back to the beginning: morality

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The Morality Machine
Phil Badger considers what it would take to make truly justifiable moral decisions.

Years ago I created an ‘ethics game’ in order to facilitate rational moral thinking in my students. Participants had to imagine themselves as having two responsibilities. Firstly, they had to draw up a constitution (in effect, the program of the Morality Machine) by ordering a series of moral priorities. Secondly, they had to apply the constitution they had created to a series of difficult cases.

To abort or not to abort. If there is ever a morality machine able to reconcile the arguments of those on both sides of this particularly ferocious moral conflagration, please, by all means, bring it to my attention.

Effectively, this meant that they became the Morality Machine and ran its program. You may be familiar with the kinds of cases I threw at them: my students had to deal with all the popular moral issues philosophers like to think about. One of the beauties of the game was that I could add more and more cases as time went on, and the game has grown accordingly.

From my frame of mind, however, I’m looking for a case in which anyone’s particular morality machine is able to convince me there actually are arguments [philosophical or otherwise] that establish either the optimal moral narrative here or [perhaps] even establish the only truly rational narrative there ever can be.

The result was mayhem. The most common demand from frustrated players was that they be allowed to rewrite their constitutions (programs) in accordance with how they felt about each case in turn. In other words, they wanted a license to be inconsistent (they wanted to be ‘situation ethicists’).

And, until a particular morality machine is able to demonstrate why one set of behaviors pertaining to the ethics of abortion is, in fact, the best of all possible worlds given any situation, why wouldn’t situational ethics become the best of all possible worlds.

This was something I absolutely disallowed. I conceded that they might re-order principles in the light of the insights they gained from applying them to the cases; but the ultimate goal remained that of coming to a settled list of principles in a settled order of priority which could be applied to any and all cases. I demanded, in short, that interpretation should come to an end.

Imagine me in the class.

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The Morality Machine
Phil Badger considers what it would take to make truly justifiable moral decisions.

This thought experiment concerning what he called the ‘Original Position’ for moral deliberation, Rawls asked his students to imagine that they were disembodied beings residing behind a ‘veil of ignorance’, waiting to be born into a body with unknown characteristics and an unknown life. By these means, Rawls wanted to distance his participants from any biases which might lead them to unjustifiably favour particular kinds of people when drawing up their ‘principles of justice’.

Thought experiments are one thing, intertwining them into our day to day human interactions another thing altogether.

And the bottom line is that we are not “disembodied beings residing behind a ‘veil of ignorance’, waiting to be born into a body with unknown characteristics and an unknown life.” Instead, many are here to assure us that they are themselves the very embodiment of one or another One True Path. They are here in fact to save the souls of some or to convince others that while we have no souls we do have access to the best of all possible secular worlds.

Then the part where some of them insist it’s not enough for you to think like them if they don’t have the right skin color or the right gender or the right sexual orientation or the right ethnicity.

Some then feel obligated – to their God? to the Party – to anchor it all in this: or else.

Rawls took much philosophical flack from many directions for his way of thinking about morality. Communitarians claimed the whole thing to be psychologically implausible, and, through abstraction from everything that defines a person, to hollow out the personal, leaving us not with an unbiased arbiter as Rawls imagined, but with no individual at all.

Anyone here convinced the Communitarians themselves reflect just one of many, many other sets of assumptions regarding human morality. For example, that morality revolves more around “we” than “me”, more around memes than genes, more around the collective than the individual, more around cooperation than competition.

Others, such as Jürgen Habermas, have argued that thought experiments cannot replace the ‘communicative rationality’ of actual people, although for Rawls – as for Kant – the universality of rationality meant that any and all individuals would arrive at the same principle, independent of actual debate. It was partly to avoid all such objections that I asked real people to decide on an ethical constitution.

And [philosophically or otherwise] how is this not predicated largely on dasein, on ever evolving and changing social, political and economic narratives out in particular worlds understood in particular ways.

As for the “same principles”, that’ll be the day right?

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The Morality Machine
Phil Badger considers what it would take to make truly justifiable moral decisions.

So far so good; and things arguably got better when I managed to convince the vast majority of players that the following constituted the ideal constitution:

1. Respect the autonomy of autonomous beings in respect of their ‘large-scale concepts of the good’. (Autonomy is someone’s capacity to direct their own life.) This is a ‘negative’ principle, or principle of self-restraint, which demands that we don’t interfere with or coerce people in respect of their deepest commitments, values and beliefs…

Assuming of course we have any autonomy at all. As for our “deepest commitments, values and beliefs”, that’s all well and good until you bump into someone who insists that, on the contrary, only their own “deepest commitments, values and beliefs” cut it.

With God, among others.

As for the rest, it may well be an integral part of the “best of all possible worlds” for some, but sooner or later they will bump into others who insist that, on the contrary, that is actually the worst of all possible worlds.

