A Better Morality
Copyright 1998-2008
by Surly
Moral systems exist to define, prevent and resolve conflicts among people and offer them beneficial ways of living. Traditional moral systems, being accretions of rules layered over time, have little internal consistency and thus have unintended and often ignored consequences in the real world. Real people may be hurt or their lives compromised by following them. Most moral systems grew out of specific cultures, myths and their religions, thus are irrational. Specific moral precepts are held onto emotionally by blind, unexamined and unverifiable belief, rather than by consistent, logical means. Their foundation premises cannot be verified as factual. And with competing and conflicting moral and religious systems, there is a condition tending to the amoral. There is a need for a rational and ethical moral system created from the most beneficial and rational parts of existing moral systems and scientific knowledge about the human specie.
A critique of traditional moralities should begin with calling into question the unintended consequences. For example, the abuses inherent in Christian and other fundamentalist and authoritarian belief systems on the lives of their children is only recognized in some quarters, such as the secular psychological professions. Children's lives are restricted by forbidding them specific areas of tabooed knowledge, their minds are filled with an unverifiable crap of hatred and fear against others unlike them. Their personalities are purposively malformed. Ultimately this hatred is against the abusing parents and the self that allowed it, but it must be turned outward against others to blame to protect the self. And the abuses are perpetuated down the generations. If children are considered human beings accorded all the civil rights by the nation, why does society allow this abuse? Because of respect for a sacred tradition of religious freedom our society allows these abuses. This is an area ripe for a strong critique.
The great leftist, areligious ethical systems - Humanism and its socialist offspring - arose in the Enlightenment over 200 years ago when rationalism began its ascendancy, throwing off the religious superstition of the past. Some of these ideas had weak foundations and have run out of steam, therefore coming under increasing attack in the current conservative backlash. Yet some of the precepts and ideals still hold strong as hope for the future. The core precept is individual rights, the rationale for founding the United States of America.
One such rational ethical system is called "Enlightened Self-Interest". Its precepts are tolerance and diversity, based on the facts that all people cannot and will not agree on any one moral system, therefore there must be a common denominator that will function to keep them from coercing and ultimately killing each other or preventing "Might makes right."" Another precept is that all individuals ultimately act in their own self-interest, regardless of a belief system to the contrary. Inalienable individual rights are its cornerstone - that only the individual can best decide for self the freedom to live life as one sees fit. Enlightened Self-interest asks what condition can be created that benefits everyone involved without anyone losing? It teaches respect for individuals, rather than groups and beliefs. Beyond this, it allows any belief. Any legal system based on this ethic must exist to preserve and protect individual human rights.
Any group working together by consensus for a common goal will create an ethical system to provide self-government by working out day-to-day problems. The best current example of this practice is the development of "Netiquette" in email and newsgroups on the Internet. It does not prevent violations, just as laws do not prevent crime, but it is an evolving standard to bring some common and useful behavior to the interactions online and reduce abuse. Consequently, it protects all users who subscribe to its precepts. This is a practical and situational development of a moral system that brings to it all the moralities of its members. But to work together, some moral precepts of each member that conflict with the goal must be put aside. There is relative weighing or evaluating of moral precepts on the part of each member. Some precepts are too valuable to forsake, others are easy to give up, but that is an individual decision. No external moral system need be applied from on high.
The beginnings of another new moral system comes from an apparently unlikely social place: the Leather/SM sex subculture. But most moral systems' seeds were once founded in cults or countercultural movements that eventually grew into mainstream religions or political movements. All countercultural movements propose competing moral systems. The tenets of Safe, Sane and Consensual is an ethical system developed in the Leather/SM community to handle the consequences of the potentially risky behaviors involved in SM practices. There is no intent to cause harm or coerce. All parties involved must be consenting adults, having knowledge of those practices and fully aware of their potential consequences. Trust and personal responsibility are keystone concepts. These situations are not a forum to allow everyone's emotions to rule or crazy half-baked ideas attempted. Submissives can give up to emotion, but dominants must retain rational control of self and the situation. It is a practical and situational ethic with a strong foundation that protects individuals. These concepts can easily be applied far outside the bounds of the SM subculture as beneficial to everyone in everyday life situations.
Progressive movements, such as workers', women's, ethnic and gay civil rights, have attempted to critique traditional morality and offer alternatives. This condition has led to a backlash and cultural war. But the moralities espoused by progressives are often amended traditional moralities served up as half-baked leftovers and therefore haven't had widespread support and promotion. It's been difficult to make a good case for changing morality and to resist the thrust of mainstream culture to conform. To offer a better morality that serves everyone well it must critique traditional morality in ways a majority of people understand as relevant to their lives, offer them something tangibly better and it must be promoted widely and defended on many fronts.
The practical and situational morality concerning sex and relationships from the gay movement shows the promise of offering individuals more freedom and ethical ways to relate, but within the gay movement are many conflicting moralities and ethical theories, from traditional to very radical, that weaken its power. It is a case of belief or ideology vs. practical, functional behavior. On the positive side, the gay movement has the best arguments for its ethical system and against traditional morality. Many of its arguments have rational and logical bases that can successfully challenge the belief-based traditions. But belief is a harder nut to crack. It doesn't respond to reason and that is a source of its power. There must be an equally strong faith that we have a better morality to offer the world or else the cause is lost.
The argument against traditional morality is compromised by our hedging, demonstrating that we are unsure if we are right and our enemies wrong. Contemporary ethical theory holds that we must not judge and that morality and ethics are relative, so it has been difficult for us to state, categorically, that others' beliefs are wrong. Our enemies don't have this weakness. But we can demonstrate its dysfunctionality by its consequences on real individuals. The old morality is bankrupt. Who should care if it lasted two to three thousand years - it was wrong then and it is wrong now. But do we have the courage to boldly say so? We need to be able to say this with a quiet conviction rather than shouting slogans and in-your-face actions that parrot the right wing's hysterics.