Diary of a Person Confused About the Relief of Suffering, Chapter 7: Morality and Suffering
MORALITY AND SUFFERING
In this chapter I hope to convey my confusions about how morality relates to suffering.
I have previously explained that I regard morality as based on one specific type of motivation-void value, wherein I considered it possible that other types of motivation-void value could also exist. However, morality does seem to me the overwhelmingly dominant category of motivation-void value, such that I feel my discussion of morality's relation to suffering pretty much covers all motivation-void value's relation to suffering.
SYNECDOCHAL SLOPPINESS ABOUT MOTIVATION
Now I wish to establish a motivation terminology policy for this chapter. Recall that motivation is the larger category that includes both desire and aversion. However, in this chapter I will frequently use the word “desire” in place of the word “motivation” and also “aversion”, even if aversion is the phenomenological opposite of desire. Thus, I’ll be using a sub-category to represent the larger category and even the other specific sub-category in that larger category.
I call this style of writing “synecdochal sloppiness”, as “synecdoche” means the linguistic practice of referring to a whole by using the word for one of its parts. Like “I’ll beat your ass up.” means “I’ll beat you up.” Anyway, such synecdochal sloppiness, while imprecise and sometimes technically wrong, makes for easier reading because our culture practices this very synecdochal sloppiness all the time. More often than not, we use the word “desire” to mean either or both desire and aversion. To oppose this cultural norm by insisting on precision, i.e., writing “aversion” when we mean only aversion, or writing “motivation” when we mean either or both desire and aversion, often forces the reader to interrupt the flow of reading to remember the technical definitions, and thus makes for difficult reading.
So I’ll frequently write “desire” in place of “motivation” and “aversion” when doing so makes the text easier to read. This includes writing “desire-void” in place of “motivation-void”. But sometimes I’ll be more precise when I feel it doesn't screw up the pace that much.
MY CONFUSIONS ABOUT MORALITY AND SUFFERING
My first set of confusions are about morality’s relation to compassion and suffering. I have five basic, big confusions in this regard. They are:
2: Does morality harm more than help?
3: If morality permits or increases suffering, can we fix it?
4: If morality permits or increases suffering, how can we try to fix it?
...
1: DO RIGHTS VIOLATIONS HURT?
A woman is crying her eyes out because her car was stolen.
Naturally I feel compassion for her.
But when I reflect on my compassion for her, I find that I’m confused about exactly what my compassion is about. Of course it is about the theft of her car. But theft is also about two other things. And these two other things confuse my compassion. Let me explain.
When her car was stolen, two more general things also happened.
1. Her strong desires were frustrated - creating misery. She has a strong desire that her car not be stolen (strong aversion against it). And the frustration of this desire was extremely traumatic and emotionally painful. She was forced into traumatic suffering.
2. Her moral right to possession of her car was violated. She had a moral right that her car not be stolen. And that moral right was violated.
My compassion is not confused about number 1, the traumatic frustration of her desire that her car not be stolen. My compassion for her on this point seems obvious and natural.
But my compassion is confused about number 2, the violation of her moral rights. It’s not clear to me whether moral rights violations create emotional trauma and suffering. Do moral rights violations hurt like strong desire frustrations hurt? Or do they hurt in some other way that isn't exactly like strong desire frustration, but somehow analogous to it?
Suppose an artist loses significant revenue because of rampant copyright violations. But also suppose this artist does not care about the loss. The artist has no strong desires for that lost revenue and is actually happy to see her intellectual property being so widely enjoyed by others through any means. So there are no desire frustrations here. But, her rights are still being violated. Do these rights violations bother her emotionally? At all? Does she experience any discomforts from the rights violations that would evoke compassion from me, or anyone? She says “no”. She’s fine with having her rights violated in this instance.
It would appear from our present example that rights violations, by themselves, do not upset us in the least, let alone traumatize us. It seems what really bothers us is the frustration of our desires.
Yet when we return to the car theft example, most people who abhor theft express their condemnation for theft in terms of theft being a rights violation, not a severe desire frustration. So if rights violations don’t traumatize us, why are they more important than the severe desire frustrations that actually do traumatize us?
This issue confuses me. It suggests that moral rights violations can indeed be traumatic on their own, separately from the trauma of severe desire frustration.
I know from introspection that for me, personally, I can feel desires, but I cannot feel moral rights. Likewise, I can feel the frustration of a desire, but I cannot feel the violation of a moral right. If the violation of a moral right feels like anything, I personally am void of this feeling.
But other people (many moralists) may indeed feel moral rights in some way analogous to the way we all feel desires. And they may be able to feel the violation of a moral right in some way analogous to the way we all feel the frustration of a desire. Perhaps the violation of a moral right creates the feeling people often call “moral indignation”. And maybe moral indignation is analogous to emotional pain and can be traumatic.
