Debate Ruminations on the nature of Morality

Ever since the dawn of time, long before human beings even walked the earth, already there was the polar opposition, good and evil, order and chaos, right and wrong, moral and immoral. As the Bible would have us believe, from the first moments of the universe, God and Satan were at odds, Satan, the fallen angel, Lucifer, Prince of Darkness against the almighty Creator, master of all things good. Human beings have evidently continued that trend.

Or have we? Are things really all that simple? Do the concepts of good and evil truly even exist? Could it be that "good" and "evil", "right" and "wrong" are nothing more than words, categorizations assigned to that which cannot be categorized? Attempts by human beings to make sense of something which is senseless, to organize something which defies logic? Are we attempting to ascribe black and white ideas to a gray reality?

I have already made clear that there is a sort of duality to human nature We have a divided core, split between ‘good’ and ‘evil’. But what exactly defines the two extremes? How do we determine what is right and wrong, if, as already stated, the two concepts are irrevocably human, and in essence do not exist in the natural world?

Nature is the pinnacle of what one could call organized chaos. Though everything within the natural world happens without urging, seemingly without reason and without any regards to rigid schedules, there is still some guiding element. At the center of the natural world, it would seem, there is an essential balance. But there is no right and wrong. Is the tiger evil because it must slay a young gazelle to eat? Most certainly not, for the same tiger would fight and die simply to protect its offspring. These are actions of instinct, it is highly unlikely there is any reasoning behind them.

Human beings are curious creatures indeed. We are at once both noble and depraved; at the core of the human spirit is a delicate balance between what is considered morally ‘good’ and morally ‘evil’. It is precisely this balance that defines who we are, both as individuals and as a people. When this balance shifts far towards the good, we see figures like Mahatma Ghandi, Mother Teresa, famous icons of ‘rightness’. When it shifts towards the evil, we bear astonished witness to horrors like the Holocaust.

But what exactly is the nature of this division? From what aspect of our lives or spirits does this extend? It is not bred into us by our upbringing, it is not made a part of us through the example of our parents or our peers, it is simply a part of us from the moment we are born. Certainly, events can occur in one’s life that can cause the balance to degrade, that can cause it to be upset, resulting in either good acts or evil acts (Though the former is much more the preferable to the latter). But ultimately, it is an essential part of the human being from the moment they first set their eyes upon the world, when an infant is born it already exists dormant within their as of yet undeveloped self and spirit, As they age and understand the world, the division will come into play and they will respond to the imbalances.

The potential for this division exists in us from birth. What exactly triggers it could be as simple as a single traumatic childhood event or as complex as an entire childhood. Then how do we explain the children who were ‘born’ evil? There are bound to be humans which are born with this ‘divided’ core. This can explain why ‘good kids’ can go so bad, why some people from ‘bad’ backgrounds manage to pull through and become functioning members of society while others become vagrants and criminals, why some of the most well-known serial killers of the twentieth century had generally ‘good’ lives.

This moral balance is not conscience. It is not bred in us by our parents or our birth. It is not a moral guideline to what is right and wrong, it simply is; an indestructible, indivisible aspect that is as much a part of our being as our heart and lungs are a part of our body. Our conscience merely helps us to empathize with our fellow humans and determine the results of this division. Our conscience can help us resist or make sense of this moral balance. Certainly, many human beings do have a certain degree of empathy, but this aside, the conscience is largely bred into us through our environment.

Those who are born with an ‘upset’ balance cannot generally help themselves, they commit or are tempted to commit atrocities without any urging or influence, or else they aid others and show love for their fellow man without even considering this or asking for compensation of any sort. As for the rest of us, our balances are very much neutral, and conscience aside, it could be argued that every human being is capable of being a saint or a demon, a hero or a villain.

Ethics, morality, right and wrong, could it be that these are all merely human words, human constructs to make sense and assign categorization to events and actions? Outside of the human world, does justice exist? Is there morality, mercy, ethics, good and evil? Outside of the ivory tower human society has constructed about itself, do these moralities and ideals exist?

It may seem as if I am contradicting myself here, describing the potential for ‘good’ and ‘evil’ within the human core, and then following by questioning whether or not these elements truly and actually exist. This is not so. I will make myself clear soon enough.

The first step we must take in determining the existence of ethics and morality is defining the two, a task which proves rather more difficult than one might think.

What is ethics? Moreover, what is ethical? How do we define an action as ethical or unethical? A utilitarian would say that consequence is all that matters. A deontologist would state that what gives an action its ethical characteristics is the intent behind said action. If an action is intended to help, then it can be considered moral. If an action has no intent, but harms another, it is immoral. This is a rather confusing and convoluted concept, and we are still no closer to defining just what ethics is, just what good and evil refer to.

To provide a suitable answer to this question, I refer to a statement made earlier, about the nature of our moral conscience. It seems only fitting that the notion of a conscience would be inextricably tied to the nature of morality itself, does it not? Ergo, if the conscience allows us to feel empathy, would not morality be tied to empathy itself? Therefore, we could conclude that an action which is ‘good’ helps someone, causes no pain, is committed for the purpose of aiding or otherwise helping another being. Consequently, an action could be considered ‘evil’ if the intent lied in causing malevolent harm to another being, be they rational or no.

