These elements of morality I would call structural, for they represent our attraction to the notion of the moral life in terms of things fixed and unbending. A principle or a rule provides a kind of moral North Star to guide one's course. The concepts of "integrity" and "character" speak of an enduring form of the person that is unified and coherent and unchanging. The keeping of promises anchors the connections among us, giving our social bonds something solid that one can depend upon. "I give you my word" means that you can incorporate my pledge into the architecture of your life, because it will provide reliable support.
I still love this kind of structural morality but, in this chapter, I have not come to praise it but to challenge it. "How can we know what is the right thing to do?" is the question we are now ready to tackle. And while the answer I will provide will be articulated in terms sufficiently broad that it will leave a great many important issues unaddressed, there is one quite essential point that I hope will be established unambiguously. And acknowledging that point will imply recognizing that --with its rules and forms and absolutes-- structural morality, whatever its value may be, has significant inadequacies as a moral guide.
<em>From the good to the moral. </em>
In terms of structure, the one component that remains indispensable is the foundation. And the foundation is what I believe I laid in the previous chapter, "Searching for Bedrock." What can we call, with no element of arbitrariness, "good"? we asked. And the answer I proposed was that, ultimately, what is good is the good-feeling experience of sentient creatures. After more than a quarter century of thinking about it, I can still see no sensible way of looking at the good other than with this as its foundation. The proposition seems to me quite strong in two ways. First, it seems to me that the goodness of positive and welcome felt-experience is self-evident and not arbitrary. And second, that nothing can be good except that it is grounded ultimately in such experience.
If that were to be accepted, it would seem that some clear inferences could be drawn about what morality requires of us. Morality is about what we should do, i.e. the way of conducting ourselves that we judge would be best. Thus morality is inseparable from goodness. By "moral conduct," I would think that we mean that way of acting that serves goodness. I don't see how we could mean anything else. If we did, that would mean that we should act in some way that serves something other than goodness. But what can be "good" about that? What can be "better" than goodness?
If goodness is ultimately grounded in sentient creatures having experiences that are felt by them to be good, then moral conduct must have as its defining goal the fostering of such good-feeling experience. And the most moral conduct is that course that best fosters such experience.
It follows from this broad perspective on the domain of the good that to be moral, a human being must look beyond the "good" of the self's own direct experience and move into caring about the "good" of a larger whole of which he or she is part. That is to say, morality moves us beyond the selfish caring about the felt-quality of our own experience into a concern for the quality of experience that is not our own.
It is readily seen how morality --as a broadening of the realm of the creature's concern-- would be essential for the success of human social life, which, as we are inherently social creatures, means for human life itself. "Value" at the level of positive-or-negative-feeling experience was built into sentient creatures generally, who-knows-how-far back in the evolutionary picture, as a means of directing choice toward what is life-serving. The extension of caring beyond one's own direct experience doubtless begins among sentient creatures before the emergence of our species: the sacrifices made by an animal for its offspring, or for its social group, are well-documented in ethnography. But it seems clear that only with humankind does the moral issue become so major a component of life. Two principle reasons for this centrality occur to me. First, we are less constrained by pre-wired instinct, and thus in need of greater regulation from other forces to guide our actions into life-serving channels. And second, the magnification of human powers has necessitated that our actions be brought into greater conformity with the needs of a wider whole. Without the operation of powerful moral forces, arguably, human social life would be something between a nightmare and an impossibility.
For us humans, the unbridled pursuit of self-interest by everyone would lead to disaster for all, and hence the success of the human project has been dependent upon our being able to comprehend, and being motivated to adhere to, a moral vision that makes us care about more than ourselves.
