Pragmatic Morality

One of the many useful things that religion does is provide a framework for morality. If God has told us what is moral, then the sincere religious person can rest easy knowing that by following his religion’s dictates he is doing what is right.

Without religion it’s more difficult to define morality and to decide whether something is right or wrong. At that, without a divine mandate, the entire enterprise of determining what is moral is called into question. Why does is matter is something is moral? After all, what is considered “good” or “bad” is largely determined by a combination of social norms and biological instincts. Neither of those are important in a written-in-the-sky kind of way, so who cares whether something is moral or not! That the norms of my society or my instincts tell me that I shouldn’t do something is not in itself a reason not to do it.

I think both problems, creating a moral code and a reason to keep it, can be addressed by adopting a pragmatic approach. And I think that a good starting point for a pragmatic morality is the Golden Rule. As Hillel phrased it: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.”

This is entirely pragmatic. If everyone follows the Rule, then we will all be treated well by everyone else – and that also provides the reason for behaving morally. I must behave morally because if I don’t, the system breaks down. It may be in my best interests at the moment, to, say, steal something from the grocery. If I do, though, then my fellows hano longer have motivation to treat me well – since they are treating me well in order that I treat them well – and the system breaks down. Inevitably, someone will steal from me – something that I don’t want to happen. Therefore I refrain from stealing from the grocery store in order to maintain the universal agreement that we all treat each other well.

The Golden Rule provides a simple, though not easy, basis for judging if an action is moral. If I were the person my action is affecting – not if I was in his place, but if I was him, with his likes and dislikes, his personality, his history, etc. – would I want to be treated that way? If yes the action is moral, if no then the action is immoral.

Of course, as with any moral system, there are gray areas. For example, giving a child a shot. The child certainly doesn’t want to be stuck with a needle, but it is in his best interest. Perhaps we could say that, if he knew that it was in his best interest, he would want it – except that forcing someone against their wish to do what we judge to be in their best interest is a dangerous road to go down. This needs more thought.

There is also the problem of bringing criminals to justice. A criminal who recognizes that what he did is wrong is not much of an issue. We look at it from his perspective, and try to treat him as we would want to be treated if we were caught doing something wrong. If I did something wrong, I would like understanding and compassion, but I recognize that there must be immediate consequences to deter people for whom the long-view of keeping things pleasant for everyone isn’t enough to keep them from breaking the moral code and ruining things for everyone else.

But what about someone who believes that what he did is right? I certainly wouldn’t want to be punished for something that I thought was the right thing to do. Not that I would want to be punished for something that I agree was the wrong thing, but there at least I can recognize the necessity of the punishment and acquiesce.  And what about someone who ascribes to a different moral system? We cannot subject him to the consequences of the Golden Rule moral system – after all, we would not want to subjected to consequences under the rules of his moral system. This also needs more thought.

These are some thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head for a while. A fully-developed moral system is beyond the scope of a single blog post, and likely beyond my amateur attempts at philosophy. I kind of like this idea, though. Any thoughts on how to make it more coherent?

Does Being Wrong Make Something Wrong?

That is, does being morally wrong make something factually wrong? Specifically, does a religious demand for an immoral action or religious sanction of an immoral attitude show that the religion is false?

A little over a month ago, Hedyot posted one of his “Better Know A Kofer” interviews, this one with a woman who calls herself Derech Acheret. The interview implied that she had rejected Orthodox Judaism because she found its inherent misogyny immoral. My initial reaction was that this is not a valid reason to reject Judaism’s truth-claims.

About a week later I read a post by Brooklyn Wolf in which he discussed whether it is halachicly permissible to violate Shabbos to save a non-Jew’s life (and whether he would be able to adhere to halacha in that situation). Wolf asked if one witnessed a car crash on Shabbos, would one permitted to save the non-Jewish driver and his small child? According to a strict interpretation of halacha, it would seem not. (The consensus among the commenters was that there are sufficient loopholes to allow for saving the driver and child, and that practically speaking one should do so, but that’s somewhat beside the point.) Here, my instinctive reaction was, “This halacha is immoral! Another strike against Orthodoxy!”