It is here that we run into a complication, of sorts. Is it a universal moral rule that killing a fellow human being is wrong? What if that human being was a child killer, and by ending their life the lives of countless innocents would be spared. If such is the case, would the action’s intent in committing malevolent harm to the killer still be considered morally ‘wrong’? No! Is it universally ‘good’ to save a life? What if the intent behind saving that life was to receive financial compensation for the heroism, or if, in some twisted, bizarre situation, to torment the individual? In a situation as this one, though the individual intended to save the life of the individual, to help them, their ultimate goal was to cause further torment for the poor soul. Therein lies the difficulty; in a world that we like to think of as being black and white, there are often more shades of gray than we can count.

In spite of what is being discussed, we’ve still failed to arrive at any conclusive reasoning regarding what constitutes the human idea of morality. Or have we? One of the most commonly seen words in the last few paragraphs has been ‘intent’. So could it be that what makes an action moral is that it is carried out with the intent to either help or harm? Again, we run into the walls described. Again, we must circle around back to where we began.

Perhaps it may well be that ‘morality’ has no definitive example. The only conclusion that can be drawn here is that the definition of morality is that it is a human system designed for ascribing categorizations of ‘good’ or ‘evil’ to actions, that the essence of what morality is changes with each situation it is applied to, that too many factors come into play to adequately and consistently describe it.

However, this answer is still unsatisfying. It still does not bring us any closer to determining the existance of morality. Therefore, I must further elaborate. A decisive conclusion can now be drawn by taking all factors into consideration. Conscience is a system bred into human beings to help them feel empathy and determine ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ (Which have been defined as the ultimate result of whether an action causes or would cause harm to an individual were they do discover it, and whether or not that harm may be ‘deserved’, in a sense). ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are inextricably tied into ethics, which is defined as human created system to determine whether an action is moral or immoral (‘morality’ being the ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of an action and its consequences). Both are highly subjective and conditional. Ergo, the ultimate conclusion is that conscience and ethics are simply two different words for the same thing, one created and one inherent. The ability to feel empathy, to understand the consequences of our actions, to understand how our actions effect those around us, this may be the true reasoning behind ‘right’ and ‘wrong’

Both ethics and conscience rely on an ability to reason, to consider a situation and come to logical decisions regarding it. Being as animals in the natural kingdom (chimpanzees, nearly human, being the exception to this rule), it is therefore argued that ethics, good, and evil ultimately ARE human constructs. While they do exist, they are purely and irrevocably human. So too are they not dichotomous, there are very few situations in which actions or individuals can be described as ultimately ‘good’ or ‘evil’. The majority fall within the gray area of morality, just as the dualism in each one of us.
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.....Discuss.

 

You'd be surprised- there ARE people out there who would argue that there are clear-cut, definite and absolute moral laws. I'm essentially arguing against that fact- I am stating that all morality is generally subjective, with few exceptions.

As well, it's not simply morality that I'm making a statement about here, but the human condition in general- I am arguing that human beings are, at their core, eternally divided between 'good' and 'evil', 'right' and 'wrong'. I am presenting a vision of the human mind and conscience of having a duality between the moral and immoral, and consequently trying to find a suitable definition for the two and the difference between them.

 

Hmm, you appear to have somewhat of a utilitarian view of morality (moral/immoral are determined by what maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain for the largest group of people).

As for the source of morality, it is difficult to say- many claim that morality and the knowledge of 'right' and 'wrong' stem from some divine being, from a God, if you will. Right. How is it, then, that I've met far more atheists who I'd consider good people than I have Christians? They deny the existence of a supreme being, and in doing so, according to doctrine, are 'cut off' from said being. Yet they are in most cases still compassionate, and have a clear-cut concept of good and evil. There is another reason that morality cannot stem from divinity- I will bring your attentions to the "divine command" theory, and the ultimate question surrounding it- is it right because God commands it or does God command it because it is right?

If you subscribe to the former, then morality becomes something completely arbitrary and unimportant- if, on a whim, God decided that eating babies was moral, and God was the source of all morality, well...anyone who didn't eat babies would be unethical, wouldn't they? If one subscribes to the former, that means there is a higher law of morality that exists OUTSIDE of any divinity.

So, if morality doesn't stem from divinity, where does it stem from? Many would argue that it is our upbringing, where our parents instill in us societal values and ethics- killing is wrong to us because our parents raise us from an early age to believe that it is wrong. However, this view is not perfect either- if we subscribe to a purely "cultural" stance on ethics and morality, then we again run the risk of presenting morality as something that is fully arbitrary- if killing in one society is wrong, and another is right, then there is no moral law that states "killing is wrong", is there?

Not exactly. While our basic values and ethics are largely determined by society, there's some other intangible moral force there that guides us. Human being evolved (or was created, if you prefer) as a social animal- therefore, as such, we recognize there are certain unacceptable behaviours that, if they were accepted, would result in the disintegration of a social structure. Ergo, can we say that morality stems both from societal values and from our evolutionary background? Could our developed ability to reason be the only source of morality?

It is here that I refer to the post with which I started this discussion:

So, perhaps morality does not stem from human society, or human evolution, or even human reason on its own. Perhaps the ultimate 'source' of morality is simply human beings themselves- it is a combination of our biological background, our upbringing, our social systems, and our own inner thoughts and feelings. More than that, it stems from our ability to reason, directly linked to an ability to empathize- "Action A would hurt me if it were done to me, so it therefore follows that Action A would hurt Person B", as it were.

I do ramble on, don't I?