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What is Morality?

Entry 2395, on 2025-05-02 at 12:21:03 (Rating 2, Philosophy)

I have recently become involved in a couple of discussions (or debates or arguments) about morality. My opinion on this subject is somewhat confused, so I thought writing a blog post might help me decide what it is I really believe, because that is one of the reasons I write these posts!

The definition of morality is: principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour (OED). If the word "morality" itself is somewhat subjective and difficult to define precisely then this doesn't help much, because "right and wrong" and "good and bad" are equally difficult to define.

My comments in one debate concerned whether a god was necessary as the origin of objective morality. This is a fair argument, because if words like "good" and "bad" are to have any definitive meaning then there must be something or someone defining what is good and bad. But if morality is somewhat arbitrary and subjective then it can be more of an emergent property of the beliefs of a society.

So as a very rational and non-religious person (at least in my opinion), I believe morality is subjective and is really just a matter of opinion. When I say this people ask me "is murder OK?" or "is it OK to steal from someone?" or "is slavery good?" and I would say no to all of those, but that is just my opinion and even then I can think of exceptions to all of them where they might be OK. When I am told "everyone thinks murder is bad, so clearly that is an objective moral truth" I say "of course, humans are a social species and condemning murder is a good way to increase the strength of a society, so most people will agree, but that doesn't imply any objective foundation".

In fact, there are tribes where murder was seen as a moral duty. If a member of the tribe (I admit I can't remember its name) was causing too much trouble he would go on a hunting expedition with other tribe members and just never come back. This was accepted as a normal part of that society. And don't forget that the death penalty has been part of most current societies in the past, although it is no longer acceptable in most.

Now some people might say that neither of those examples are murder because they are an accepted part of the groups' standards, but that is a sort of tautological argument, because we are defining the moral killings as not murder and the immoral ones as murder. The relevance to morality is sort of part of the definition, which gets us nowhere.

Notice also, that what is considered acceptable changes over time. At one point, the death penalty was considered right and proper (or "moral") but now it's not. Either what was once considered moral actually wasn't and we only see that now, in which case how do we know any moral judgement will have permanence; or something that used to be moral is now immoral, and if morality is objective, how can it change like that?

Additionally, there are instances where morality is very difficult to establish. If you are familiar with the classic "Trolley Problem" in moral philosophy I would suggest that as a good example. If you are not familiar with this, have a look at my post "Would You Press the Button?" from 2013-07-16, which discusses it.

Recorded sources of morality are also problematic. Many people quote the Bible, but which part are they talking about? The New Testament contradicts the Old in both specific statements and in general tone. The NT is about "turn the other cheek" and the OT is more about "an eye for an eye". These are contradictory moral philosophies, so which should I choose, especially considering Jesus is reported to have said that he did not come to contradict existing teachings.

The Bible appears to condone slavery, or at least ignore the moral aspects of its existence, yet most Christians now think slavery is wrong. Who is right? Either slavery was objectively right then and wrong now, or it is changeable depending on the circumstances, and hardly objective at all (did God change his mind?)

Now I freely admit there are ways to bypass my arguments above. For example, God might have declared slavery as moral at one point in history because it suited the social conditions of the time, but later on changed that to it being immoral as humans became more sophisticated, but that just doesn't seem to be a strong argument to me. In that case, it seems very much as if morality is just God's opinion, and is it still objective in that case?

By the way, I'm not even going to get started on Plato's Euthyphro Dilemma and Leibniz's variation of it here, but maybe in the future it might be worth a look!

So it seems that morality is just a matter of the opinion of the majority. Almost all humans think murder is bad so that is a moral judgment, but about half agree with illegal immigration, so whether that is OK or not is not a moral judgement but just a political opinion instead. The difference is that for something to be moral it must be accepted by the vast majority of people; it is an emergent property of societal values at a particular point in time.

So I seem to have convinced myself that I am right about this. I'm sure moral philosophers will have far more sophisticated opinions, and religious people will disagree with my rejection of their holy books, but until I see a better argument, I still think I'm right: morality is just an opinion.

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