Morality, Moralism and Moralisers.

Right, so when I was reading James Rachels book "The Elements of Moral Philosophy" it struck me that perhaps the word "morality" has a very strange connotation in todays culture. Who is it that uses the word "morality", really? To me, it seems to be Christians and other religious fellows - it absolutely smacks of religiosity. It might bring to mind ideas of sexual abstinance, of abortion, contraceptives and so on and so forth. Now, as a philosophy student those things (except abortion which is handled frequently) are really far away from my way of thinking. Morality remains very important to me as an object to study and as trying to figure out what I should be doing.

Still, I think all of us think about morality and virtue. We think about what people do, we make value judgements and so on. It's inevitable as the herd animals that we are. Sometimes we use it to simply justify some feeling that we have that is culturally loaded or to praise or cast blame on someone we feel something particular for.

This is another post that has to do with politics and religion, but it also has to do with morality. But I'd like to say two things. First of all, morality and religion are not as compatible as you think and they're perhaps even contrary to one another. Second of all, morality has absolutely nothing to do with half of the things that moralisers talk about. I am suggesting, of course, gay marriage, sex before marriage and many other similar sex-related issues. Stem-cell and abortion remains fairly important, but they're peripheral in the moral debate I feel. Why? Well, because most of this has to do with religion, really, they're trying to give a reason for why you should condemn such practices that are typically related to what the Bible says or what God likes or dislikes. That's not giving reasons, really, that's something else. I'm not going to get into a deep discussion on the matter but morality is really formulated by giving reasons and by calling on principles.

Now, to attack perhaps the deepest moralising (contrasted to moral) principle. God allows us to have objective morality. Why? Because God will punish the wicked and praise the good. So you should act right, always. Only a religious person can have objective morality.
Wrong!

Suppose that I am a parent, and that my young child steals cookies from the cookie jar. I tell them to stop, and I tell them that it is "wrong" to do so. Why, they inevitably ask, "because daddy told you so." I believe that religion that tries to give you objective right or wrong will ultimately fail if we're relying on a judge. Immanuel Kant, the Prussian philosopher of the 18th century said that duty should be done for duty's sake. If you act for any other reason than the fact that you wish to be moral then you're not really moral. God, thus, will make it impossible to actually be moral - or at the very least you're going to have to -forget- that God is looking over your shoulder. Otherwise, how are you going to be good? You're just doing it because you're going to get punished.

So what are we talking about when we're talking about morality, then? We're talking about you and me, we're talking about justice, we're talking about what we should do tomorrow. We're talking about standing up, sitting down and speaking out. We're talking about trying to become better people in one way or the other. Growing, overcoming obstacles and actually -acting-. Morality is philosophy in action.

As I said, most of us already think about these things in one way or the other. But we're not doing it explicitly, which is where philosophy can aid us. I believe that awareness, new ways of seeing the world will create new "reflexes". It'll grow indignation, forethought and many other things - perhaps not always to the better either. But to abjure Kant again - morality is not the doctrine of how to make ourselves happy, it is the doctrine about how to become worthy of happiness.

I think Kants philosophy of duty and respect for persons is a genuinely good one for all the trouble it faces. Fernando Flores suggests in his book "1900 talets idéhistoria" (idea history of the 20th century) that "It's [the lefts] pathos comes from Kant". For those of you who are not so familiar with him, Kant suggests that we should always "act so that the maxim of our actions can be raised to a universal law" and that we shall also (paraphrasing this one:) "act so that we always respect the ends of another person, not just the means." Those are two formulations of his famous categorical imperative. Now, they stand before some massive problems but in general I think they're helpful. After all, what would happen if we all did a thing? And it commands us to make change, and to live differently. Something universalising is extremely suitable for the kind of moral indignation that seems to pervade the best parts of the left. Not eating at McDonalds, upholding our democratic rights and campaigning for a better world. Not everyone is ready to do that, of course, but we'll have to accept that. At least we'll be worthy of happiness, even if we are not happy.

To get back to what we talked about before, morality and moralism. What's the difference again? One of the main differences is that we're not relying on a God (who we've already seen, almost makes the moral endeavour impossible) and that we don't really care about such marginal issues as moralisers take their time with. I'm not even sure I have to answer the stance on gay rights and so on, but it basically goes along the lines of: of course they can get married! There's not even a debate here!

No, if we're interested in morality we should sneak out of peoples bedrooms and into the world. A world where people are dying, starving and killing. A world where a few are extremely wealthy and a many very poor. That's what morality is about; the world and the things in it.