A moment later I realized that my reaction ran counter to the position I had taken in the discussion on Hedyot’s blog. And so I began to think more about whether the immoral aspects of a religion is reason enough to reject its truth claims.

To begin with, there is the question of what makes something moral. Religion takes the stance that we can know what is moral by following what God tells us to do. The Euthyphro dilemma, the question of whether God’s commands are moral because they are what God commands or if God commands that which is moral by some other, objective standard is not relevant to this discussion. I am not concerned with how the morality of religious directives is derived. It is enough that they are assumed to be moral. Given that the religion is assumed to be moral, our personal sense of morality, influenced as it is by the culture into which we happen to be born, is irrelevant. If it is true that the religious dictate is moral, then our sense that it is immoral is simply wrong.

It is not enough, then, for our personal sense of morality to be at odds with religious teachings. After all, if it is true that an omniscient God handed down these commands from on high, who are we to disagree? Rather, it is necessary to deal with the underlying assumption that religious dictates are inherently moral. To do this, we need to address the basis for that assumed morality, the religion’s truth-claims about God.

Before I get to that, I want to address why we have the instinctive reaction that tells us that immoral (by our personal standards) religious dictates are proof that the religion is wrong. I think it comes from an assumption that religion teaches us what is what is good, and when its teachings outrage our moral sensibilities, we see that as evidence that the religion is wrong. The implicit argument can be laid out like this:

Premise A: Religion always teaches and commands us to do what is good.
Premise B: Therefore, a religion that demands something immoral cannot be true.
Premise C: The religion dictates something that is bad.
Conclusion: The religion is not true.

As I stated above, though, it is entirely plausible to argue that the religious teaching in fact embodies a timeless moral truth that we, unfortunately influenced by the culture we live in, wrongly perceive as immoral.

It is therefore necessary to address the foundations of the assumption that religious dictates are moral: The claim that they were handed down by God, Who only commands us to do that which is moral. This can be broken down into three premises:

1) God exists.
2) God handed down these religious commands.
3) God only commands that which is moral.

If any of these premises are false we have a valid reason for rejecting the religious commands. I think that 3 is largely irrelevant in a practical sense. Even if God were sadistic and commanded us to act immorally, we would be well advised to do as He says. We simply do not have the ability to defy an omnipotent Being and have it end well for us. You could argue that trusting such a Being to be good to us if we follow His commands is foolish, but I think trusting Him to make us miserable if we don’t is a safe bet. Practically, we would have no choice but to do as we’re told and hope for the best.

For the theist who objects to a given religious dictate, attacking premise 2 is the best way to go. If one can make a good argument that God never commanded the particular practice you object to, or that his commands were misunderstood, or that society has warped the true intention of the command and piled layers of unnecessary, objectionable practices on top of it, then the particular practice can be altered or abandoned without rejecting the overall religion.

For the atheist, showing that premise 2 is false in all cases would disprove a religion. Showing that Matan Torah probably wasn’t a historical event, for instance, and that the Torah was compiled later from extant mythology would be a valid reason for rejecting Judaism’s dictates. The lack of evidence for premise 1 would similarly be a valid reason for rejecting religious commands.

It seems that some people who reject religious claims do so because they find certain religious beliefs or practices immoral. Before recently noticing and giving thought to this tendency, I also often took immoral religious commands as evidence that the religion is wrong. But, to answer the question in the post’s title, that I think something is morally wrong doesn’t make it factually wrong. It could be that I’m mistaken about morality. It could be that I’m correct, but that God demands the immoral action, in which case it is in my best interest to comply.

I think that rejection of religion should rest upon rejection of its truth-claims, not on objections to its morality. At best, showing that religion is immoral only disproves one of its claims, the claim that religious dictates are good and guide one in leading a moral life. Far more important are the questions of God’s existence and His will. To reject a religion simply because you object to the demands it makes of its adherents or the culture it supports is an appeal to consequences: I don’t like it, therefore it’s not true.

