Moral Health

G u e s t  A u t h o r

Wallace Auser

“There ought to be a law.”  How often have we heard that, usually in response to some perceived misdeed that turns out not to be illegal?  There follows a political push to pass legislation criminalizing or regulating the conduct. Laws are manmade rules that govern the behavior and relationships of people in civil society.  People are expected to conform to the standard of the law and punished if they do not.

The combination of “law” and “ought” is an interesting one. Ought is a moral statement that people are ethically obligated to adhere to a particular standard.  Any time we use the word “ought” we imply that there is some standard that we are morally obligated to meet.  Making it a law is just the practical application of the standard.  Now, it’s official.

This raises some interesting questions.  Standards mean that we as people are accountable for our actions.  They are like plumb lines.  Just as the building must conform to the plumb line and not the other way around, we must conform to the standard.  Where do standards come from and how are they enforced?

Standards have to come from something.  They can’t exist in and of themselves, because they do not have the attributes of self-existence and they don’t do anything affirmatively.  Standards are ideas, not substances.  They don’t think, know, discern, make decisions or act.

A standard implies that there is a standard maker.  This maker brings to mind something that thinks, makes judgments and decisions.  A standard must also have the system of accountability.  If we can violate a standard with impunity, the standard might as well not exist.  The standard has to be administered and enforced, which tells us much about this maker and enforcer.  It must be a) powerful enough to see to it that the standard is enforced and not simply ignored, b) eternal and present everywhere to make sure the standard is enforced in all places and at all times, so nothing slips through the cracks, c) all-wise and knowing so that the determination about creating and enforcing the standard are true and correct, and d) just and righteous so the decisions and actions in enforcement are good and righteous.

Standards can’t originate with impersonal physical matter.  Even though physical matter is a substance and exists, that’s all it does.  A rock is just there.  Windstorms happen, but they are just the result of physical forces.  Impersonal matter and physical forces do not do anything affirmatively.  They neither judge me nor hold me morally accountable for what I do.  Judging requires that something think, discern, decide and then act to administer and enforce the determination.  At the same time, physical matter and forces are not ethically accountable for what they do.  A storm or a fire are not culpable because they destroy my house or kill me.  We don’t take trees to court for not doing what trees are supposed to do, such as growing fruit.

Everything about the standard making and administering process speaks to a personal being.  All of the attributes needed in the concept of standards involve discerning, determining, acting and enforcing, which exist only in beings that possess personality and consciousness.  We can’t stop here.  We need to go further in determining what this living personal standard maker is like.  In order to achieve all of aspects of standard making and administration, our creator must be quite extraordinary.  Perhaps the perfect ultimate reality is the best way to describe this being.  Nothing can get by or thwart him and everything he does is righteous and just.  That’s a pretty tall order, so nothing in the universe can be greater than our perfect ultimate being.  If he were not ultimate he would not be perfect.  Conversely, if he were not perfect he would not be ultimate.  The perfect and the ultimate imply and need each other.  If we can conceive of something greater than our ultimate being, then the first thing we were thinking of can’t be the perfect ultimate being.  The perfect and the ultimate must be the greatest.

So, we arrive at the place where, if there is a law, there has to be a personal being who is the perfect ultimate reality.  This is a religious conclusion that eliminates atheism as an option, because the atheist says that the physical universe is all that exists.  There is not anything beyond the physical.  To speak of a law as an application of a principle of justice, truth and virtue, the atheist must develop a system where standards are created, administered and enforced in a universe that is ultimately impersonal and unconscious.  The problem is that there is not any coherent system that can come out of atheism.

I believe that self-respecting individuals are not given to bitterness.

Bitterness is as corrosive to the human psyche as rust is to metal.  It is characteristically irrational in the way that blind jealousy is.  Typically, bitterness is occasioned by an egregious wrong that one has suffered—a wrong that either sets one back in some fundamental way or that results in one not receiving a much-coveted prize.

