Moral codes were not designed to be selective, nor indeed were they designed to be questioned.
Most morality, thought Mma Ramotswe, was about doing the right thing because it had been identified as such by a long process of acceptance and observance. You simply could not create your own morality because your experience would never be enough to do so. What gives you the right to say that you know better than your ancestors? Morality is for everybody, and this means that the views of more than one person are needed to create it. That was what made the modern morality, with its emphasis on individuals and the working out of an individual position, so weak.
Sorry, book, but I will not silently swallow such fallacious assertions for the sake of the story. I am going to examine these assertions. I will even dare to question them.
"Moral codes were not designed to be selective."
False generalization. Many moral codes were indeed designed to be selective, usually selective in favor of the male gender and sex of the current ruling class over anyone else, be that worker, slave, minority group, non-ruling caste(s), female, intersex, transsexual, asexual, gender-fluid, gender queer, bisexual, pan-sexual, lesbian, or gay (if I have missed an orientation, leave a comment letting me know and I will fix this list). Four examples:- "If the prisoner die in prison from blows or maltreatment, the master of the prisoner shall convict the merchant before the judge. If he was a free-born man, the son of the merchant shall be put to death; if it was a slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina of gold, and all that the master of the prisoner gave he shall forfeit." Code of Hammurabi, trans. L. W. King, online at The Avalon Project
- "It is therefore said, 'From the son of Heaven there were learned the lessons for men; and from the queen, the obedience proper to women.' The son of Heaven directed the course to be pursued by the masculine energies, and the queen regulated the virtues to be cultivated by the feminine receptivities. The son of Heaven guided in all that affected the external administration (of affairs); and the queen, in all that concerned the internal regulation (of the family). The teachings (of the one) and the obedience (inculcated by the other) perfected the manners and ways (of the people); abroad and at home harmony and natural order prevailed; the states and the families were ruled according to their requirements:--this was what is called 'the condition of complete virtue.' " Li Ji (Book of Rites), trans. James Legge, online at the Chinese Text Project
- "The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says." I Corinthians 14:34, ESV, online at Bible Gateway
- "Unto the male is the equivalent of the share of two females." Surah 4:176, online at Skeptics Annotated Bible
"Moral codes were not...designed to be questioned."
Oh yes they are. Except for those beyond all rational thought, we are all living out the experiment of how our morals (or our ethics, a not exactly equivalent word, but the word and connotation I much prefer) shape our actions. The degree to which we examine and question and refine our ethical code in the light of the experiences of ourselves and our fellow beings across time and space is the degree to which we are human. Our ethical, our moral code is the thing we should most question, because it gives shape to our humanity! If we do not have good reasons for our ethical code, how are we any better than cockroaches running from light because we associate light with getting eaten or squashed? (Although wanting not to be eaten or squashed is fine as starting place for a moral code. The linked article is lengthy, but I think worth it if you have ever been frustrated by the way "but what is moral?" discussions always seem to end up with circular arguments.)Claimed provenance of a moral code in no way excuses us from questioning our code. This is a very old dilemma: Are morally good acts commanded by god(ess)(s) because they are morally good, or are they morally good because they are commanded by god(ess)(s)? Any attempt to postulate a moral code as good because of an unquestionably good origin is fallacious. Because how do we know our code's origin is good? We don't. Period. Because we can't question it to know if it is good. But if we can judge whether our code's origin is good, we must have an independent standard of evidence by which we can also judge our code. Here is a concise, readable summary of the fallacies of trying to say a moral code is right because of origin.
"Most morality...was about doing the right thing because it had been identified as such by a long process of acceptance and observance."
Notice the order of operations here: we accept, presumably what we are given by parents/authority figures, and we observe, presumably the humans around us. The assumption is not to ask for a definition of "the right thing" and what evidence exists supporting the claim that a particular moral code fulfills "the right thing," but to accept that what people are already doing is "the right thing." I'm not happy about this, but I accept it as a general description of how humans operate. We are flawed observers, full cognitive biases and prone to mistakes. Just living is a lot of work. The spare time and energy to pause and consider things is a luxury. So while it would be better if we could say that moral codes are mostly the product of long observation and acceptance of those things that produce a highest proportion of favorable outcomes for the most people, it usually doesn't work like that. David Wong has a relevant article with some unusual but compelling thoughts on the world today, starting with "You are not a person." (Context will make this a less startling assertion.) I believe his argument is valid, but check out the article and decide for yourself.You simply could not create your own morality because your experience would never be enough to do so."