Since I cannot directly experience the consciousness of other people, I cannot verify this sort of thing for myself.
But anyway, when I feel compassion for the theft survivor, that compassion is focused mostly on her trauma that comes from having her very strong desires frustrated. Beyond that, I then also feel what I would call a contingent compassion focused on any trauma (or moral analogue of trauma) that might come from the violation of her rights, if indeed she feels such a thing. Just in case.
That’s the best I can do about my confusion when it comes to my compassion.
Morality also confuses what I would call my “compassionate agenda” in other ways too. I invite you to keep reading about these other confusions. They may entertain you and challenge you to find some of the resolutions to my confusions.
A big part of my compassionate agenda is to try to amplify compassion and benevolence in others, such that more of us act to relieve one another's sufferings, or at least avoid inflicting more suffering on others when possible.
Once again morality confuses me on this issue.
2: DOES MORALITY HARM MORE THAN HELP?
I’m confused whether morality ultimately increases or decreases our tendency to relieve one another’s suffering. So I want to at least explore the issue by examining both
(1) How morality can relieve suffering
and
(2) How morality can cause suffering.
HOW MORALITY HELPS RELIEVE SUFFERING
There are several ways morality can reduce suffering.
The first way in which morality helps relieve suffering hardly needs mention. But I will mention it for the sake of completeness.
Most schools of morality command us to relieve the suffering of others. By obeying the command, we therefore help relieve one another’s suffering.
CASUAL REMINDER TO FEEL COMPASSION
But now I want to mention a way that morality can motivate us to relieve suffering by supporting compassionate desire.
To spite what I’ll write soon about how morality might reduce compassion by issuing duty commands, the casual user of morality can see morality as merely a reminder to feel compassion and act on it, not a compassion-overruling command. The moral command to help the elderly lady cross the street is a technically wrong way of saying “You’ll feel happy for helping her. You’ll feel the pleasure of gratifying your compassion.” The moral command to do so is technically wrong because you’ll do it for the gratification of compassionate desire, not for the compliance with some desire-void moral command to do it. (I’ll explain what I mean by “desire-void” soon.) And most of the time our sloppy use of language is of no consequence. It’s like atheists saying “Oh God!” No real problem.
The casual user of morality may also use moral terminology to mistakenly describe a particularly strong compassion already felt. “I have a moral obligation to help him” is a technically wrong way of saying “I feel an irresistibly strong compassion driving me to help him.” People regularly and wrongly dress up their strong desires as moral phenomena, even though pure moral phenomena are literally desire-void.
OVERRULING HURTFUL OR COUNTERPRODUCTIVE DESIRES
There are at least four additional reasons morality can ease suffering. These all pertain to morality’s ability to overrule desires.
The first suffering reducing advantage to overruling desires is primarily to overrule the malevolent desires of those who would do us harm. Without morality to overrule desires in matters of human action, the desires of the serial rapist murderer and the desires of the charitable saint have equal force in driving that action. If the only reason we can find for our actions is simply “I wanted too”, then everyone’s actions are equally “reasoned”, and this includes the serial rapist murderer. This situation scares us. (I call it “equal footing phobia”.) And we feel a bit like malevolent bullies ourselves when we tell the serial rapist murderer “Our desires trump yours, for no other reason than we are more powerful.” We feel like hypocrites. (... and/or experience what I call “force remorse”.) So, to avoid these feelings that could disarm us against the malevolence of serial rapist murderers, we call upon some kind of overarching way to evaluate desires that itself is not desire. Morality is precisely this overarching way to evaluate desires. With morality, we can finally call some desires “bad” and others “good” – wherein the “good” desires overrule the “bad”. The cash in here is that we also get to categorize the serial rapist murderer's desires as “bad” and thereby overrule them without force remorse.
The second suffering reducing advantage to overruling desires is primarily to overrule the ignorant desires of those who would harm themselves or others out of their failure to comprehend the consequences. Here I’m talking mostly about children who would go play in the freeway or pull a “Lord of the Flies” trip on one another simply because they desired to. We are wisely quick to install morality in our children to overrule these desires. We teach them that not all desires have the same force in their actions, that there is an overarching standard by which to evaluate all desires and actions, a standard that itself is not desire. It is morality. “Don’t just go ‘round acting on all your desires. Do the ‘right’ thing – the ‘good’ thing.”