The question why we would choose --or how we are led-- to be moral is an important one. The human is probably by nature an "ethical animal" to some degree --to use the title of a book by D.H. Waddington-- but the intensity of the human struggle with morality suggests that to some extent the demands of morality do go against the grain. That is why, though we are designed naturally to want a "good" quality of experience, to speak about what we ought to do is not just another way of speaking about what we want to do. But whatever the roles are of our natural moral inclinations and of the forces of socialization, we do develop into creatures are more or less strongly motivated to be moral. Part of the motivation may be from fear (of punishment), part of it may be from love (for those for whom we set aside some of our selfishness), and part from a desire to think well of ourselves (by conforming to our own ideals).
But whatever the mix of motivations, and however they come to reside in the human heart, this work will take as a given what is worthy of an inquiry of its own: that most people do indeed wish to be moral, "good" people. However interesting the question of how it is that people do move beyond purely selfish concerns, it is sufficient for our purposes here simply to note that in fact most of us do care about being moral, for whatever reason.
It is clear from various of our traditions that getting beyond selfishness is indeed central to morality (that is, that morality requires us to broaden the knowledge of "good" we have from a selfish perspective in order to give proper weight to the experience of others, understanding that they also inhabit an inner realm in which the good and the not-good are bedrock reality). The Golden Rule of Christianity illustrates this essential component of morality: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." And this rule, of course, is not just confined to the Christian tradition. Asked to summarize the Torah while standing on one leg, Rabbi Hillel said essentially the same thing in its negative form, do not do to others what you would not wish done to yourself. And in the Buddhist teachings of compassion, we find the same powerful bridge to take the moral agent outside the narrow confines of the self and imaginatively to enter the realm of others' felt-experience.
Thus the morality I am proposing --which declares that the most moral course is that which best serves goodness; that goodness resides in the quality of felt-experience of sentient creatures, and that therefore the most moral course is that which best fosters good-feeling within the realm of all those creatures, capable of joy and of suffering, who are affected by what one chooses to do and not to do-- has resonance with the moral core of some of humankind's greatest religious traditions. But that morality also has implications that place it in deep tension with those traditions.
<em>A morality of consequences. </em>
What does a moral person do? The broad answer I just formulated above --act in such a way as to make the world as good a place as possible, which is the equivalent of making the felt-experience of sentient creatures as positive as possible-- says that our purpose in acting morally is to produce good consequences. "Consequences" is the key word here. We are --or rather, we should be-- interested in results.
Wait a minute, you might say. You aren't really saying very much there, are you? You want the consequences to be good. OK? But look how vague that is. First, just what do you mean by "consequences?" Second, how are you going to deal with the inevitable conflict among various possibilities you consider good? And third, how are you going to know what the consequences of your action are going to be?
I still love this kind of structural morality but, in this chapter, I have not come to praise it but to challenge it. "How can we know what is the right thing to do?" is the question we are now ready to tackle. And while the answer I will provide will be articulated in terms sufficiently broad that it will leave a great many important issues unaddressed, there is one quite essential point that I hope will be established unambiguously. And acknowledging that point will imply recognizing that --with its rules and forms and absolutes-- structural morality, whatever its value may be, has significant inadequacies as a moral guide.
<em>From the good to the moral. </em>
In terms of structure, the one component that remains indispensable is the foundation. And the foundation is what I believe I laid in the previous chapter, "Searching for Bedrock." What can we call, with no element of arbitrariness, "good"? we asked. And the answer I proposed was that, ultimately, what is good is the good-feeling experience of sentient creatures. After more than a quarter century of thinking about it, I can still see no sensible way of looking at the good other than with this as its foundation. The proposition seems to me quite strong in two ways. First, it seems to me that the goodness of positive and welcome felt-experience is self-evident and not arbitrary. And second, that nothing can be good except that it is grounded ultimately in such experience.
If goodness is ultimately grounded in sentient creatures having experiences that are felt by them to be good, then moral conduct must have as its defining goal the fostering of such good-feeling experience. And the most moral conduct is that course that best fosters such experience.
It follows from this broad perspective on the domain of the good that to be moral, a human being must look beyond the "good" of the self's own direct experience and move into caring about the "good" of a larger whole of which he or she is part. That is to say, morality moves us beyond the selfish caring about the felt-quality of our own experience into a concern for the quality of experience that is not our own.