But people do exactly this, all the time. Joseph Smith and the Mormon Church. Jim Jones and Jonestown. The Puritans. The Quakers. The Shakers. The Heaven's Gate Cult. Modern American Quiverfull proponents. And that's barely scratching the surface of only American and English history. So I think Mma Ramotswe means "should not," rather than "could not" here. To which my immediate question is, Why not? You will never have access to all the evidence, all the information. But at some point you have to make a decision: things are broken and need to change; things do not (yet) need to change, I will work to change things, I will not work to change things. A refusal to decide is a tacit vote for the status quo. "The standard you walk past is the standard you accept."Of course, the very real danger is exactly as Mma Ramotswe says: your experience is limited. You can only know what another being is feeling to the extent that they can share their experiences with you. Given the limitations of communication, we tentatively say that we can never know exactly what another being is feeling (pending brain-to-brain USB ports and full-spectrum sensory data dump capability), and that the deepest possible understanding comes when we have similar pasts and have shared an experience. Even then, another being's interpretation and response to an experience will not be exactly like yours. (Down the rabbit hole: this has some extreme, and entertaining, consequences for theological systems that postulate omniscient deities.)
We do the best we can with everything we know now. We are probably wrong, but we can change our actions and our thinking with the input of new data. If we can be a little bit less wrong than our ancestors each time, then we might make something amazing with time. This iterative process may not converge, but it has gotten us off the Earth, and shown us the universe is larger, older, stranger, and more wonderful than we ever thought. As Isaac Asimov said in The Relativity of Wrong, "When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
"What gives you the right to say that you know better than your ancestors?"
Easy. Testable definitions and evidence. Define "know better" with a testable definition, and examine all the evidence you can, correcting for your own biases as best you can: is more of the evidence what you would expect on the hypothesis of "know better", or is more of the evidence what you would expect on the hypothesis of "not know better"? For instance, if by "know better" you mean "all people unquestioningly accept a rigidly defined life with little or no chance of change, assigned without bodily autonomy (trigger warning for abuse in link), informed choice or fair economic opportunities," then your world has been "not knowing better" since at least the time of the first city-states of Mesopotamia. Here is a "modern young people these days" complaint from approximately 3,700 years ago:Others like you support their parents by working. If you spoke to your kin, and appreciated them, you would emulate them. They provide 10 gur (72 bushels) barley each—even the young ones provided their fathers with 10 gur each. They multiplied barley for their father, maintained him in barley, oil, and wool. But you, you're a man when it comes to perverseness, but compared to them you are not a man at all. You certainly don't labor like them—they are the sons of fathers who make their sons labor, but me—I didn't make you work like them.
Perverse one with whom I am furious—who is the man who can really he furious with his son—I spoke to my kin and found something hitherto unnoticed. The words which I shall relate to you, fear them and he on your guard because of them. Your partner, your yokemate—you failed to appreciate him; why do you not emulate him? Your friend, your companion—you failed to appreciate him; why do you not emulate him? Emulate your older brother. Emulate your younger brother. Among all mankind's craftsmen who dwell in the land, as many as Enki (the god of arts and crafts) called by name (brought into existence), no work as difficult as the scribal art did he call by name. For if not for song (poetry)—like the banks of the sea, the banks of the distant canals, is the heart of song distant—you wouldn't be listening to my counsel, and I wouldn't be repeating to you the wisdom of my father. It is in accordance with the fate decreed by Enlil for man that a son follows the work of his father.
"Morality is for everybody, and this means that the views of more than one person are needed to create it."
Yes. But you need data and not just feelings. And you need input from from everyone, not just those already in power. Otherwise you have travesties such as all-male conferences on women. As Flavia Dzodan said,"My feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit!"
"That was what made the modern morality, with its emphasis on individuals and the working out of an individual position, so weak."
I see this as a strength, not a weakness. The Garuda people in China Miéville's Perdido Street Station explicitly base their society on maximizing choice for the individual, and the Garuda Kar'uchai says eloquently what I want to express (ellipses are original, not omitted material):It is the only crime we have...To take the choice of another...to forget their concrete reality, to abstract them, to forget that you are a node in a matrix, that actions have consequences. We must not take the choice of another being. What is community but a means to...for all we individuals to have...our choices.
Community is a means for ALL we individuals to have our choices, and to have more choices than we could as loners struggling for survival. Our own choices, inviolate wherever they do not steal another's choice. Our own choices, ending where they would steal another's choice. Our own choices about what we want to be and do. Because we are not any other person, and we can never truly understand another person, but we respect that they have their own feelings and desires because we have our own feelings and desires. Because giving choices to those involved makes the world better for everyone. Because lack of choice kills us, individually and collectively. Because we work to be less wrong than our ancestors, and expect that customs for co-existing that worked for one time will not be necessary or valid for all times. Because we have only one life to live. And twice as long to live it, on average, as our ancestors. Because we dared to question. Because we have a right to question. Because we have a duty to our future to question.
We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
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