December 11, 2010

• I was going to say I've said before I really like discussions, about just anything, but I actually can't remember if I've really mentioned that here. I suppose it means little to say those statements considering there's probably only one person reading this thing still that's read it since even just high school (or knows me well enough to recognize the trait in me regardless of whether they've read it on here or not).

  Anyway, point is that I enjoy discussions. I like ideas and I like wrestling with concepts. Besides, as I know I've harped on over and over again before, I love personalities and any discussion is bound to tell you something about a person, let alone the argument the individual decides to take. Unfortunately, though, most people won't take you up on discussing a topic. Well, except maybe Connor, I'm finding more and more each time I talk to him.

  My brother, however, has the same kind of thirst for mental engagement that I do. The only real problem with this is that we tend to agree on most things, more often than not. So, often enough, our "conversations" turn into agreeing with how much we agree on a particular topic - or ranting, considering how much the topic infuriates us.

  The one thing we have continued to not agree on, however, is morality. I'm a moral absolutist, while he takes the route of moral relativism. I should, at this point, make clear that when I saw moral relativism, I do not mean of the kind that says, "In certain situations, certain moral concepts apply differently." For example, if you have the moral requirement You Shall Not Kill, that holds true if you just feel like killing someone but you would not be held guilty if you killed someone during the act of self-defense. Regardless the fact that any morality that's that rigid is idiotic (a debate we can pursue at a later time), that's not my brother's philosophy (or, at least, it might be but that would only be coincidental here). Rather, he believes that there is no real morality, only what people have decided as morality; in other words, what makes something particularly evil or good other than what people have said is good or evil? There's just things which are helpful to people or hurt people, not really morality.

  You might ask how we've come to such a concept (since it isn't, to my knowledge, the way most people think about morality). Basically, both my brother and I are secularists. So, if there is, indeed, a god, then ze dictates what is right or wrong. There, done. Morality in a nutshell. Of course, what if there isn't a god? Does morality go to shit? Can I go and steal anything I want? Can I commit adultery? Will the world IMPLODE?!

  Scary thoughts.

  As I said above, I would answer, "No." Morality is independent of god, I would argue. Being the religious one of the two of us, I'd in fact say that morality is dictated by god; the entire purpose of a god/gods dictating morality is because ze/they are supposed to watching over us. Of course, that in itself could lead on to many other fascinating discussions and then even more when you consider the concept of a god/gods not dictating a proper morality. However, I'll try not to splinter like I usually do.

  My brother, on the other hand, would respond that there, indeed, is no morality. I'd say I'm guessing at this point, but I imagine he would say that people would likely come together, realizing they dislike being hurt/whatever and then construct a society that matches this. And, what do you know, isn't that kinda what our society is like? I think he'd argue that the fact that there is no morality is not an invitation or argument for lawlessness but simply a statement of fact. How can something be good or evil unless something commands it to be so? I mean, what we fall back towards is having to define good and evil and then defining why particular actions are so, if they even are. Or maybe even more simply than that, why should we not kill someone? Why is it something we shouldn't do? What makes it, to counter my own argument, universally a thing we shouldn't do? After all, if such moors and concepts of good/evil change over time and from culture to culture, are they really as inherently bad as we see them now or are they only so terrible in our time, in our society?

  It's a hard argument to counter, I'll most certainly give him that. One, in fact, that I wasn't sure I could counter half the times we debated the topic. Yet, he pushed me to parse it out, and I believe I've come to a conclusive counter argument to bring our debate to a close. So, dear brother, here is my answer - hopefully for good (both he and I have a taste for hyperbolic language and winding and long speech too, I admit...).

   

  Let me start by saying that I think all human labels are social constructions. The world comes to us as is and then we make labels and containments for everything. However, that doesn't make everything any less real, right? This isn't a new concept and one we'd all readily recognize if we were to think of any time we've had a conversation with someone where we didn't define something the same way. "You define a hand as having five fingers? I simply call something a hand if it's able to hold something." Okay, the realism of my example is being stretched here. But it makes a very valid point. For humans, there physically is a thing, for most, which has five of what we call fingers and a very specific shape and make up. The particular specifics may vary (size, size of knuckle, etc.) but certainly something of a similar and universal makeup physically exists. As such, we've come up with a name for such an physical thing that, generally speaking, has five finds and is attached to what we call a wrist - a hand. The name may change, it may alter over time (due to evolution or otherwise), and it may have deformations, but it still is real, exists, and is actual.

  So, our labels can be used to define a specific thing. They can become more specific (for example, including size to specify Jill's hand) or less specific (to define an appendage), but they talk about something which is concretely real. Of course, they can become abstract and, as such, more subjective (do we consider a paw to be a hand as well or, at least, similar to a hand) but that does not remove the actuality of either a paw or hand. The words "paw" and "hand" simply are our way of defining these actual things.

  Of course, labels can sometimes be insufficient. When I say, "Race is a social construction," I guess I really don't mean that race doesn't exist. I simply think it's a poor thing to label. Yes, people have different skin colors. This is readily clear. But is it even useful to use such categorizations in this present day as "black" and "white" when so many are, for example, being multiracial? Or when we consider that just a century ago the Irish were considered to be "another race" before the concept of a monolithic "white race" was established? Or when some (I hate to point fingers, but here's looking at you Italians (or Greeks, really)) seem dark enough to be questionably "white"? Or perhaps we just have, for centuries of time, done a sloppy job of defining race, seeing as often things beyond just skin color are taken into consideration, such as nose size and shape or shape of jaw (yes, I'm going old-school racist here). Or how about the many ways ethnicity and race tend to be conflated (so that, for the longest time, I had no friggin' idea what either stupid thing was). Let's be honest - "race", whatever that ambiguous label is, is a poor means of measuring things.

