I’m taking a class on Jurisprudence this semester in law school, and it is unquestionably the most interesting class I have. Jurisprudence is the philosophy of law, and the class is taught by a professor from the philosophy department at the main campus, as opposed to a law professor. All things considered, this is a good thing. I have generally found the academic study of law to be tedious, although I am interested in actually practicing law. But this is really a philosophy class, so it’s fun.
An issue that keeps coming up–a core issue in jurisprudence, really, almost a given–is the existence of morality. This isn’t an ethics class, so we don;t really spend a lot of time talking about what morality is, where it comes from, etcetera, but whenever we talk about morality, those kinds of questions become preeminent in my mind.
Actually, this isn’t just about my Jurisprudence class. I think about the existence of morality all the time, and for me, it has become my core theological problem. I spend a lot of time grappling with what I think is the very real possibility that nothing means anything, that morality is a purely human invention, that there’s nothing behind it but arbitrary preference. That morality does not exist as anything other than a social construct, and thus has no implications for anything other than society (and, well, psychology to the extent that psychology is informed by sociology). Simply put, if values and morals are culturally relative, then they do not really exist at all. Thus, the gaping abyss. I do not buy Utilitarianism. I do not buy Kant’s categorical imperative (because why should I act only on that maxim which I can at the same time will to be a universal law? ). They are toothless. They are inventions. They have no real weight. We have to assume them in argument, because they don’t hold in virtue of themselves.
What I am getting at is this: if there is not actually a universal ultimate morality that exists outside of human beings and the human mind, then there is no real morality at all. If morality or values are not absolute, then morality and values cannot exist. Any argument to the contrary is, in my frank opinion, complete bullshit. Morals and values invented by human beings are utterly arbitrary. Even if they are practical, there is still no pressing reason for any individual to follow them.
So there I am, staring into the gaping abyss, wondering what is going to save me from complete nihilism. And I’ve got nothing.
C. S. Lewis’s inference of ultimate morality from general human consensus and a universal existence of “ought” is not unreasonable, but it does not convince me. I think you can rationally infer that since most people think that, say, torture is wrong, then it’s likely that there may actually be an absolute moral principle behind it. But it’s not a slam-dunk. Consensus may be compelling, but the consensus can still be wrong.
So there are either absolute values, or there is nothing but the abyss. I would prefer absolute values, but where are they? Where do they come from? And if they aren’t really there… then it’s the abyss, and the abyss is terrifying. It is total nihilism. It is nothing at all, but it swallows up everything else. There is no meaning, there is no truth, there is nothing. There is nothing, and it is absolutely terrifying.
The easy answer would be “God,” and if I had an easier time believing in God, I would just say that. but I don’t; I have a hard time believing in God. My confidence that God exists is actually less than my confidence that Lewis’s argument from consensus is correct. If I was sure of God, then I could easily see God as the creator of the universe and thus the source of everything–including truth, value, and morality.
Maybe this is really why I can’t leave religion alone, why I can’t just not worry about it. I have to worry about it, because this abyss is looming open in front of me.
Sailing to Byzantium 
“If morality or values are not absolute, then morality and values cannot exist.”
Sure it can.
If you perceive it, it most certainly does “exist.”
Granted, it may not exist in the manner you want it to, but it certainly isn’t nothing.
I currently see morality as a purely human construct. It seems to be something that we made up a long time ago. Since then we’ve spent lots of energy building on that illusory construct so that most of the time now we just assume that it exists. It isn’t tangible so it isn’t physical. We can’s define it at all rigorously so it’s hard to say that it exists as some Platonic ideal. Most cultures have some Ought To’s but there is no core agreement among all cultures, so there is no consensus from which to found Lewis’s argument. The nearest that I can tell is that morality is an emergent property of the interaction of each individual’s desires.
When I first accepted this, it felt like a trap door opened under my feet, like someone stole my security blanket, like I just found out Santa Claus isn’t real.