2. Minimise suffering where possible. This is a ‘positive’ principle, or principle of action, which demands that we don’t just refrain from hurting others, but actively intervene to reduce the suffering of other beings;

Same thing? At least it would seem to be when minimizing your own pain results in pain for others. Just note the moral conflagrations that revolve around issues like abortion or gun control or human sexuality.

Then the part where it all revolves around God and religion. That part regarding the ultimate punishment of all…Hell. So, the religious fanatics in Gaza and the religious fanatics in Israel are hell-bent instead on maximizing the pain of all infidels.

3. Aim to promote the autonomy of potentially autonomous beings. This is another positive principle. It suggests, amongst other things, that we should educate children, or make sure that disabled people have the opportunity to participate fully in society, etc.

On the other hand, there are those who argue that disabled people should actually be gotten rid of. Or, if it’s spotted in the womb, aborted.

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The Morality Machine
Phil Badger considers what it would take to make truly justifiable moral decisions.

There are many good reasons for choosing precisely these principles [above] and ordering them in precisely this way (if we reverse the order of the first two principles, for example, we end up with a justification of involuntary euthanasia – overdosing a terminally ill patient without consulting him because we know that this will lessen his suffering); but the point right now is to concentrate on those moments where this constitution/program comes under critical stress.

Like here in America, our own Constitution is open to interpretations that generally revolve around particular moral and political prejudices. Or if you are a Supreme Court justice, around God Almighty Himself.

Philippa Foot’s ‘trolley problem’ is a famous thought experiment in ethics. We are faced with the moral dilemma of diverting or not diverting a runaway railway carriage. We can pull a lever that will cause the carriage to switch tracks, saving the lives of five innocent track workers, but killing a different individual; or we can leave things as they are and allow the five to die, and the other to live.

I noted my own reaction to that on other threads:

[quote]"I’d want to know who these people are. Are the five stuck on the tracks total strangers? Is the person on the other set of tracks my own beloved wife or son or daughter? Do I know the five stuck on the tracks but despise them? Or do I despise the person on the other set of tracks even more?

Or what if the five on one set of tracks were young children and the person on the other set was a very old man. Or a middle-aged pregnant woman?"[/quote]

Thought experiments of this sort are just that, thoughts about things that may or may not be applicable to the actual complexities embedded in human interactions. As though ethicists actually can think up – deontologically – not just the best of all possible worlds regarding the trolly quandary, but, perhaps, the one and the only rational resolution?

I’ve argued in previous articles that, because the people involved cannot be consulted about their ‘large-scale concepts of the good’, we should rule such concepts as irrelevant to the issue (they may or may not be inclined to be heroic, but we have no way of knowing which). In this context I’m prepared to be a consequentialist (i.e., to minimise suffering) and pull the lever.

On the other hand, there are going to be those in our lives we would actually prefer to suffer…maximally? There are just too many potential combinations of variables precipitating any number of actual existential permutations we only have so much of an understanding and control over.

In my view, that’s why moral objectivists still abound among us. In other words, to make that ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty go away. Anchored to their very own One True Path that, it covers many of them both before and after the grave.

However, some of my students took the ‘Kantian’ line that it is wrong to try to ‘add up’ suffering in this way rather than valuing each individual person as an ‘end in themselves’. They further argued that there was a distinct difference between ‘allowing’ the deaths of five people and actively intervening to ‘cause’ the death of another.

None of this make my own points go away. If it comes down to a situation in which some will live and some will die, it’s got to be calculated to the advantage of some rather than others. And if there really comes a time when philosophers/ethicists actually can calculate the best of all possible worlds here – or the one truly rational choice? – by all means link me to it.

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An Argument On The Moral Argument
Luke Pollard and Rebecca Massey-Chase dialogue about the existence of a God.

Luke Pollard:

Spanning history, ‘the argument from morality’ has been supported by people such as Kant, C.S. Lewis, and more recently, William Lane Craig. It has enjoyed much change over the centuries, but now philosophers have managed to cut it down to one simple syllogism:

1. Objective moral values exist
2. Objective moral values necessitate the existence of a God
3. Therefore, a God exists

I once believed something pretty close to this, myself. Only now I have come to believe that in a No God world, morality is likely to be largely subjective, rooted historically and culturally in dasein and ever confronting a world of contingency, chance and change.

To consider the value of this argument, first, it is important to know what we mean by ‘objective moral values’.

There are two views in ethics: morality is either ‘objective’ or ‘relative’.

Or, perhaps, morality is actually a never-ending intersubjective grasp of a particular world by particular individuals living lives that both overlap and diverge. And then, as well, noting the historical context. Especially one in which great changes are unfolding.

Objectivism in morality is the theory that there are at least some moral statements that are right or wrong, whether we believe them to be or not. These truths are not dependent upon us or upon any changeable thing. For instance, “Torturing babies just for fun is wrong” is objectively true whether we believe it to be or not.

And it often stays theoretical here because as soon as an actual issue is broached given particular sets of circumstances, the sheer complexity of human interactions tends to readily deconstruct all One True Paths here.

