds:
This is it. You are there. It doesn't really matter what you like or don't like. Kantian ethics just treats morality as brutally and cold-hearted as reality treats the law of gravity. It doesn't matter if it is Mother Teresa or Charles Manson that is dying from falling off a cliff. Physics speaks the truth about the matter, either way. So, too, it doesn't matter if it is Mother Teresa or Charles Manson that is evil, ethics tells us the truth, either way. Reason holds no particular sentiment in favor of Mother Teresa or Charles Manson. It doesn't matter how much "it pays." It doesn't matter how many "people benefit from it." Your FEELINGS do not matter. YOU do not matter. There is ONE cold-hearted REALITY that is he sum-total of the TRUTH of morality. It is cold, and it is hard, and if you cannot handle it, then go off and study anthropology. There is plenty in the world that will never ask you to confront this. Do something else.
Another reader weighs in.
Regarding selflessness, Adler points out here: http://radicalacademy.com/adleraristotleethics2.htm that Aristotle showed in his ethics that to live a truly good life we must desire the right things for the right reasons and that a person who is truly self serving, that is, doing what is best for himself, will do what is good for all men when he serves himself. So like others have said, selfish or selfless, doesn’t matter. But it doesn’t matter because it becomes two sides of the same coin for the truly ethical man (woman).
And yet another:
The function of morality is to submit an individual will to the communal will. It's methodology is simple and grounded upon simple dualistic, survival tactics. Good/Bad are conscious determinations of what is good for me and what is bad for me, based no empirical factors. The social and cultural trick is to redefine self so as to harness this dualistic determination to social convention. Buddhism and Christianity use similar methods, as does humanism and a variety of other social and cultural dogmas. They are methods used by armies across the globe. First stress the mind to the point of impressionability. Then break down its sense of identity, by slandering, insulting, degrading and shaming etc....a Nihilistic process. Once this is done you have before you a tabula rasa awaiting as new identity. In most cases the mind is trained to identify with a whole - a nation, a culture, a religion, a god, an ideal. At this point the mind cannot think of good without thinknig of what the system deems is good for it, even if this entails its own sacrifice or its own demise. You've just created an automaton.
You raise some interesting points, but I disagree with your premises and conclusions. Is morality merely a matter of socially-conditioned response, or is it something more? What at the ground justifies good or right action? Is it just a matter of responding to teachers, priests, and parents brainwashing us over our lifetime into believing that "four legs good, two legs bad"?
During the 1960s, the Episcopalian priest Joseph Fletcher developed the theory of situational ethics, that placed morality within the context of a particular situation rather than under an absolute rule. Other people would say that situational ethics is an oxymoron, as ethics must be based on something more persistent and transcendent than personal feelings. I’m suspicious of moral relativists with their fluid sense of right and wrong, that so often opens the door to having no morals, claiming as they do that . . .
It all depends on how you’re raised
It all depends on what is praised
What’s right today is wrong tomorrow
Joy in France is England’s sorrow
It all depends on point of viewAustralia or Timbuktu
In Rome do as Romans do
If taste just happen to agree
Then you have morality
When there are conflicting trends
It all depends, it all depends
Shakespeare’s Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice” gives the Kantian proof that moral universality resides in our human commonality: “If you prick me, do I not bleed? If you tickle me, do I not laugh? If you poison me, do I not die?" It is this shared physicality and emotionality that is my reply in the negative to the question: how can you have moral law without a lawgiver? That the human condition in every land and clime is made up of people that are essentially the same mix of people you find everywhere suggests to me that there might be a universality of moral values, once we strip away the layers of culture. But culture, history, and genetics make such a revelation almost impossible, but not impossible. When the facts came to light, all of humanity was appalled at the genocides inflicted on three separate continents—German Europe in the 1940s, Cambodian Asia in the 1970s, and Rwandan Africa in the 1990s.
But I’m equally suspicious of moral absolutists. Frankly, they scare me, not because of their beliefs, which they are free to hold, but because of the consequences of their beliefs, which are sometimes both immoral and illegal. A parent forgoes a blood transfusion for her ailing child as a demonstration of fidelity to God’s word, and the consequences are crocodile tears over a tiny coffin. There are some Christians, for example, if given the choice to deny Jesus or have their kids killed by terrorists, they would choose the latter with a clear conscience. But this is a false choice as I’ve been deprived of my ability to freely choose. Morality cannot exist in the absence of freedom, or, to put it another way, morality cannot be compelled as that would turn the us-- agent of morality-- into an automata governed by unaccountable forces. Thus, the situation itself is immoral. Any kind of response could only be immoral. So, since lying or not lying under the circumstances are both immoral, I would naturally lie in this case to save my children. The moral absolutists would insist that lying violates the Ten Commandments. Perhaps they would remember how Ananias and Sapphira were struck down in Acts 5 for lying to the Holy Spirit. Despite whatever rationalizations can be made not to lie, this is an example where the more moral course of action would be to lie to save a life. The immoral course of action is to elevate their conscience over the life of another person. This isn’t “trusting God”. They are just trusting their own weakly-rationalized understanding of what God requires in situations like this.
I disagree that morality is merely a submission of the individual will to the communal will, as history and current events tells us that the communal will from lynchings to the holocaust can be immoral. Nor is morality merely subjectivism, as in "I feel it is wrong to consume food that once had faces." It isn't a response to fear, as in "if you steal, you will go to hell." It is rather a feedback between individual intellect, conscience, and courage and the situation and context, rooting responses in what is sometimes absolutely true and good and leaving open for dialogue a civilized, patient, difficult, dialectical approach to respolving the grey areas, such as, for example, the administration of the commencement and conduct of war and the death penalty, the lifeboat scenerio, and start of life and end of life debates.