Objective Morality, or, God’s Classroom Rules

An often-repeated argument in favor of religion is that it provides an objective morality. Without God, the argument goes, there is no objective morality, because without a Supreme Being to tell us what is right and wrong, my interpretation of morality and your interpretation of morality are equally valid. Yet there must be an objective morality, therefore God must exist and He must have provided us with a moral code.

There are a number of problems with this argument.

1) The biblical code of morality does not match our modern-day sensibilities. While we would still agree with commandments such as “do not murder” and “do not commit adultery,” owning slaves, selling our young daughters, and killing witches goes against our (current) moral instincts. A God-given moral code should be applicable in all times and places.

2) It reduces us all to children, unable to control ourselves and in need of parental rules to restrain us from running wild. This may in part explain why people cling to this argument. Growing up we are used to rules being imposed on us by parents, teachers, and other rule givers. As adults we continue to submit ourselves to the authority of governments and other social institutions. It seems only natural that there should be a Supreme Rule-giver Who can tell us what we should do in all situations. An objective morality acts as a giant Classroom Rules poster plastered on the wall of the universe that everyone is bound to obey. If we’re good little boys and girls we get prizes in Heaven; if we break the rules we get detention in Gehenom.

Additionally, an objective morality makes decision making much easier. There is a set of rules constraining our choices, and when faced with a dilemma, one can compare the options to the rules and choose the option that violates the rules the least. We humans, in general, take as many shortcuts as possible when making decisions. If we had to sit and think through every decision we make, weighing the pros and cons and deliberating the best course of action, we would never get anything done. We use heuristics (rules-of-thumb) to help us make decisions, and a moral code can be thought of as an elaborate heuristic.

Thus an objective morality is not a necessity to the functioning of the universe the way that, say, the law of gravity is. Its just something that we would like to have because it would be convenient for us and make us feel certain about the way we and others should behave.

3) Most importantly, the argument is flawed because it makes the assumption that there really is such a thing as an objective morality. The theistic argument as stated is internally sound.

A) Without God (or some outside force superior to the individual person) there is no objective morality.
B) There must be an objective morality.
C) Therefore God must exist.

The problem is that B isn’t true. There is no reason that there must be an objective morality.

So without God there is no objective morality?

Deal with it.

Is it Wrong to be Immoral?

I’ve been reading lately about the biological origins of morality. Researchers presented subjects in MRI machines with various scenarios. They found that thinking about altruism lights up the pleasure centers in the brain the same way that thinking about food or sex does. It is speculated that this reaction evolved because individuals who cooperated with the group were more likely to survive.

I think the biological root of morality raises two issues.

Firstly, it negates the claim that without divine laws humanity would descend into anarchy. It also comes down firmly on the “good” side of the “is man inherently good or evil” debate.

Secondly, if morality is a biological drive instead of a metaphysical imperative (whatever its source) is there any value in being good? There is a practical value in it, as it makes our group more likely to survive and pass on our genes. But suppose that I could get away with stealing money from the elderly, is there anything wrong with it other than a bunch of cells in my brain firing and causing an emotional reaction that says “don’t do that.” After all, we can and do suppress other reflexive reactions, and it is of no consequence or even good. If a nurse suppresses her gag reflex while treating a person covered in sores, we would say that’s good. But then, that may be because the circuits in her brain that trigger good feelings when she behaves altruistically are overriding the circuits that cause her to feel nauseas when she smells putrefying flesh (and that second set of circuits probably evolved to keep us away from disease-ridden rotting corpses).

There are pragmatic reasons to be moral, such as avoiding censure from society, creating social institutions that we ourselves benefit from, keeping society going and preventing it from descending into anarchy, etc. But when a cost-benefit analysis shows that we stand to gain more from being immoral, why shouldn’t we do what is best for ourselves?

We seem to assume that morality is metaphysical, and whether divine or not, there is a value in being moral. Yet if it is merely a biological drive, like the drive to eat, then why can’t we, as rational beings, override this biological drive in cases where it is in our best interests to do so?