Of Laws and Morals

Someone I do not know wrote the following a few days ago:

“And opening up a whole other can of worms…there are no moral societies, at least what you perceive to be a moral society. What is moral to Americans today, was not moral to Americans when this country was founded.

Morality, like laws, changes over time to reflect the society at hand. Not to mention, morals are a personal quality…but like I said that is a whole other can of worms that I don’t wish to open.”

I find this offensively stupid.

First, to a moral relativist as the original writer says he is, I recommend telling a woman about to be stoned to death in Saudi Arabia for being a rape victim that there are no (relativistic) moral societies. Societies based on morals are everywhere. I am somewhat curious as to what societies he would list as not being based in some moral thought, often (but not always) among religious lines.

I, of course, am a moral absolutist.

I think that people that know me well know of my moral absolutism; that there are timeless and universal moral truths that are logically attainable to people regardless of time, culture, and circumstance. And what was moral for one person 10,000 years ago will be equally moral to different person 10,000 years from now. These morals are best understood in terms of Kant’s Categorical Imperatives, which he summarized in three ways. The first two formulations, which are more accessible to the non-Kantian are: “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.”

To argue moral relativism leads to several conclusions. Among these are, one, that there is a final, if limited in time or geography, decider what is and is not moral, be that on personal or societal level. And that, at some level, people or things can change what proper actions should be taken in specific situations.

I also seem to remember Socrates and Euthyphro discussing something similar. Something about whether a thing was moral because it was chosen by said decider-of-morals as moral, or whether a thing was moral and said decider-of-morals simply acknowledged that fact?

With regards to a personal level of moral code, that people are responsible for deciding their own morality, it means that all people are individually charged with developing and acting on personalized codes of moral conduct, that all six billion of these codes of conduct are equally legitimate, and thus, that all people must respect all other people’s personal codes. Because who is to judge one code as being superior to another? The ramifications of this are staggering, especially with regards to ‘justified’ murder, for instance. And do not think there are not (a very small) amount of utilitarians out their willing to make that argument. On a larger level, genocide could be defended on a moral basis, again by said utilitarians, as anyone with a policy debate background can attest to.

For a societal level of moral conduct, perhaps governments and their laws are the ultimate decider? Or societal norms? The reductio ad absurdum argument to the notion that we should equate ever changing laws (say, global execution laws) with codes of moral actions write themselves. One needs only to list the hundreds or thousands of absurd, contradicting, antiquated, and repugnant laws across the globe and equate them with morality to see the flaw. And societal norms often fall to the exact same arguments. Slavery was the de jure and de facto truth in the United States (and not just the South) for over two hundred years. Do we thus give a pass to generations of slaveholders for perpetuating the buying and selling of human beings as a commodity, or do we accept the culture and laws they grew up in as excusing their behavior?

The logic behind not buying and selling human beings was true then as it is today. Human beings were born free then as they are today. Their legal and social norms excuse nothing.

What I do believe in, however, is the growth of the human mind and the mental capacity to deduce moral truths. While morals do not change, our understanding and interpretations of moral truths do change and evolve. And that is more than semantics. Kant himself cited the death penalty as a moral imperative, although I refuse to believe he would say as much today. Ritualized murder, rape, dietary laws, slavery, etc. were society’s interpretations of moral laws. The Torah states the moral fact that thou shalt not kill, but still people were executed. This does not justify or do away with the immoral acts of times passed (or times current), but it does explain them. And I think that the way in which we look at Leviticus today, as being outdated, barbaric, and cruel, will be the same way people 3,000 years from now will look at, say, the Constitution. 3/5ths of a person? Really now?

Because there is a dialectic in human nature, progressing us ever and ever closer towards…. freedom, I believe. Or autonomy, as Hegel would describe it. Towards science and technology, away from charismatic, personal, and intervening gods, towards fraternity and egalitarianism, away from bigotry and divisions, towards forgiveness, ad away from retribution.

Towards the Form of the Good, I suppose.