I don't see any reason in principle why subjective morals should be less binding than objective morals.
Correct. We bind ourselves to our own ethical system without regard to whether we can see if it has an objective foundation.
But Kant's meta-ethics derives from the premise that the categorical imperative is objective. That is to say, moral questions are determined without regard to the person asking them or the cultural or temporal context in which those questions are asked. I take this position as well, as I place all such questions as axiomatically derived from what humans demonstrably are-- rational, autonomous, sentient, self-conscious, intentional, with blood and bones, with parents and life spans, and as members of families and tribes. This is the objective foundation of Kant's principle in the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law" and "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end" and finally "Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends."
These principles are of course the basis of the universalism that we see in the Declaration of Independence, the United Nations Charter and in genocide tribunals-- that right is not might and that right has an independent and transcending reality from any given individual but not from humanity generally.
Abortion is far more complex than merely making a simplistic dichotomy between pro-life and pro-choice positions. Few doctors endorse abortion as a means of birth control and such a grave step should never be taken lightly. Doctors, perhaps for insurance reasons, sometimes scare the daylights out of mother-to-be about the health of their child. But doctors are sometimes wrong, and it's important to trust ourselves in such matters. I've also met few absolutists on abortion, especially when they have to deal with the issue personally, as in a hypothetical in which a baby is an encephalic-- without a brain-- and the mother's life in danger. Someone wrote to me saying that this "did happen to my closest friends a couple of years ago, and even more ironically, at the time, I was teaching an eight week course on Biblical ethics when the severity of her condition came to light. In a nutshell, she had four small kids at home, pregnant with her fifth, when she started having problems. Doctors said that: a) The baby essentially had no brain, his limbs were severely deformed, and other internal organs where malformed beyond hope. b) Because of some uterine problems, there was a very high chance that sometime in the ninth month she would suffer some major hemorrhage that could prove fatal to her. They of course, wanted to abort right away. She refused, and moreover, wanted to carry the baby full term and have a natural childbirth. (Initially, she actually wanted to give birth at home). For me, I saw the ethical question in a whole new light, now that it had a face on it. The baby had a zero percentage chance of surviving. For a staunch pro-lifer, it was a dilemma acknowledging that the right-to-life can't always be seen as an absolute. It didn't seem right that the mother should possibly lose her life, and four small children lose their mother, when the baby wasn't going to live no matter what. Fortunately, the mother decided to have a C-section at the earliest possible time. (32 weeks or something like that...don't exactly remember) She got through it okay. The baby lived for three days or so."
God gives us minds and God gives doctors their skill. The point is not to look for rationalizations to support our actions but rather be prepared to acknowledge the complexity of life and that we must adapt moral principles to achieve the most ethical ends A one-size-fit-all principle that all life from conception on must be preserved at all costs can be immoral and even deadly, a principle, by the way, that anti-abortionists rarely extend to embracing military pacifism and mercy to criminals on death row.
How strange it is that some conservatives condemn those who abort in the second semester while allowing the state to abort their child in the sixty-second semester in armed combat in foolish wars. Finally, it seems to me that the issue isn't abortion as such, but the predicating choices made by those who conceived that unwanted child in the first place. It seems hypocritical to pat yourself on the back for protesting the taking of innocent life while at the same time acting irresponsibly to bring into existence innocent life.
So here we sit, say 50 people in our lifeboat. To be generous, let us assume it has room for 10 more, making a total capacity of 60. Suppose the 50 of us in the lifeboat see 100 others swimming in the water outside, begging for admission to our boat or for handouts. We have several options: we may be tempted to try to live by the Christian ideal of being "our brother's keeper," or by the Marxist ideal of "to each according to his needs." Since the needs of all in the water are the same, and since they can all be seen as "our brothers," we could take them all into our boat, making a total of 150 in a boat designed for 60. The boat swamps, everyone drowns. Complete justice, complete catastrophe.
Since the boat has an unused excess capacity of 10 more passengers, we could admit just 10 more to it. But which 10 do we let in? How do we choose? Do we pick the best 10, "first come, first served"? And what do we say to the 90 we exclude? If we do let an extra 10 into our lifeboat, we will have lost our "safety factor," an engineering principle of critical importance. For example, if we don't leave room for excess capacity as a safety factor in our country's agriculture, a new plant disease or a bad change in the weather could have disastrous consequences.
Suppose we decide to preserve our small safety factor and admit no more to the lifeboat. Our survival is then possible although we shall have to be constantly on guard against boarding parties.
While this last solution clearly offers the only means of our survival, it is morally abhorrent to many people. Some say they feel guilty about their good luck. My reply is simple: "Get out and yield your place to others." This may solve the problem of the guilt-ridden person's conscience, but it does not change the ethics of the lifeboat. The needy person to whom the guilt-ridden person yields his place will not himself feel guilty about his good luck. If he did, he would not climb aboard. The net result of conscience-stricken people giving up their unjustly held seats is the elimination of that sort of conscience from the lifeboat.
Isn't this statement itself subjective? How do we know that it is true? Is it a guess? Is it divine revelation?
I search in vain for evidence that suggests that it is more than an opinion. And since it is only an opinion, I suspect that it isn't true at all. At least we have no way of knowing that it is true. Let me posit an alternative theory, viz.: all morality is objective. Is there evidence that supports that claim? I think the answer is yes, so long as we make several stipulations. First, morality must allow for superficial cultural and temporal differences. Secondly, we can assume that morality-- actions that we construe as right or wrong-- flow from the minds of humans that that inhabit essentially the same bodies that all humans have ever since we were human. Thus, if we strip away the cultural and temporal overlay, all humans will have the same kinds of reactions that humans have always had, since those reactions are rooted in blood and muscles, pain and pleasure. Thus, the objective basis of all morality and ethics and indeed all law and religion is our own bodies. It is our emperically factual inability to reply in the negative to William Shakespere's Merchant of Venice "If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die?" There may be rare individuals that do not bleed when pricked, do not laugh when tickled, and do not die when poisoned, but not so many that it voids the notion that humanity shares a common morality.