Being unjustly accused publicly often occasions bitterness because the individual’s reputation is sullied in ways that give rise to one major obstacle after another.  Being unjustly passed over for a major promotion is another example of something that often occasions bitterness, because it seems as if certain significant opportunities or benefits are forever lost.  As a concrete example, divorce often occasions bitterness when it happens that one side or the other makes spurious accusations in order to obtain an advantage over the other.  In this regard, consider the case of a husband who must nonetheless pay large sums of child support but who end up with very limited access to their children owing to have been false accused, by the wife, of having sexually abused their children, to say nothing of his reputation in the community.  This phenomenon (which, of course, can go in either direction) even has an acronym: SAID (link 1), which stands for “Sexual allegation in Divorce” (link 2).  (more…)

On the one hand, there is no gainsaying the convenience of cell phones.  In times of crisis, cell phones are truly a godsend.  That is precisely why I have two cell phones.  On the other hand, though, cell phones are proving to be the very undoing of one of society’s most important social lubricants, namely politeness.  Consequently, there is a kind of moral numbness that cell phones are occasioning.  First, let me say a word about politeness.

To be polite, I do not have to think well of what you say or do.  In fact, I don’t have to like you at all.  I need only to engage in certain forms of acknowledgement in a courteous manner.  I can be polite in debating my ideological enemy.  Politeness can sometimes diffuse a potentially explosive situation.  If I find myself face-to-face with my ideological enemy at a fund-raiser, politeness may keep the moment from becoming confrontational: “Good evening, Madame Smith.  So nice to see you.”  She in turn responds likewise.  We then quickly move out of one another’s way thereby avoiding a nasty scene.  Politeness can be grounded in sincerity, but it need not be.  One says “I am pleased to introduce Jones,” even if moments before one had no idea who Jones is, and one is filling in for the person who was supposed to introduce Jones.

In day-to-day social interaction, politeness does not require much.  Normally, a greeting or a “thank you” or both are about all that politeness requires.  Yet, there is nothing at all insignificant about just these two things; for they are forms of recognition.  Indeed, at its most basic, politeness constitutes a recognition of our humanity.  To be sure, in times of crisis, we need much more than politeness.  But make no mistake about it: In the absence of a crisis, precisely what we want and precisely what is essential to lubricating society is politeness.  (more…)

Never in the history of humankind have people wanted so much freedom and so little responsibility.  Thus, never in the history of humankind have people been so intent upon excusing what they insist they should be free to do.  If we do too much of a thing—be it eating or watching television or surfing the net or gambling—we insist that it is an addiction.  Or, if the idea of an addiction seems out of place, then we find some other excusing explanation, such as we are temporarily insane or momentarily depressed or what have you.  But God forbid that these freedoms should be taken away from us on the grounds that we are not responsible enough.

As to the idea of addictions, suffice it to say that a strong preference is not an addiction, although it is certainly true that extinguishing a strong preference generally takes considerable effort.  My preference for hot bread with butter is about as strong as a preference can get.  Hot bread is what I have taken to throughout my life.  Yet, the very idea that I am addicted to this food item is just plain silly.  And were I to choose to eat hot buttered bread while you drowned, my behavior would be just that: a choice on my part—though surely a very unjustified choice.   Likewise, it is an equally unjustified choice on my part if I continue surfing the internet or playing the slot machines while you are drowning. (more…)

Never in the history of humankind have people wanted so much freedom and so little responsibility.  Thus, never in the history of humankind have people been so intent upon excusing what they insist they should be free to do.  If we do too much of a thing—be it eating or watching television or surfing the net or gambling—we insist that it is an addiction.  Or, if the idea of an addiction seems out of place, then we find some other excusing explanation, such as we are temporarily insane or momentarily depressed or what have you.  But God forbid that these freedoms should be taken away from us on the grounds that we are not responsible enough.

As to the idea of addictions, suffice it to say that a strong preference is not an addiction, although it is certainly true that extinguishing a strong preference generally takes considerable effort.  My preference for hot bread with butter is about as strong as a preference can get.  Hot bread is what I have taken to throughout my life.  Yet, the very idea that I am addicted to this food item is just plain silly.  And were I to choose to eat hot buttered bread while you drowned, my behavior would be just that: a choice on my part—though surely a very unjustified choice.   Likewise, it is an equally unjustified choice on my part if I continue surfing the internet or playing the slot machines while you are drowning.