The third suffering reducing advantage to overruling desires is so we can have an alternative way to evaluate ourselves and our lives. On this planet, very few of us have our strongest desires gratified. For most of us, this life is one of endless and often miserably painful frustration. And if the gratification-versus-frustration of our strong desires is the only way to evaluate our existence, then that existence would likely fail to measure up. We’d be so miserable that we’d want to die. But with morality, we can live “fulfilling” lives of virtue, no matter how our desires may be frustrated. Our desires may be frustrated, but at least they are morally “good” desires. Or maybe we even have morally bad desires, but at least we did morally “good” actions. And thus we feel the warm glow of being morally virtuous. It is compensation for the misery of frustrated strong desires and an instance of the value replacement relief-method. [I defined the “value replacement relief-method“ in a previous chapter of this proposed book. It basically means to relieve suffering by means of replacing the standard of value by which one's life is of low value with a standard by which one's life is of high value.]
The fourth suffering reducing advantage to overruling desires is to overrule the desires for immediate personal desire gratification so that we can have the discipline required to gratify much stronger and long term desires in the future. Morality enables us to frustrate our own immediate personal desires for the sake of our own future gratification. Example: the poor person who suffers much desire frustration can tell herself that desire gratification can be achieved later if she becomes morally virtuous in the present. It is a way to discipline herself against immediate personal desire gratification so she can focus on doing things she doesn’t want to do for the sake of greater desire gratification in the future. This is often considered a moral virtue. Thus the pleasant feeling of being morally virtuous can somewhat compensate for her present frustrations.
DISOWNING UNCOMFORTABLE DESIRES
Morality can relieve suffering by helping us disown uncomfortable desires. Let me begin to explain this with an example.
L. A. Rollins describes a particular moralist disowning a desire. This moralist has the desire to prevent others from consuming pornography or invading one another’s property. But he pretends that other people must conform to his desires for reasons other than his desires. (Again, to avoid “force remorse”.) For example, Frederick D. Wilhelmsen writes that,
“Natural law [morality] insists that pornography … is bad and that it is bad not just for me but for everybody, and it equally insists that not only must I not invade my neighbor’s property but that he must not invade mine or anybody else’s.” 27 In other words, Frederick Wilhelmsen insists that pornography is bad for everybody, and he equally insists that no one must invade anybody else’s property. But in order to give his personal preferences [desires] greater authority, Wilhelmsen pretends that it is nature who is doing all the insisting.
(L. A. Rollins, The Myth of Natural Rights, P6-7)
Frederick Wilhelmsen is uncomfortable with his desire to control the behavior of others. He’s got “force remorse”. So he pretends that some other greater authority demands this control. Now that he can pretend his coercion is based on a higher authority than his own, Wilhelmsen need not suffer the discomfort of trying to coerce others based solely on his bossy desires. This is what it means to disown an uncomfortable desire. And this is how it reduces suffering.
Now I’ll describe two cases of disowning uncomfortable desires.
Case 1: Disown the desire to control others toward malevolent ends for one’s own gratification.
Example:
The ruling class of “nation A” desire to enjoy the spoils of invading “nation B”. So the rulers of “nation A” tell its poor citizens it is their moral duty to invade and pillage “nation B”. But the ruling class feels uncomfortable force remorse trying to coerce their poor citizens to war based solely on the desires of the ruling class. So the ruling class disowns this malevolent desire and pretends otherwise. So they make a moral issue out of it.
Other critics of morality have also hinted at the existence of this type of disowning. Disowning one’s desire to coerce others could prompt the ruling class to employ what L. A. Rollins calls “metaphorical or fake coercion”.
If you want someone to do something which he has no personal reason for doing, but you are unable or unwilling (perhaps afraid) to use real coercion to get him to do it, then you can try to get him to do it by means of metaphorical or fake coercion. You can tell him it’s his duty to do it. You can tell him he “must” do it. Why? Simply because he must. And if he is gullible enough to believe that he must do as you tell him, simply because he must, then you can control that two-legged sheep by means of the metaphorical or fake coercion of duty. Or, as John Badcock put it, “Given a believer in duty, it becomes possible for him to be enslaved with his own consent.”33
(L. A. Rollins, The Myth of Natural Rights, P8)
Being afraid to use real coercion could easily extend into being afraid to even admit to yourself that you desire to coerce others at all, thus prompting you to disown this desire.
Nor does this fear of admitting to coercion apply only to malevolent coercion. It can also apply to benevolent coercion as well, as in Case 2 as follows:
Case 2: Disown the desire to control others toward benevolent ends for both their gratification and one’s own.
Example:
Parents feel uncomfortable coercing their children against doing things that may hurt themselves or others – based on just their desires, even if their coercion is based on benevolent desires. So parents tell their children it is morally wrong to act on their desires in ways that will harm themselves and/or others. In this way, parents can pretend they aren’t just thwarting their children’s desires, but are at least doing so for superior, moral reasons. Parents want to disown the fact that they are thwarting their children’s desires, so they focus on the moral aspect.