But morality IS cultural and HAS hugely changed with time.
Again, that's not a fact. It's an assertion that might have some truth, although in all frankness I believe the truth is generally exaggerated. I might agree with your statement if it was stated as follows:
Culture informs morality and morality sometimes changes over time.
There is a cart and horse problem here. Does morality shape culture or culture shape morality? The most logically way to approach is that both interact with each other. Fine. So where does culture come from? That too comes from the reality of our existence has humans living in different climates and processing different information to survive. And I certainly don't see any great upward evolution in morality since historical records were started 5,000 years ago.
If you take these two away then what objecive moral "truths" are you left with? Just two or three would do for a start.
That's easy. What do all humans seek? It's better to live than to die, to eat than to starve, to be safe then to be in danger, to perpetuate ones genes then to not perpetuate ones genes, to perpetuate ones traditions and mores than to not perpertuate ones traditions and mores, and so on.
Consider also the taboos that bind our life, certain words that cannot be said, certain gestures that cannot be made, and so on. One such universal taboo is that we are repelled by what comes out of our body but not what goes into our body (except at oriental buffets). Is it really true that such taboos are taught? Perhaps there is a special class in pre-school (between Animal Sounds and Exploring Our Room), but that of course begs the question as to why they were taught. The simplest explanation is probably the most accurate explanation-- such taboos, such a sense of what is appropriate and what is not appropriate, is encoded in us, much like language ability and grammer is encoded in us, awaiting for the cultural overlay to make its societal application. This is not to say that there are wide variations between cultures in what is considered right or wrong. But beneath it all there is an implacable core of similitude of emotions and reactions that we call morals that defines us not as canninabals or interior decorators but as humans.
That specific individuals have no interest in breeding or living large doesn't change the thrust of my argument, that morality largely derives from the reality of our collective existence. If you were a jellyfish, I would agree that your morality and my morality in its essence would be different But this isn't the case with two humans, regardless of whether you are living in ancient Rome or modern Chicago, regardless of whether you are a bushman or a CEO. Your morality derives from your thoughts which is nothing more or less than your biochemistry.
Please be clear what you mean by morality. Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner") refers to conduct held to be authoritative in matters of right or wrong. Ethics are generally principles that determine rules of conduct. It provides the basis from which moral rules can be deduced. The question is: Is there an objective meta-ethical justification for any rule of conduct? Those like myself who say yes are described as moral realists-- there are true moral statements which reflect objective moral reality. Conversely, moral skeptics would say morality is derived from primarily theistic culture.
Evidence that true moral statements exist can be even seen on this forum from those who argue for moral relativism on one hand and then on the other make countless adament normative claims-- that abortion on demand is right or wrong, that the war in Iraq is right or wrong, that capital punishment is right or wrong, and so on. Am I wrong by suggesting that the folks on this forum no less aggrieved be the genocides inflicted on three separate continents-- German Europe in the 1940s, Cambodian Asia in the 1970s and Rwandan Africa in the 1990s? If so, what are the source of those feelings? And I might also inquire what common element existed in humans in different times and places for the genoicdes to occur in the first place? On the face of it, on these three instance, cultural differences was paper thin and ultimately irrelevant in the face of the similitude of immoral outcomes. On what is this rightness or wrongness founded? Nothing? Is it just a matter of the biggest mob or the loudest voice? Does it
all depends on how you’re raised It all depends on what is praised What’s right today is wrong tomorrow Joy in France is England’s sorrow It all depends on point of view Australia or Timbuctoo In Rome do as Romans do If taste just happen to agree Then you have morality When there are conflicting trends It all depends, it all depends
You can say that everyone has a right to their opinion, but my obvious response is: why? Even that is a moral rule. As the father of two boys, I also see them display an inherent sense of justice and injustice, to the point where if there is a piece of cake left, I have one kid cut the cake and the other pick the first piece.
Now as to scientific evidence for my position, that morals are founded in the realness of our common biology, you may want to consider evolutionary biology. Thus, their argument goes, morality is a product of emotions that were selected in because they aided in the survival of the species. The maternal bond and the anti-incest Westermarck effect are just two examples. The development of empathy, modesty, and reciprocity in higher mammals and indeed language and its derivatives such as gossip and barter are more examples that helped develop morality. Neuropsychology also provides additional evidence, in the development of such constructs as guilt, what Phil Roberts, Jr. describes as a "maladaptive byproduct of the evolution of rationality."
In some tribes it was acceptable to eat your enemies etc. etc. what more proof do you need?
You are confusing custom with morality. That we are repulsed by cannibalism says nothing about the rightness or the wrongness of the conduct of tribes in New Guinea that ate people. In this case, it could be immoral to refuse to partake in cannibalism. However, it doesn't follow that the New Guineas lack the codes of conduct that we recognize, such as honesty, fidelity, courage, love of family, and so on. Under some conditions such as famine, cannibalism becomes morally acceptable, such as in the case of the 1972 Uruguayan Flight 571 crash where the survivors decided to eat the frozen bodies of the deceased to survive. You cite it as an example of moral relativity when I suspect you are no less aghast than I at Albert Fish or Jeffery Dahmer's cannibalization. But why should that be so? Whence is the source of this stigma? The source most likely is our common evolutionary past, as that gives answer to the question: how can you have a moral law without a moral lawgiver?