At least given my own set of assumptions, of course. In other words, No God, The Gap, Rummy’s Rule, the Benjamin Button Syndrome, dasein.

Just imagine living in a world, however, where torturing babies for entertainment was not embraced as universally wrong? I certainly don’t rule out the possibility that this is the case. But in the absence of God how, philosophically, scientifically etc., can this be established?

Even if everyone was brainwashed into thinking that it is morally acceptable, torturing babies just for fun would still be wrong.

And “here and now”, rooted existentially in dasein, “I” would certainly prefer to live in a world where sans God mere mortals can establish the deontological parameters of such behaviors.

Give it a shot, yourself.

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There Will Be Blood
Terri Murray tells us about a Hollywood hero beyond good and evil.

If Hollywood genre movies can be depended upon to deliver one thing, it is a good hero pitted against an evil foe. Simplistic though it is, Hollywood cinema seduces us all with these Manichean conflicts that persuade us to side with the good guys.

Simplistic isn’t all that far removed from much of what comes out of Hollywood. And, more to the point, the box office there commands it.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 Oscar-winning There Will Be Blood marked a rare exception to this rule, giving audiences an unconventional protagonist – one seemingly beyond good and evil.

And isn’t that basically how one would describe much of the capitalist political economy? Just ask the theocrats – or the me-o-crats? – who own and operate the oil industry, well, everywhere, right?

In other words…

There Will Be Oil

And chances are you use it. And because millions upon millions upon millions of others use it as well, it’s important to keep in mind that those able to provide us with it may well be construed as, say, necessary evils in what still may well still be the best of all possible worlds.

The narrative, a cinematic adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil, centres on the epic rise, and ultimate decline, of oil magnate Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis).

Not to worry. Individual oil magnates may rise and fall but “the system” itself always grows more to take their place.

But this is no typical tale of poor boy made good, for Plainview is far from good in any moral sense, despite his admirable characteristics. Instead Plainview is a thoroughly Nietzschean figure, and if one is seeking ways to vivify Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy – especially his attitude towards Christian morality – one can do no better than through this film.

Vivify or vilify, what’s the difference in a zero-sum world? Just so [one way or another] we get all the oil and all the gas that we need. At least until the oil and gas industries themselves able to gain control over all the other sources of power?

At least providing that the climate doomsayers are wrong about our future being one or another rendition of Waterworld?

While Plainview embodies many aspects of Nietzsche’s philosophy and personality, I will limit my focus to how the film illuminates Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity. The parallels go far beyond Plainview’s bushy moustache.

Of course, Christianity itself had long been refitted to accommodate capitalism. What is Protestantism after all but an attempt to align Jesus Christ himself with…Prosperity Gospel? What is the Donald Trump phenomenon if not more of the same on steroids? Never – and I mean never – underestimate the ignorance of enormous chunks of the electorate even to this day.

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There Will Be Blood
Terri Murray tells us about a Hollywood hero beyond good and evil.

The central conflict of There Will Be Blood is between Plainview, who is a plain-speaking businessman with big ambitions in the burgeoning oil industry, and a hypocritical Christian preacher, Eli Sunday, who shares Plainview’s ambition for wealth but doesn’t want to get his hands dirty earning it.

Indeed, there are any number of “prosperity gospel” Christians out there – in here? – who are more than willing to rake in the big bucks while never even coming close to having to scrub dirty hands at the end of the day. And not just the Pope, of course.

There is no dialogue during the opening scenes, and our attention is drawn instead to the raw, uncivilized physicality of man as animal struggling against the elements.

What are we to make of that? What ought we to make of that? We all come into the world hardwired to have gone in that direction. And only given the particular life we live often determines if we might or might not go there ourselves. It’s like sex. Some eschew it in turn as just another manifestation of raw, naked, animalistic behavior. Civilized fucking? Right. If only we didn’t have to reproduce ourselves. If only God had created us without genitals, without assess to wipe, without periods to contain, without all this: Malacards: The Human Disease Database - PMC

Without ids?

Then the part where some will insist that, “in no way could I even imagine myself behaving in such an uncivilized manner”

And just those living in one or another “gilded age”. That sort of thing is why God created the working class.

Also, consider any number of posters here who are entirely civilized until someone posts something that so infuriates them, they rage and rage and rage.

Several years pass, and again we see Plainview prospecting for oil, this time with a team of colleagues, one of whom is killed in an accident at a primitive drilling site, leaving a son. Plainview adopts the orphaned boy, who goes by the name ‘H.W.’. These early scenes of injury and death set the contours of what will follow: destruction, loss and injury is seen throughout the film as an integral part of all that is exceptional, energetic, life-affirming and productive, not as antithetical to it. It is a means to greatness, progress and flourishing.

Go ahead, fit yourself in there somewhere. Then get back to us.

Greatness, progress and flourishing without a ton of destruction, loss and injury? Well, not so far. Though clearly some embody destruction, loss and injury far, far more so than others.

So, Is that just the way the world is?