It is readily seen how morality --as a broadening of the realm of the creature's concern-- would be essential for the success of human social life, which, as we are inherently social creatures, means for human life itself. "Value" at the level of positive-or-negative-feeling experience was built into sentient creatures generally, who-knows-how-far back in the evolutionary picture, as a means of directing choice toward what is life-serving. The extension of caring beyond one's own direct experience doubtless begins among sentient creatures before the emergence of our species: the sacrifices made by an animal for its offspring, or for its social group, are well-documented in ethnography. But it seems clear that only with humankind does the moral issue become so major a component of life. Two principle reasons for this centrality occur to me. First, we are less constrained by pre-wired instinct, and thus in need of greater regulation from other forces to guide our actions into life-serving channels. And second, the magnification of human powers has necessitated that our actions be brought into greater conformity with the needs of a wider whole. Without the operation of powerful moral forces, arguably, human social life would be something between a nightmare and an impossibility.
For us humans, the unbridled pursuit of self-interest by everyone would lead to disaster for all, and hence the success of the human project has been dependent upon our being able to comprehend, and being motivated to adhere to, a moral vision that makes us care about more than ourselves.
The question why we would choose --or how we are led-- to be moral is an important one. The human is probably by nature an "ethical animal" to some degree --to use the title of a book by D.H. Waddington-- but the intensity of the human struggle with morality suggests that to some extent the demands of morality do go against the grain. That is why, though we are designed naturally to want a "good" quality of experience, to speak about what we ought to do is not just another way of speaking about what we want to do. But whatever the roles are of our natural moral inclinations and of the forces of socialization, we do develop into creatures are more or less strongly motivated to be moral. Part of the motivation may be from fear (of punishment), part of it may be from love (for those for whom we set aside some of our selfishness), and part from a desire to think well of ourselves (by conforming to our own ideals).
But whatever the mix of motivations, and however they come to reside in the human heart, this work will take as a given what is worthy of an inquiry of its own: that most people do indeed wish to be moral, "good" people. However interesting the question of how it is that people do move beyond purely selfish concerns, it is sufficient for our purposes here simply to note that in fact most of us do care about being moral, for whatever reason.
It is clear from various of our traditions that getting beyond selfishness is indeed central to morality (that is, that morality requires us to broaden the knowledge of "good" we have from a selfish perspective in order to give proper weight to the experience of others, understanding that they also inhabit an inner realm in which the good and the not-good are bedrock reality). The Golden Rule of Christianity illustrates this essential component of morality: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." And this rule, of course, is not just confined to the Christian tradition. Asked to summarize the Torah while standing on one leg, Rabbi Hillel said essentially the same thing in its negative form, do not do to others what you would not wish done to yourself. And in the Buddhist teachings of compassion, we find the same powerful bridge to take the moral agent outside the narrow confines of the self and imaginatively to enter the realm of others' felt-experience.
Thus the morality I am proposing --which declares that the most moral course is that which best serves goodness; that goodness resides in the quality of felt-experience of sentient creatures, and that therefore the most moral course is that which best fosters good-feeling within the realm of all those creatures, capable of joy and of suffering, who are affected by what one chooses to do and not to do-- has resonance with the moral core of some of humankind's greatest religious traditions. But that morality also has implications that place it in deep tension with those traditions.
<em>A morality of consequences. </em>
What does a moral person do? The broad answer I just formulated above --act in such a way as to make the world as good a place as possible, which is the equivalent of making the felt-experience of sentient creatures as positive as possible-- says that our purpose in acting morally is to produce good consequences. "Consequences" is the key word here. We are --or rather, we should be-- interested in results.
Wait a minute, you might say. You aren't really saying very much there, are you? You want the consequences to be good. OK? But look how vague that is. First, just what do you mean by "consequences?" Second, how are you going to deal with the inevitable conflict among various possibilities you consider good? And third, how are you going to know what the consequences of your action are going to be?
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