Broadly, morality is rules of conduct, which I contend arise from our biogenetic hard wiring, somewhat analogous to a computer's mother board. Isaac Asimov imagined such rules for robots:
I surmise that we have the same kind of rules, and in fact any kind of scientific determinism couldn't be operative without such rules, (not that I believe in determinism-- but that belongs in another thread.). As I said in the last post, such rules have a sociobiological rationale relating to our survival. Here is a start of what I conjecture to be some rules:
1. Thou shalt honor the tribe. 2. Thou shalt protect thy family. 3. Thou shalt not fornicate with thy children. 4. Thou shalt not do ill against any man unless the tribe requires it of you. 5. Thou shalt preserve thy life.
Just to get this right you are saying that the 4 "rules" you propose are common to all humans - regardless of culture or time - is that correct?
I don't know, but I doubt it. Definitive rules applicable to all humans in all cultures through all recorded time would constitute a series of highly complex algorithms, allowing for countless exceptions and contradictions. Religious moral codes such as the Golden Rule, the Eqyptian Ma'at, the Hindu yamas, and the Ten Commandments are crude representations of these algorithms, as is our Black Letter law. The precept "Thou Shalt Not Kill" does not apply when the tribe or state orders someone to kill. The church, law, and common sense may tell us that a man cannot kill his wife's lover, and yet some juries refuse to condemn. And then you also have the conflict of two opposing imperatives, for example: "Thou Shalt not Kill" versus "Thou Shalt Protect Thy Family." I saw this scenerio in a play where a mother suffocated her crying baby to prevent Nazis from discovering her family. This of course gets into situational ethics. But, again, just because we need to contextualize these moral principles and optimum moral principles are sometimes difficult to derive, it doesn't follow that there isn't a core set of moral rules that allow us to make those determinations in the first place.
In my view, the Kantian formulations of the imperative are a good start as they place ethics above the tribe so that they don't need to be contextualized by time and place:
Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means"[
Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends.
The "thou shalts" that I mention in the last post however derive from biological necessity, making the perpetuation of the species the highest good. Kant 's imperatives that formulates moral laws seem to be driven in contrast rational necessity, rendering his meta-ethical position as objectivist. Thus, reason rather than emperical, cultural, or emotional factors ensures morality has universal validity. Kant's moral universalism combined with his presuppositions of man's moral autonomy and freeedom of will has helped shape what we accept as givens: legal and political concepts such as human equality and civil rights.
To date you have not given one example of such a moral absolute, but you have given moral "rules" that by your own admission are relative and dependent on culture and time, This seems to be directly contrary to your intital response to my post that morallity is subjective:-Are you saying that moraility is or is not relative? You seem to be arguing that it both is not, and that it is, at the same time. If it is NOT subjective then please give me a moral rule that stands the test of non-subjectivity (i.e. universally applies irrespective of the personal, cultural or time context) - just one would do as a start.
Morality is not relative. Here are three examples of moral absolutes that I contend transcend culture and time, that are universally applicable and non-subjective, which you will recognize are from the Decalogue:
1. Thou shalt not murder. 2. Thou shalt not steal. 3. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
"Hold on", I can imagine you saying. "People and nations countenance murder, theft, and adultery all the time and everywhere. Surely, these aren't moral absolutes." But this is where I disagree. I would ask you to give me by contrast examples of societies, cultures, or nations where murder, theft, and adultery are a moral good. I cannot think of any. Even in organizations that we regard as depraved, such as the Thuggee cult to Kali or the Jim Jones cult that resulted in so many of their own deaths, there never was an acceptance of a moral standard that murdering each other or wanton murder was a moral good. The claim that there is no honor among thieves is false, by this token. Even thieves have their ethical boundries, their own often harsh sense of integrity and justice. This is reflected in their own codes of honor, such as the Mafia omerta-- code of silence. There are of course different standards of definition and punishment as to what is theft, say, in different countries and times. But that doesn't negate that all humans regard theft however they define it as a moral wrong.
My hypothesis in summary is as follows:
1. Every human is born with moral programming.
Some of this programming we call instincts, such as the mother child bond. Some of it is taboos, such as the incest taboo. Some of it is supersitition, that leads to religions. Some of it appears to be integrated with our ability to use language and reason. However, I doubt that there is a "moral gene". It appears to relate to the development of pattern recognition relating to a number of emergent cognitions. So, one such program might be: thou shalt not murder. If the child grows up to be a judge or a soldier, he will qualify that absolute. But the absolute still remains.
2. This programming is primarily the result of natural selection.
The prescription against adultery seems counter intuitive on its face, but makes more sense when looked at society broadly, causing as it does social instability and other problems.
3. Heavily larded on top of this biogenetic programming is culture.
It doesn't nullify the programming but adapts and applies it to the circumstances of time and place. It is commonly argued that the mechanism for transferring moral law is tradition and revelation. However, I believe that at best this is a half truth, as tradition and revelation must be rooted in something other than itself. For example, although Sharia Law may repulse us, it still shares the same foundation that US Constitutionalism has, namely an attempt to create societal standards and promote stability, to punish or reward, and to seek fairness and justice. Although we may consider North Korea to be a benighted nation, for example, is there any doubt that concepts such as honesty and fairness nevertheless prevail even in the Hermit Kingdom. It is those principles-- not the specific rules that apply to the Iranians or the Koreans-- that are part of our common genetic grammer, I contend.
4. Finally, I state the obvious: That not everyone is normal.
There are people that lack a conscience or reasoning or common sense, and perhaps that is the way they were wired at birth. But we recognize such defectives because we are not wired as they are.
If there is no God, then what basis can we use for what is right and wrong? Aren't our morals tied somewhat to our religious beliefs, or can morals be established without the tie to religion?