To state the obvious: Freedom without responsibility frees us from blame.  In that sense, then, we are becoming more animal-like in society; for it is a conceptual truth that animals cannot be held morally accountable for their actions.  A fundamental difference between animals and human beings lies in the ability of humans to have long-range foresight.  No matter how strong a preference of mine might be, I can do things that make satisfying that preference rather unlikely.  If I am a Saturday night party guy, then I can start making plans on Monday that pretty much preclude my partying on Saturday night.  And devouring a loaf of bread at home is impossible if all I have in the house are saltines.  And that, too, I can plan over time.  No animal—not even a chimpanzee or a dolphin, to name the two most intelligent non-human animals—can plan in this subtle kind of way to avoid future behavior deemed undesirable.

Nowadays, there are commercials that essentially state the obvious: the more physical exertion a person does the more likely she or he is to lose weight (if caloric in take remains constant).  This used to fall in the category of good ole fashion commonsense.  It is stunning that the most technologically advanced generation on the plant needs commercials in order to grasp insights that were nothing more than the deliverances of commonsense for past generations?  Even more poignantly, why has the capacity for foresight come to be so under utilized?  Furthermore, why is it that we come to delight in this reality?

It is true that freedom without responsibility frees us from blame.  But not without a hefty price.

Freedom without responsibility is a recipe for disaster.  This is because we cannot continually take the adult members of society seriously if we see that they continually disavowal responsibility for their actions.  In the short run, of course, disavowing responsibility is an advantage for those who get away with so behaving.  But it is against the backdrop of responsible citizens that this advantage is possible.  Accordingly, those who disavow responsibility are exploiting the moral perseverance of their follow citizens, which gives rise to seething resentment.  In turn, seething resentment undermines fellow feeling, the absence of which turns civil society into a vicious state of nature.  Very much a net loss.

For animals freedom without responsibility is a reality.  For human beings freedom without responsibility is but an illusion—and an evil one at that.  No society can last long, surely no society can flourish, in a continuous state of freedom without responsibility.  And to this rule, there are absolutely no exceptions

Compassion is an extraordinary moral gift.  It consists in the ability to be moved by the weal and woe of another in just the right ways.  The compassionate person is not overwhelmed with the suffering of another.  The suffering in question does not incapacitate her or him.  Rather, the compassionate person often exercises considerable self-command in helping the individual(s) in need.  On the other hand, the compassionate person is not simply driven to help others, where the helping proves to be more about making the person feel good about herself or himself than helping another.  We can give when we should not give, just as we can be indifferent to the suffering of another when we surely should not be.

We have all made the mistake of helping when should not have done so.  But in recent years it seems to me that compassion has become something of a performance art—a kind of performance meant for public consumption.  That is, displays of compassion have become a way of saying that one is a good person in some way or the other.  In particular, compassion as a performance art is often a way of saying that one is a good parent.  This is to turn a virtue into a vice. (more…)

Polls have become a facet of social life.  Within minutes after something major has occurred, a poll is available concerning what people thought about the matter.  This is already silly enough; for with the exception of victories in the sports arena, it is rare that an immediate reaction to an event is a mature one—a reaction that will withstand critical scrutiny and reflection.  Quite often, then, it turns out that what 59% of the American people thought immediately after an event, is not what 59% think 3 months later.  So on-the-spot polls are really rather foolish, a way of giving the impression that one is offering some truly meaningful information when for the most part nothing of the sort is true.  The information provided in an on-the-spot poll is about as secure as a bed of quick sand.  Such polls are an annoyance.  Unfortunately, there is also something deeply troubling about all of this.

What is troubling is that polls have suddenly become the criterion by which we determine whether a given course of action is right or wrong.  Astonishingly, a great many people seem to think that if enough people believe an action is all right, then it is.  So it was reported that something like 79% of the American people believed that Terri Schiavo should have been allowed to die as if this prevailing opinion thereby constituted a moral truth.  Again, there is the thought that whether abortion is right or wrong is simply a matter of how many people think one way rather than the other.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of history should be stupefied that this line of thought has become so prevalent.

Rightly, we look back at Brown vs Board of Education with much admiration, and as a turning point in American race relations.  But that extraordinary decision was a very unpopular one with the majority of the population.  Morality-by-poll-taking would surely have yielded the contrary outcome.  And, of course, ending slavery would have been a moral toss up, with half thinking one way and the other half thinking the opposite way.  Morality-by-poll-taking would have left the American society a very unjust one.  (more…)