Escape from the Moral Dimension

Ever since Barack Obama said in the Compulsion Forum that there’s a “moral dimension” to abortion, some of us in the Atheosphere have been arguing about morality. Although I hate like hell to get involved in philosophical masturbation (I much prefer the physical kind), I can’t resist an opportunity to piss off some of my fellow atheists. So here, in brief, are some random thoughts about morality, numbered for the convenience of commenters.

1. For an issue to have a moral dimension, there must be some question of “what’s right?” and “what’s wrong?” Obviously, not all issues have such a dimension. However, people who love judging others can invent moral dilemmas where they don’t exist. That doesn’t mean the rest of us have to blindly accept those issues as posing moral questions. Example: whether or not to eat meat is a moral issue for some vegetarians. It isn’t for me, though, no matter how much they protest. I don’t see any rightness or wrongness to argue about. If I engage in a debate about whether or not it’s moral to indulge in a slice of meatloaf, I’m validating the premise that there is a right and a wrong at issue. I’m not willing to make that concession.


2. The negative version of the Golden Rule — don’t do to anybody else what you wouldn’t want them to do to you — may be evolutionarily hardwired into our brains. Even if it isn’t, it makes rational sense. For me, the Golden Rule means: Don’t harm anyone. Don’t steal. Don’t cheat. Don’t use physical or psychological threats to impose your ideas on others. Don’t lie. But even those most basic moral precepts aren’t accepted as universals. Cultures throughout history, and all over the globe, have found ways to justify violating those simple rules. Some people in the Atheosphere, in fact, have actually defended polticians’ lying as “that’s what you have to do to get elected.” Maybe so, but it’s immoral nonetheless.


3. Jumping off from the Golden Rule: my idea of morality is avoiding those actions that are immoral. An action that poses a moral problem is either moral (what’s right) or immoral (what’s wrong). One may (and I do) take the position that the morality scale is not a line with gradations of rightness and wrongness. Neutral actions (those that don’t pose moral questions) and right actions are equivalent; we’re not collecting points for an afterlife. In other words, if one is not immoral, one is automatically behaving “morally.”


4. It follows, therefore, that there’s no such thing as moral “high ground” or “low ground.” Morality is not terrain. Some actions, as I’ve said, are off the map entirely, neither right nor wrong. Other actions seem to be right; they’re conscious decisions not to violate the Golden Rule. Immoral actions are all those things we do or say that are “wrong,” that do break the Golden Rule. Sometimes, immoralities have to be given relative weight: Which one is less “wrong” under the circumstances. That’s why waging war, for instance, is always immoral, but may be less so, under some conditions, than not waging war. So-called white lies are always immoral, but may be less so, under some conditions, than telling the truth.


5. Freethinkers realize that, humans being the flawed creatures we are, ideas about morality are relative. Each person has to think through his or her own code. That means constantly debating within yourself about which immoralities are less bad than others when two “rules” conflict. Is killing ever an option if it could mean saving others? Is stealing by the government OK if it redistributes wealth to the neediest? Is it all right to force your ideas on others when those ideas might build a better world? For atheists, deciding what is and isn’t immoral is, ultimately — and unfortunately — a personal choice.


6. Religionists, on the other hand, think that morals are absolute, dictated from on high. They’re things that you should do in addition to things that you shouldn’t. Thus, the onerous positive version of the Golden Rule: Do unto others.... In fact, I’d argue that the religionists’ version of the Golden Rule sees morality through a lens held in the wrong direction. In the version of morality I’ve been writing about, being moral is the natural state of humans; one has to take specific wrong actions to be immoral. In the god-driven version of morality, being immoral is the natural state of humans; one has to take specific right actions to be moral. If you don’t, you’re eternally fucked. But are morals right because a god says they are, or does the god say they are because they’re right? Can you say “Euthyphro”? In reality, of course, the various “holy” books contain so many vague, conflicting, or despicable “morals,” that, again, a workable, humane code comes down to a personal choice. But in the religious version, the godpusher feels justified in butting into others’ lives, telling people what they must do as well as what they mustn’t.


7. The word “moral” is loaded. When pious zealots use it, they always have their own warped religious teachings in mind. In debating an issue, the rest of us shouldn’t necessarily accept the word “moral” as a synonym for “right” just because someone claims that his or her position is such. Theists are quick to raise bogus moral questions where, often, there shouldn’t be any. One’s private sexual activity, for instance, is an instinct that’s outside the realm of right vs. wrong. It’s not a moral issue unless it involves force, physical or emotional. In that case, the moral dimension grows out of: Don’t harm anyone. That’s why, in my personal code, rape is immoral. Having sex with children is immoral — although I’m not sure I can define the age at which a person is no longer a child. Similarly, a so-called normal person having sex with a mentally handicapped partner may be a subject for moral discussion and examination. Incest between consenting adults, in cases where it may result in childbirth, is scientifically unwise, and, perhaps morally dubious from the potential child’s standpoint, at least in the medical sense; where there’s no threat of pregnancy, I don’t see how morals come into the picture. The stricture against multiple husbands and wives is a societal convenience, but not a moral issue. Gay sex is not a moral issue, whatsoever. And sex between unmarried heterosexuals is, of course, not questionable at all on moral grounds.


8. Societies codify their sense of morality through laws. Those laws, in democratic countries, are majoritarian. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone agrees with the “morals” being enforced, or even whether there really are any valid moral arguments involved. Freethinkers should refuse to let woo-ists dictate the terms of the national dialogue.


9. That’s why abortion — at least in the early stages of the pregnancy — is not a moral issue. In fact, for those of us who think there may indeed be a moral issue once the fetus has attained some level of brain function, or “consciousness,” let’s use two different terms for abortion instead of just one. I hope someone can come up with better terms than I have, but for the sake of this essay, let’s call removal of the fetal cells at the preconscious stage a “procedural pregnopause” or an “amniectomy.” Let’s call a so-called “late-term abortion” a “surgical miscarriage.” I’ll happily grant moral ambiguity to the question of whether or not to have a surgical miscarriage. But for atheists, for whom presupposing a soul is unthinkable, the procedural pregnopause has no moral dimension at all; there’s no right vs. wrong for those of us who don’t give credence to the idea that a magical spiritual spark is lit at conception. The only moral question that exists insofar as a procedural pregnopause: Is it right or wrong to force a woman to have a child? That’s not a moral question at all unless and until theocrats try to use physical or psychological threats to impose their ideas on others.


10. One last point: Ideas about the evolutionary and historical development of morality may be colored by one’s position on the authoritarian/libertarian scale. For an authoritarian, morality arises from a system that imposes the greatest sense of community. People should be encouraged to act together for the good of the species. For a libertarian like me (please do note the lowercase L) morality arises from a system that imposes the fewest constraints. People should, essentially, be free to do whatever they want unless their actions impinge on the freedom of others.

OK, readers, feel free to weigh in. But remember: There’s no moral dimension to commenting.