Since there are not gods or other supernatural things, our morals are based on what people around us said they should be, i.e., family, community, governments. IOW, --morals are based on consensus. It's always been that way.
But since there is (at least in America) a consensus that God is real, can it not be said that our morals derive (perhaps unwillingly) from religious belief?
Good question. I've heard and read "devout Christians" claim atheists are amoral because we don't believe in God. Intellectually: I'm an egoist. I accept it's to my advantage to obey many rules. When it is not, I will often break rules,if I can either get away with it,or am simply willing to wear the sanctions,and of course my bloody conscience doesn't bother me too much. Today,in an age of moral relativism,people can,and do argue that there are no absolute moral imperatives.I don't agree,but I don't think there are many.I doubt I could intentionlly harm another person without a lot of angst, especially a child.I can't think of any circumstance when the rape of a child would be justified. (by "'rape" I mean any sexuall actvity between an adult and a pre adolescent child).
What I think: For the vast majority of people, moral relavatism is the default philosophy because it is the most indolent philosophy, since it is rooted in expediency and rationalization. For those who embrace a creed of amoralism-- or what they may call moral relativism-- I would ask them: why not rape a five year old? Is it just a fear of punishment? if so, based on the statistics and given the corruption of our judicial system, that fear is greatly misplaced. May I suggest there is a distinction between arguing that there are no absolute moral imperatives-- an ultimately fruitless task, in my view-- and acting as if there were moral absolutes but without conditioning those claims in religion, consensus, or the law. The challenge as I see it is to not relativize or personalize but go to the other extreme and generalize and universalize by acting, in effect, as judge, jury, prosecuting attorney, and defendent when deciding moral obligation or dilemmas. So Kant's answer to the question: why not rape? is this principle: "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means." This is the opposite of egotism as it requires a leap of empathy to people generally and a presuposition of ones self of rational autonomy freely acting as "a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends."
The Latin motto on water bottles and Frisbees for sale in the college bookstore makes the point plain: Numquam Bella Piis, Numquam Certanima Desunt — “For the faithful, wars shall never cease.”
I prefer "Blessed are the peacemakers" myself.
I agree. However, the latin motto is particularly appropriate, especially as it applies to religionists: so long as humans cling to their foolish, devisive superstitions, they will continue to kill and slaughter each other, certain that their god or gods is the right one that others must follow.
With the perspective of six years of the Bush administration, is it possible to ethically support the Bush administration, or is such support inherently unethical?
Why or why not?
I support Bush as the lesser of the two evils that were available to choose from. Without that restriction I would pick someone with significantly better qualifications. It would be someone who is not religious, who is more rational, who is more principled, who is less pragmatic, who is more decisive, and who is more articulate.
On paper, the credentials of Bush and Cheney are beyond reproach with formal education at the best schools, experience in the legislature and the business world, and access to world leaders. But none of that seemed to matter in the end.
By your statement-- someone who is not religious-- I assume you mean someone who is not dogmatic. It appears that Bush's relgion in particular is Methodist through his wife's affiliation by convenience and for politicals ends. It's hard for me to accept that a serial liar-- and one who lies with such regularity, ease, and deadly consequences to so many people-- in any wise a moral person and a follower of Christ.
More principled? Are you sure? At his last press conference, the president said: “I can look in the mirror and I know that I made a decision based on principle not on public opinion”. I think what Bush means is that he is committed to upholding universal norms that transcend the clamor of the mob. What it really means is that he is infected with a virus that blinds him to such irrelevancies as facts, logic, the rule of law, and the will of the people.
More decisive? Bush's great virtue to his base is that he doesn't flip flop, that he doesn't do nuance, that he stays the course, that he doesn't ask for permission slips before acting with cowboy like dispatch. The flip side of this of course is that he doesn't consider the expereince and judgement of generals and former secretaries of state and that the mistakes he makes in consequence are of biblical proportions.
Do you need to have good communication skills to be effective? Lincoln had good communications skills, but Washington did not. I think it's a important skill but not a critical skill.
I support Bush as the lesser of the two evils that were available to choose from.
You seem to present the proposition as if it is a forced choice and if it is a single choice. Politics being the art of the possible is rarely a forced choice, say, between communism or fascism. A more reasonable approach is to figure out what is important to you in terms of your values and interests and then see which candidate, platform, or party best correlates to them. My beef with most partisans is that they correlate falsehoods and half-truths with the party they support.
Also, merely because you once supported a person or party, it doesn't mean that you are wedded to that. For most people, that isn't the case, and as circumstances warrent, they will switch their vote.
Whose ethics are we to use in making that judgment?
Your own. It is however a philosophical mistake that any two person's ethics (or principles) are equivalent. A klansman and a hit man have ethics, and it is more than a mere matter of opinion that yours are superior to theirs. What makes one person's ethics superior to another's? The answer are yet other principles that are not merely subjective, such rules of logic, emperical adequacy, rational coherence, categorical values, the reasonable person rule, community standards, and so on. There are of course flaws in any one of those standards, but taken together they suffice to render an ethical judgment.
Why does it even matter? What pleasure does it give people to continuously argue about religion? The human population's beleifs will forever differ, therefore, what is arguing about it going to solve?
It gets to me when a person is judged because of a certain belief system, or lack of, they have. I have been in numerous discussions when after I tell the opposer that I do not believe in a god, she or he will then say something along the lines of, "So then what's the point of being moral? Why don't you just go out and have all the fun you like, drink, have sex with multiple partners, do drugs, lie, cheat, etc.?" I will then answer with something like "The point is I don't need a reward at the end of the road. I do good for myself, for the people around me, not for some god that will reject me if I simply have a different set of beliefs."
Why can't we all just get along?