  But that does not remove the existence of those physical things such as skin color or nose shape.

  Of course, these are all items we can literally grasp. What about abstract concepts? Do they function the same way? Well, is there an action that actually exists under the label of killing?

  Yes. Yes there is.

  So, here is my argument: perhaps morality is poorly defined. Perhaps the definition has changed from culture to culture. Perhaps the word didn't have any meaning to a particular culture but historians, recognizing certain trends in the culture that fit under their vague and general definition of morality, gave certains actions and customs this label in the history books.

  My point is, let's abandon the labels for a second. A very difficult and confusing way to talk about things, yes, but bear with me. So morality is undefined. We know things like jelly are already defined. So we can probably agree (assuming you don't want to redefine things at the moment) that morality isn't going to define anything like that. Likewise, certain abstract concepts are defined (such as the act of killing or the concept of philosophy or logic). So, we know that morality has to be defined as something specific generally. And, I would argue, we would find that (to be general enough) morality is always defined as (or at least pertaining to) the ways we should or should not act towards people. Should we do this or do that? Given the need to define both good and evil to include this definition, I won't say what is good or evil. But what we should or shouldn't do.

  Alright, workable definition. We're making progress.

  The next question, of course, is how do we make a decision about what we should or shouldn't do? And here, of course, is where we enter into many different wonderful arguments. Should it concern what allows a society to survive the longest? Should it pertain to how the action makes a person feel? Why or why not for all of these?

  And it is here that I will not provide some concrete example to guide us. After all, the question this argument is trying to settle is not "What should be the right morality?" but simply "Can there be a universal morality?". I will simply say that once a morality that guides what our actions should or should not be in daily life is chosen, we can move on.

  Of course, this still allows for multiple moralities, yes? I define morality one way, they define it a different way. Same problem we had at the beginning of this discussion.

  My argument is that such moralities would be first determined by the worthwhile-ness of their Whys. As I said above, "Should [morality] concern what allows a society to survive the longest? Should it pertain to how the action makes a person feel? Why or why not for all of these?" The Why. For example, you might argue that everyone's actions should focus around making you happy and only you, regardless of how it effects anyone else. However, you would probably have a difficult time justifying how that form of morality has any use for anyone else outside of you and how it makes any logical sense as pertanent to anyone else in terms of why they should or should not do certain actions.
  (you could probably ask why use enters into this discussion, to which I would counter back that morality would then have no point whatsoever if not to rest upon its use to you. Basically, why you should or should not do something either has no use that's derived from it or benefit or result and then it's basically pointless, or there's a reason we should do it, whether that reason be personal benefit for every individual or to keep the planet from dying, etc. But, as you can see, there needs to be some use or reason for its existance. We then decide which reason is the best)

  The Why decided, we must then commence with defining our basic actions (and then complex actions) around this particular focus of this morality. Of course, you could easily counter back that this isn't how morality generally works. Interesting concept. Does morality have to circle around a particular point? Or does it just have to instruct us on what to do and what not to do? Or, could that particular point simply be "God told us so"?

  And it is here that I must appease to logic. If you choose not to use logic, sure, fine. That's your personal choice. And if you choose to engage in a morality that does not follow logic, that - again - is your personal choice. But if you choose to transgress outside of a morality that follows logic, those who follow this logical morality are in the right to prosecute you since their morality has a purpose which is of some use (see argument two paragraphs above for each morality following logic having a use). "Why is theirs superior?" you might ask. And I would allow you to argue your case but, alas, that requires logic. And, were you to concede this and enter into logic to make you argument, you would instantly defunct your morality given that it does not adhere to logic and therefore fails in logic.

  So, working within the confines of logic, we can agree that something which follows logic must have a justification for why it works. Given that we defined morality as what we should or should not do, our morality should focus around some reason for our actions which justifies that basic tenant (what we should or should not do), likely found in the Why.

  So, back to two paragraphs ago: we must then commence with defining our basic actions (and then complex actions) around this particular focus of this morality. And the final justification to clear out any conflicting points is that our morality must follow logic too. Therefore, having a commandment "You shall not kill" and yet also having a commandment to kill anyone born with only one leg just for the Hell of it would not make sense and, therefore, be defunct in a morality. Given that moralities should have a specific purpose, such illogical points should be striken. We might also argue, then, that there isn't a satisfiable reason as to kill people with only one leg. Perhaps it doesn't match the purpose of the morality (really, the purpose of all moralities, given that only one would be chosen after logically assessing all of the Whys for the various moralities).

  If we do that, we must logically come to an all encompassing morality that reaches a point. Even if there are some things we decide people can individually decide whether to do or not to do, we are still agreeing that it isn't something that should be repremanded either way. Every action is chosen whether or not to be looked down on or not. By logical deduction, we can come up with a completely superior morality.

  And this is what we mean by an absolute morality. It is a morality that makes complete sound sense logically and that answers the only question that morality can point to (of course, it doesn't matter if our word for morality changes for the question is still there and can be answered, as I explained at the beginning of this).

  An absolute morality exists, Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

  • 3:00 pm
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