Series:
Essay #8:
Synopsis:
It and Thou
Morality is Reality
Morality is real because values are real; and morality is objective because it corresponds to communal human knowledge
Value, meaning, and right and wrong are real. They’re as real as our material bodies, as real as matter.
Value and meaning are part of the real world of mind, which exists on the same ontological basis as matter. Values come from a real living being, mind and body, living in a real world. A conscious being values everything he sees, for example, Mr. Amoeba sees the thing in front of him and he values it, all in one motion. He knows that it’s good or bad, relevant or irrelevant. We people have the same values (good, bad, relevant, irrelevant), and in addition, for human social behavior, we have right and wrong.
Right and wrong are human values that we share in our communal world of mind. Because these values are communal (not subjective to the individual), they are objective. In brief, we have real and objective standards for right and wrong that exist outside the individual in the communal mind.
How to prove it? Think of self-deception. It shouldn’t be possible for someone to lie to himself. I used to tell my son to be patient with so-and-so and don’t argue him out of his bad behavior, because deep down inside he already knows he’s wrong. His bad behavior is a cover so that he doesn’t have to admit he’s wrong. My son would say, wait a second, how can he lie to himself while at the same time know the truth? How many people are inside his head?
Yes, it’s a strange truth. Say I’m feuding with my wife and I ignore her. I tell myself that her temper is unbearable so I don’t engage, which is half the truth, the other half is that I withdraw from conflict because it hurts. If I focus on my wife’s bad temper, starting up a repetitive loop in my mind about how bad it is, then I’m deceiving myself. Why would I lie to me? Because deep inside I know I’m wrong, I’m half the problem, and I don’t want to admit that my withdrawal is bad for the marriage. No matter how many lies I tell myself, right is right, wrong is wrong, and I know that both are real.
I’m wrong because morality exists independent of me, and my conscience knows it, no matter how I spin the argument. Right and wrong set a standard. That’s the beauty of other people’s opinions: I get lost in my head and you talk sense to me. I say, “No! My wife is horrible!” You reply, “She’s not horrible and you’re half to blame.” I listen and I repent. I know right from wrong even when it’s the last thing in the world I want to admit. Right and wrong are written into my heart, and they shine out from behind the tangle of all my self-deception, denial and rationalization.
So, a conscious being puts value on everything he perceives, be it good, bad or irrelevant. When talking about how people should live and behave, we call these values morality. We are moral beings. When we see human behavior, even our own behavior, we judge it right or wrong, good or evil, which are objective realities that live in our individual selves and in our communal mind. Moral values are real, and true.
We moderns try to judge truth by neutral, objective standards. This works great in the material sciences: if you want to learn the truth of an electron, look at one. Brute matter is its own neutral standard because our feelings about it don’t affect its behavior. Is there an objective standard for morality? Yes. Remember that truth = correspondence with reality. Something is true if it corresponds to its relevant reality, and the relevant aspect of reality to which morality points is: human lives, meanings and behavior. In brief, morality corresponds to that aspect of reality that is human lives, meanings and behavior. We humans have a hundred thousand years of accumulated experience in morality, and it’s objective.
It’s simple: judge an electron by the standards of physics, and judge human lives and behavior by the standards of morality. For example, is it true that spouses in a marriage should be honest and loyal to one another? Yes, this statement is true because it corresponds with its relevant reality, said reality being our collective experience of countless marriages over the millennia. In this case, human experience counts as the most relevant, objective and neutral standard.
Many people argue that morality is our arbitrary projection of values onto brute matter (to wit, Yuval Harari). This argument is irrelevant. Why? because the relevant aspect of reality against which we judge morality is: human lives, meanings and behavior. Not brute matter. We’re dealing with two different aspects of reality, and I engage in irrelevancy if I mix them up, if I apply morality to particles in motion and physics to the meaning of life. Worse, it’s disrespectful to engage in irrelevancy, that is, to explain one thing as another. Imagine a woman who has committed herself to economic autonomy (her career) all through her 30s, and now imagine that her childbearing window closes before she’s ready. She can’t have children and she grieves the loss. It’s objective truth that this woman needs our meaningful connection, not a dissertation on her womb.
And there you have it. Right and wrong are real, and they can be judged objectively in view of the reality to which they apply: human life. In my next essay, Embodied Morality, I say morality lives in our guts. Then, in Sources of Morality, I say that, ultimately, morality comes from God.