Because different thoughts can lead to different behaviors.
"The point is I don't need a reward at the end of the road."
OK. But I think you are implying that people that believe in God do so out of fear or for profit in some future life. This may very well be true with many and even most God-believers, but I don't think it needs to be true. Some people may simply believe that God exists but it has no relevancy on their morals and may even have a negative effect on their morals. For example, I think Satanists generally believe in God and also in their own unorthodox morality. (Apologies to Satanists if I've gotten this wrong.) Others may believe in God but root their morality in other principles that have nothing to do with theism, such as the categorical imperative.
"Satan worshippers presumably believe this, but there is at least a goodly portion of Satanists, AFAIK, who do not in fact believe in God or Satan as actual entities."
Sounds like Uniterian Satanists. Orthodox satanists would surely believe that there is a God since Satan was a fallen angel of God. I suppose the more liberal Satanists would view Satan as a kind of a symbol representing values in distinction to another symbol-- the battle of the symbols.
I think that there are really a number of issues wrapped up in the cliche:
1. Is it ever necessary to do something morally wrong? 2. Is it acceptable for someone or for society in general to derive benefit from an evil act that a third party committed? 3. Is the morality of an action dependent on the harm done or by the benefits obtained?
I am not arrogant enough to suspect that I know the answers to those questions.
I respect intellectual humility and I know you are being sincere by disclaiming arrogance. However, I suggest that difficult ethical dilemmas can only be resolved by wearing a mantle of arrogance. My father, for example, was a conscientious objector during World War II. He had no problem undergoing malaria vaccine or medical starvation tests to defend his conviction that the taking of human life for any reason is murder. But when pressed on whether or not we need police or soldiers, Dad's answer would basically come down to an ethical claim that he saw was Biblically derived but nevertheless was also hopelessly subjective. Thus, for my father, a humble man, his moral creed was placed into the subjunctive: "For me, the taking of human life is wrong." I really don't see how this differs from someone who says, "For me, the taking of human life is right."
One approach that appeals to me was suggested by the existentialists, who embrace the presupposition of individual moral choice-- one of the few philosophies that really do so. What they ask you to do when you are trying to decide whether to join the Free French underground to fight the Nazis or care for your dying mother or who you need to throw overboad in a storm-tossed lifeboat is to be in effect God's consigleri, pope, president, and grand pooh bah of the universe, making a decision not merely for yourself but for all of humanity, and by so doing defining yourself and humanity by how you make that choice. The paradox is that sometimes we need to be selfish or at least a-ethical to make the clearest ethical decisions. An example is in the one choice that in my opinion accounts for most of one's misery or happiness-- who you marry. The question to ask is not will I be good for her, fulfill her, please her? The one question that must be asked and the answered in a clear affirmative is: is she good for me? It is that selfishness that in the scheme of things is selflessly ethical.
The questions you raise above basically relate to situational ethics, a theory of Christian ethics that was developed by Joseph Fletcher in the 1960s, based on the theory best articulated by the Beatles that "All you need is love." Thus, to put it simplistically, for Fletcher the ends jusitify the means if somehow the means are rooted in agape love.
The more I think about situational ethics, the less I think it provides much ethical guidance, as it is highly conditional or what Kant would call hypothetical on some fuzzy construct that we identify as "love". I'm not sure how much use it would be in resolving, for example, William Styron's scenario in Sophie's Choice, that compelled Sophie to select one of her children at Auchwitz for the ovens. However, I do think Fletcher's thinking was at least a step in the right direction away from the moralistic absolutism common not just among many Christians but people generally. John Caputo in his challenging but well-written book Against Ethics deconstructs ethics to the point where it becomes sometimes not just irrelevant but dangerous and that fixed moral rules are something of a mirage.
I'm a father with two middle-school boys. One thing I try to do is watch for is families that seem to raise admirable children. These are children who have a wide circle of friends, strong self-esteem, that know what they want out of life, that have the inner motivation to excel at anything they want, that have the respect of peers and teachers, and that seem to be on a good path to future success. I also watch for families that seem to raise kids that go in the other direction, as a lessons learned in how not to raise kids. These are children who have little self-esteem, who are bullies and trouble-makers, who struggle academically, and who do not seem to have much interest in a good future.
Obviously, the vast majority of kids fall somewhere between these extremes. But, based on my observation, I hazard the following observation. The children that fall into the first group in distinction to the second group in terms of their religious background are not kids who lack no religion whatever-- parents who take the view that when their kids get of age, they can get a relgion if they want to -- or kids who have a fundamentalist background with lots of "don'ts" and strict religious indoctrination-- parents who force their kids to walk such a moral tight-rope that they will inevitable fall off-- but parents who have some religious traditions withut being overly excessive in their ethical demands.
Based on my somewhat limited obervation with children from parents of a variety of different religions and also the absence of religion, my conclusion is that the most desirable and wholesome children have a moderately religious background that guides the child and allows his or her values to incubate and that doesn't restrict the natural development of a child's conscience.
Your observation is clearly limited. Based on my own limited observations I could say the following. ...my conclusion is that the most desirable and wholesome children have had no religious background and have been guided by humanistic principles which allows them to develop a healthy respect for their societal responsibilities and the rights of others. (Such observations include my own three children incidentally.)
I'm just a curious parent, not a scientist. But you rise valid points. Certainly, the variables you raise are important. As a landlord of more than two decades, I have had the opportunity to look into people's lives more closely than many people, and my wife is a preschool teacher that yet gives another window into peoples lives.