Somehow, I’m OK with it now. Perhaps I am lucky enough to have the right kind of temperament to embrace the abyss. At the very least, it makes me less judgmental and more compassionate because I don’t have any ground to feel morally superior.
Thank you for putting up this blog, I like the “going for the meet” approach on this blog, about morality & whether or not it exist.
If you want to, please check out my blog, its about current events such as the current election & proposition 8 also, other moral arguments that come up because of the moral “fight” in our public arena.
http://absolutestimes.blogspot.com/
Hope you like, hope you do put it on your list of blogs that you find interesting so that others might experience it as well.
Have a great day.
Paul
Firstly – it’s great to see you blogging again. I’ve missed ya.
I don’t think about morality and ethics much, but I’m not sure why. I imagine I’m avoiding the topic in order to avoid the abyss. 😦
I think Jonathan is onto something with the idea of morality being an emergent property. Perhaps as the species evolves and our connection to each other grows, our mores will become more universal across the globe.
Your post made me think of Ayn Rand (who I’ve never read). I know she was a moral absolutist (if that is the right term to use?), but was also an atheist. I always thought that an interesting combo. From whence did she think this absolute, objective morals came?
Kay
Jonathan’s point is interesting– the “existence” of morality can be taken in a lot of ways, one extent of which is that morals are constructed AND exist.
A couple other thoughts: morality as organized self-interest is not totally illusory. It comes from a biological self-preservation urge and a logical acknowledgment of what we now call “game theory”. Both of those sources (biology, logic) are something to hold onto, even if we who grew up drinking the kool-aid are used to being very dismissive of them.
And one more thought about absolute morals: you have argued before that they are arbitrary if they are specific, in part becuase you have a hard time imagining a God who gives a f$%# about all the hair-splitting involved. You may have hamstrung yourself in advance this time by the corresponding presupposition that God could not actually be a source of morality because it would be arbitrary. It has the potential to get a little circular here, and the other argument (about arbitrariness) may need to be brought back up to give absolute morals a fair fight. Alternately, you may want to consider the possibility that there are abstract absolute values but they defy formulization.
Racticas (and Jonathan),
I agree in a certain sense that if morality is purely a social construct, then it exists. But it doesn;t exist in any way that has real moral weight. Arguments about morality are then not really about morality but about a specific society’s mores. In one sense, morality would exist because we would have moral codes and we would talk about them and use them to criticize ourselves and other people. But in another sense, their existence would be illusory because we would really only be talking about deeply-felt social values. If society changed its mind, the values would just, go away. There is no weight to them outside of pure human preference. They would exist, but only as a matter of social fact. The problem is that they would be arbitrary and toothless.
Second, I accept the possibility that there are abstract moral values that defy formulization. I do reject the idea that God or whatever cares about technicalities and hair-splitting. If morals do exist in a universal, objective sense, then we have to be talking about not judgments like “killin’ babies is bad,” but about the principles that underlie those judgments–the broad moral concepts that are the first principles in our moral judgment, not the end conclusions of a line of moral reasoning.
How are you imagining that self-existent morals would “exist” anyway? If we’re not talking about some physical object floating around in space with a rule written on it, then intangible godly morals and socially developed morals start to look a lot like each other. Just sayin’
One possibility: God, as the creator of all existence is the source of all light and truth and thus also the self-existing source of moral principles. This is pretty much the Christian point of view.
Another possibility: moral principles are simply written into the fabric of the universe, and exist tautologically by virtue of the nature of the fabric of being, like the laws of physics. This meshes with the Mormon point of view, and the point of view of Dharmic traditions (i.e., karma).
Another possibility is that moral principles exist in a higher, more real world of ideas. This is the Platonic point of view.
There are certainly other possibilities.
I believe God is virtue ethicist, and thus we should be too. What virtues should we pursue? Those based on God’s character.
This alleviates the problem of a hair-splitting and arbitrary God, but does not alleviate the problem of “what if there is no God”.