In my last couple of essays, I argued that morality is reality, and it’s embodied in us.  The next question is, what’s the ultimate, first source of morality?  I see three possibles:

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1. nature / biological evolution,

2. nurture / human culture,

3. God.  Spoiler alert: I say it’s God. 

 

In February 2020, I heard an EconTalk podcast where the guest was Peter Singer.  Mr. Singer is a professional philosopher who specializes in ethics.  Peter Singer opened the podcast with this hypothetical.  Suppose you’re wearing your expensive shoes and you come upon a child drowning in a pond.  Should you wade in and save the child even though you’ll ruin your shoes?  Mr. Singer continued, what about one child suffering malnutrition in some foreign land, should you forego buying nice shoes and instead give your money to charitable organizations to help that child? 

 

The choir sang amen, but the podcast host, Russ Roberts, wasn’t feeling the spirit.  He asked, “Why should I? I agree with you that you should, but I'm curious why you think one should save that child.”  Russ doesn’t hate humanity; he just wanted Mr. Singer to reveal the source of the moral duty that he would impose on us.  Mr. Singer couldn’t do it. 

 

Mr. Singer initially responded, “because the death of a child is a bad thing.”  Russ said (and I paraphrase), I know it’s bad, but why does that give me a moral duty to help the child?  Mr. Singer knew he was cornered, so he took the local train and stopped at all the secular stations.  He said (and I paraphrase), moral duty comes from evolution and our selfish genes, but because selfish genes don’t care about unknown children in unknown lands, therefore, evolution gave us the power of reason, and it’s our rational minds that require that we care for others over ourselves.

 

I shall unpack.  Mr. Singer began with the nature argument, which goes like this: through the process of natural selection, humans have developed biological traits for compassion, therefore, humans have a moral duty of compassion.  That is, I have a biological drive to care therefore I should care. 

 

The nature argument fails because my selfish genes don’t care if I love or hate so long as I procreate.  This is true both at the individual and the group levels.  Selfish genes will do anything to increase the probability of their transmission into future generations, and if genocide gets the job done, so be it.  Humans have a biological drive to kill -- does this give my group a moral duty to genocide your group?  No.  Even when genocide is the best option for my group to transmit our selfish genes, we still shouldn’t do it.  In a nutshell: we have biological drives, but that doesn’t mean we should do what they want.  Biological drives don’t create moral duties, rather, moral duties control biological drives. 

 

Selfish genes don’t play nice; they play to win.  If selfish genes ever posited a moral duty, it’d be will-to-power.  The same is true for the nurture argument.  Can secular culture create universal and binding duties of right and wrong?  No.  If people make-up morality, then morality is just a fiction that a stronger group of people will unmake when it’s convenient for them.  The winner writes history. 

 

For proof, look no further than my essay, Acid Wash, wherein Yuval Harari said that all beliefs are fiction, except for, of course, his pet moral belief that we must treat animals with compassion.  Then came Sam Harris, who said that some fictions are better than other fictions (based on their utility), and further, we’ll be required to believe in the better fictions at such time as Mr. Harris himself, or his appointed experts, gives us a list of them.  For Messrs. Harari and Harris, all moral duties are fictions except for their personal favorites, and you’ll obey their favorites or suffer the consequences.

 

Mr. Singer knows all this, that secular morality runs straight to relativity then will-to-power.  In the podcast, Mr. Singer didn’t touch the nurture argument.  Instead, he pivoted from evolution to reason, hoping that absolute and objective reason could require an absolute and objective duty.  But he couldn’t explain how reason requires a moral duty… and for good reason because reason is just a means, a tool, for achieving ends, where the ends come from outside reason.  After 30 years of marriage, I've learned that when my wife tries a rational argument on me, it's because she wants something (most recently an electric car).  If argument #1 doesn't get traction, she'll try argument #2 even if it contradicts #1.  And who cares? we want what we want, and if we can afford it, we buy it.  Ends control means, which is why reason can reason itself to any desired end, be it good or bad.

 

To sum up: both the nature and the nurture arguments are will-to-power, and so is reason unless it’s guided by something higher.  Now I go back to the podcast, wherein a tired Russ Roberts asked for the last time, “I want to hear you justify why I should care what happens to other people.”  Mr. Singer replied, “Pain and suffering are bad things, happiness and pleasure are good things. … I think that that's sufficient to say why you should care.” 

 

Mr. Singer never answered Russ’ question.  Yes, by definition, pain=bad, but why should I care about your pain?  This is where it ends, though.  The local train ran in a circle and Russ was exhausted, so he changed the subject. 

 

There it is: Mr. Singer offered only one support for his absolute moral duty of compassion, that being pain=bad and pleasure=good, and when Russ asked for more, Mr. Singer told him to get over it, because “I think that that's sufficient to say why you should care.”  Why must I send money to Africa? Because Mr. Singer told me so and that should be “sufficient” for me.  The philosopher-king has spoken.

 

Power is the source of Mr. Singer’s duty of compassion, and moral shaming is the means.  And it works!... but only because I already believe.  Mr. Singer can shame me into charity only because I already believe in the sacred Thou, I already believe in Christ’s commandment to love thy neighbor.  That’s the real reason why I should care about you, and Mr. Singer knows it and believes in it too.  Imagine that: an avowed atheist builds his ethical philosophy on that which he may not speak.  Secular moral philosophy is a secret smuggler of values, a crouching preacher hidden proselytizer.

 

Our secular philosophers, like Messrs. Singer, Harris and Harari, take morality and acid-wash it down to will-to-power, then they talk of absolute right and wrong anyway.  Their hearts believe in the sacred right and wrong even when their worldview says it’s fiction, and this is cognitive dissonance.  I feel their pain.  Causation is complex: all our biological natures and cultural nurtures combine in a complex historical process of evolution, so yes, they’re right that nature and nurture are working together in the process of our moral development.  But nature and nurture can’t rise above utility and will-to-power, that’s their glass ceiling.  Our secular philosophers can see sacred morality through the glass, they want it, but to get their hearts’ desire, they must take that one step more.  They must believe in the God who made this historical process and who enjoys watching us grow up within it.

 

We humans, the smartest apes, have the ability to use all living beings on this Earth as tools for our pleasure, and this is where our selfish genes would lead us.  But we don’t want to do it because it’s wrong.  We recognize Thou; we recognize a sacred moral duty of compassion that controls over the will-to-power of our natures and nurtures.  What's the first source of our sacred moral duty? God.  Our choice is simple: live by God, or by will-to-power.