It's possible that I've extrapolated from a sample that is far too small. However, on my children's behalf, I'm trying to be as pragmatic as possible, and let the evidence take me where it will. I'm perfectly willing also to concede that parents that raise well-adjusted kids may not necesserily invoke a religion per se but they do enforce some kind of a moral code within their own family that does much of the same thing. Thus, they may call themselves atheists while at the same time ensuring that their kids adhear to high and honorable ethical values. This is different that parents that are indifferent to any kind of a transmission of ethics be it in the guise of religion or using some other mechanism, although they may also describe themselves as atheists or not even use that word at all. Factors, such as education and ethnic background, may indeed inform whether it is the former rather than the latter.
I think you are groping tentatively towards a much more sensible approach in your last sentence. Well-adjusted children tend to come from stable, comfortable and loving backgrounds by and large and religious belief is largely irrelevant.
While watching CIA Director's gormless performance on 60 minutes on Sunday, it first all off made me dismiss as laughable the Mark Lane-like conspiratorial fantasies of CIA involvement in all kinds of evil from the Kennedy assasination to Jonestown and beyond-- a diabolo ex machina of dark and shadowy forces. These folks cannot do anything well. George Tenet is no James Bond, and the witlessness of this pathetic man and his organization should now be more than obvious. Perhaps we can give CIA a pass for missing the 9/11 attack, but to embrace the serial lies that preceeded the Iraq war is beyond belief. In fact, Tenet's capacity to believe the unbelievable appears to be what drove his epistomology-- not fact, not analysis, but belief.
But the question I reflect on is what should this be so? Tenet had what virtually every other American did not have: access to millions of dollars worth of inteligence, and almost daily access to the president. Yet, he found himself unable to express his concerns. Tenet now says that his phrase "slam dunk" doesn't refer to the quality of pre-invasion intelligence. It refers to his ability to support a propaganda campaign when America enters the war, as if that is the job of the CIA.
Like I said: pathetic. The CBS interview brought back a recollection of a lecture C.S. Lewis delivered more than sixty years ago. In the Inner Ring, he says that he isn't convinced that " the economic motive and the erotic motive account for everything that goes on in what we moralists call the World. Even if you add Ambition I think the picture is still incomplete. The lust for the esoteric, the longing to be inside, take many forms which are not easily recognizable as Ambition. We hope, no doubt, for tangible profits from every Inner Ring we penetrate: power, money, liberty to break rules, avoidance of routine duties, evasion of discipline. "My main purpose in this address is simply to convince you that this desire is one of the great permanent mainsprings of human action. It is one of the factors which go to make up the world as we know it-this whole pell-mell of struggle, competition, confusion, graft, disappointment, and advertisement, and if it is one of the permanent mainsprings then you may be quite sure of this. Unless you take measures to prevent it, this desire is going to be one of the chief motives of your life, from the first day on which you enter your profession until the day when you are too old to care. That will be the natural thing-the life that will come to you of its own accord. Any other kind of life, if you lead it, will be the result of conscious and continuous effort. If you do nothing about it, if you drift with the stream, you will in fact be an "inner ringer." I don't say you'll be a successful one; that's as may be. But whether by pining and moping outside Rings that you can never enter, or by passing triumphantly further and further in-one way or the other you will be that kind of man. I have already made it fairly clear that I think it better for you not to be that kind of man. "
Tenet's desire to be a lord of the ring-- to ascend and be special and noted and well-regarded-- neutered his honesty. I also see this in journalists-- especially national reporters and columnists and the White House press. They too want to be part of the inner ring. A quail dinner with Karl Rove at his historic estate, a concert at Lincoln Center with the Secretary of Defense, a private briefing and a request for advice from the president, and whatever integrity they once had is gone forever.
We sometimes hear formulations of the Iraq war that go like this: "Although the war has been poorly executed, it is a noble cause. " On Jonestown memorial sites, we see often the same kind of sentiment. While it is true that the experiment ended in disaster, defenders say, the followers of Jones were aspiring to ideals of classlessness and racial harmony.
Do the ends justify the means? Sometimes? Always? Never? Or is this statement meaningless?
My view: There are only means. An end that is defined as an abstraction as it almost always is makes such a cliche worthless.
Take for example civil liberties and national security and the proposition that civil liberties should be constrained to enhance national security-- a means to an end. That may be an applause line for certain audiences. But I would say that the entire sentence not only has no meaning but is dangerous until we know exactly who liberties are on the line and for what compelling reason thay must so be.
A good example of the catastrophic disconnect between means and ends (or what can be called application and principle) is the resolution to go to war in Iraq. The authorization for the present conflict is section three of the Congressional Resolution on Iraq:
(a) AUTHORIZATION- The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
These fuzzy statements are the legal basis for our involvement in Iraq that has resulted in so much bloodshed, the draining our of national treasury, and the erosion of US influence and prestige.
A coherent means cannot exist in the absence of a concrete and defined end.
Perhaps the proposition turns on the word justify, meaning in this context, a rational and proportionate relationship between a goal and the means whereby that goal is achieved. We don't spank a crying baby with a hatchet, for example. Of course, questions of national policy derive from this, i.e. Atomizing Hioshima --> defeat of Japan; or liberalizing abortion laws --> reduced juvenile delinquency. The policy question is of course whether these causalities really exist and even if they do exist whether they they are the best or only means to achieve those goals. Evil, it has been said, is the shadow cast by good. Or, to invoke another platitude, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Thus, it often happens that even when the goal and the means is presumed to be good and may even be good, the outcomes are nevertheless tragically evil.
Is there a reasonable defense of fidelity to your spouse that has a foundation that is neither legalistic or theistic? Is that defense superior to an alternate defense of infidelity? Can such a finding be placed on a base other than individualistic relativism? My thought: if we accept that adultery is a kind of lying and that truthfulness is the core of morality, then adultery must on prima facie grounds be immoral. There is also the distinction between doing something that you think is wrong (say adultery) and confessing that act to someone who may be harmed by that confession (say, your spouse and children). And then the question becomes: what if your spouse acknowledges your adultery perhaps in the context of an "open marriage"? Is it then immoral? The main principle of Kantian ethics is that consequences needs to be divorced from the essence of the act itself-- that the essential rightness or wrongess of the actions must be weighed without regard to utiliterian, pragmatic, or perceived societal considerations. Thus, I think Kant would say that moral duty alone determines whether or not adultery is moral or not. OK, but is fidelity a moral duty, and if so, why?
"My morals revolve around self interest. And for me fidelity is compatible with self interest. "
While I agree with your statement, I don't think it provides a sufficient basis as a principle for ethical actions, as other people's self-interest may lead them to infidelity. Their self-interest may come from such motivates as to perpetuate their genes, for trivial amusement, or to provide tonic for a psychological condition. On what ground is their self-interest inferior to your self-interest that results in fidelity other than subjectively perceived utiliterianism? To me, Kant has the answer. Essentially, it is the recognition of the objective reality that we don't live apart from the existence of others and a morality requires a leap of empathy to recgnize the humans are not objects for our own use not matter what the jusitication of that use may be, accoding to Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative:
"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means"
An argument from self-interest -- either "I yearn for sex, thus I must have her" or "I must keep myself free from disease, so I will exercise self-restraint" -- both fall into hypothetical imperatives-- conditional actions that are not tied to a universal moral law.
"Some of the most noble forms of human altruism are motivated by unconscious predispositions to perpetuate their genes."
Agreed. There are all kinds of unconscious predispositions that make us do the things we do, which is why it behooves us to reflect on these predispositions to the extent that they become conscious. The sociobiologists, Freudians, and behavorists give us insights into causes and effects of human behavior. But that is a far cry from suggesting that we are lumbering automata controlled entirely by subliminal instincts which in turn are orchestrated by our genetic heritage. Cause and effect in motivations of even the most simple organism is more than genetic with interactions to the environment and other organisms and in the case of advanced animals with the emergent properties of cognition, education, consciousness, and choice. I have on my wall a plaque "Children Learn What They Live"-- the credo that I have for my kids:
If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn. If children live with hostility, they learn to fight. If children lie with ridicule, they learn to be shy. If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty. If children live with tolerance, they learn to be patient. If children live with enouragement, they learn confidence. If chidlren live with praise, they learn to appreciate. If children live with fairness, they learn jsutice. If children live with security, they learn to have faith. If chidlren live with approval, they learn to like themselves. If children live with acceptance and friendship, they learn to find love in the world.
In the same spirit, I might add that if children live with adulterers, they learn dishonesty and contempt for others. It seems to me that the injunction from Exodus 21:14 "You shall not commit adultery" wasn't invented by theistic overlords to deprive the masses of their simple pleasures. Rather, it reflects a truth that has emerged and has been sustained over the millenia in countless cultures that brings pain to those who violate the injunction and pleasure to those who do not violate the injunction. The Oriental idea of karma or the tao are both akin to this-- that if you violate fundamental laws of life, life will violate you, or, as Emerson writes in his essay on "Compensation": "The thief steals from himself. The swindler swindles himself."
And so I think it can be fairly said that the adulterer cheats him or herself.
"I think that these things just don't work well in general due to human nature. Jealousy, lack of communication, risk of disease, all contribute to make these kinds of arrangements difficult at best, and I see no reason to make life more difficult than it already is."
Occum's razor-- entities should not be multiplied save out of necessity-- applies here. Even LDS polygamists, who morally are straight arrows (except for their statutory rape), still have to contend with the hen house. It's frankly more than I can take. I'm somewhat bemused with the Girl Next Door show starring the Playboy bunny hatch and Hugh Hefner-- he with the shriveled testicles and a personality that more or less froze around the age of 17. There is something pathetic about a 80 year old man making awkward conversation with a twenty-something girl who clearly has no interest in his body or his mind. What on earth can they talk about after they have messed up the sheets? I suspect: not much. Hef is an example of someone who seeks the many because he hasn't found the one.
"The emergent properties (of consciousness and choice) emerge from two factors alone: genetics and experience."
Maybe. I just heard on the TV that Stones singer Keith Richards snorted his father's cremains. Was that act nature or nurture?
There are countless complex human behaviors that not only require an interaction between both nature and nature but seem to also mutate, evolve, and devolve over time. Ir wasn't until the Middle Ages before people recognize something called "romance" and it wasn't until the late Victorian period where there was a time in people's lives called "childhood" (coinciding with the invention of Santa Claus).
But I do think there are also highly complex not well-understood behavorial modalities that are hard-wired, such as the capacity to detect dishonesty and the ability to be dishonest and also the ability to express guilt, commitment, and empathy. Lacking guilt, empathy, commitment, honesty, and the ability to detect dishonesty is genetically speaking a losing strategy. It is also these common behaviors that are the foundations to religion, politics, and law-- which is also why societies almost without exception can never condone adultery.
There also appears to be a distinct gender difference in the way these behaviors appear to have developed. Woman must make a far greater investment in child-rearing with the possibility of (especially in pre-modern times) of death from pregnancy, whereas a man can be relatively speaking indifferent to the consequences of his promiscuity. To generalize, woman, because they generally are physically weaker, compensate by have increased verbal and interpersonal skills as a genetic survivial mechanism.
"I think there's an implicit contract at work."
Marriage is indeed a contract, and a contract is a triad of offer, acceptance, and consideration. The absence of any of those elements voids a contract. In the case of adultery, the missing factor is consideration, which, legally speaking, is a benefit which must be bargained for between the parties, and is the essential reason for a party entering into a contract. .