But desires to coerce others are not the only uncomfortable desires that morality helps us disown. Morality can help us disown any desire that one party wins at the expense of another party, and thus we avoid or reduce remorse for the losers. Example: In the classic thought scenario where one must decide whether to throw the big person on the trolley car tracks (thereby killing him) to stop a the trolley car from killing several track workers down the line, our feelings for the losing party can be eased by saying we made the right moral choice. We can thereby disown our remorseful feelings about the situation and pretend there’s objective criteria outside our feelings that matter more. We can dismiss our remorse for the losers (the traumatically frustrated) by focusing on the morally right thing to do. This becomes even more important in real world decisions where traumatic frustration (such as death) happens to real people.
(I’ll later argue that the flip-side of this is that in so reducing remorse, it reduces compassion and therefore contributes to suffering, in my later discussions that helping group “A” while hurting group “B” at the heading “REDUCING INCLUSIVE COMPASSION”.)
HOW MORALITY PERMITS OR INCREASES SUFFERING
Now let’s explore the ways in which morality may permit or actually increase suffering. I can think of at least four ways morality can permit or increase suffering. The four ways are:
(3) Killing science and creativity.
And,
(4) Reducing inclusive compassion.
And I’ll throw in a fifth way that complements the fourth way, thus:
(5) Pure morality is a compassion-void, callous reason for action.
(1) “CALLOUS” MORALITIES
First, consider that even while most moralists agree that we have some kind of moral obligation to relieve the suffering of others, there appear to be significant exceptions. The popular morality of Objectivism is one such exception. Indeed, those moralists among us who feel callous and even malevolent toward the suffering of others will find a way to morally justify their refusal to help others. And while altruistic moralists may then protest and call these callous moralists wrong, it fails to persuade. No callous moralist is ever converted to altruism by such moral squabbling. The squabbling is just a pissing match. And the callous moralities continue.
(2) GIVING ‘TILL IT HURTS
Secondly, observe that even the altruistic moral command to relieve the suffering of others may actually create suffering in those so commanded. If everyone has an obligation to relieve the suffering of others, are we, for example, obligated to “give ‘till it hurts” and then maybe even more? And if we are obligated to give ‘till it hurts, what about our own suffering that comes as a result? There might be more suffering than can be relieved by all of us giving ‘till it hurts. And our attempt to relieve all the suffering by commanding everyone to give ‘till it hurts might just result in a lot of people hurting who would otherwise not have been hurting.
Ayn Rand suggests an example:
Two generations of Russians have lived, toiled and died in misery, waiting for the [suffering relieving] abundance promised by their rulers, who pleaded for patience and commanded austerity, while building public “industrialization” and killing public hope in five-year installments.
(Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, P84)
(3) KILLING SCIENCE AND CREATIVITY
Thirdly, with everyone suffering because they are giving ‘till it hurts, little scientific and technological progress can be made towards relieving suffering more effectively in the future. If all of us are everyday out plowing the fields trying to ease all of our current hunger, nobody can specialize in being the scientist who discovers ways to make growing food more efficient. And suffering tends to cripple our capacity to think clearly and logically, the way a scientist needs to think.
We can attempt to remedy this, of course, by saving the scientifically minded from the “toil of the fields”, admitting scientists into the supported elite class, instead of “sacrificing” them to the drudgery of manual labors. I’m suggesting that we spare at least some people the suffering of giving ‘till it hurts so that they can do the mental labor required to produce the kinds of scientific and technological advances that help reduce suffering on a larger scale. But then there’s at least the possibility that the scientists and their expensive projects can burden the manual laborers into much greater levels of misery than otherwise.
Again, Ayn Rand provides the image:
Is science desirable? To whom? Not to the Soviet serfs who die of epidemics, filth, starvation, terror and firing squads – while some bright young men wave to them from space capsules circling over their human pigsties.
(Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, P83)
And Rand’s image is echoed by the Jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron in his song “Whitey on the Moon”:
I can’t pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)
Ten years from now I’ll be payin’ still.
(while Whitey’s on the moon)
The man jus’ upped my rent las’ night.
(‘cause Whitey’s on the moon)
No hot water, no toilets, no lights.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)
I wonder why he’s uppin’ me?
(‘cause Whitey’s on the moon?)
Scott-Heron is suggesting a link between state-funded science and poverty.
And if what Rand and Scott-Heron’s image suggests is true, then we see a failure of labor-exempted science to produce labor-saving discoveries of any use. And we are then back to just a lot of the general population “giving until it really hurts a lot”.
But then, to what degree is Rand and Scott-Heron’s image true? I don’t have the data at hand to evaluate this. So this issue remains an additional point of confusion. [This would be an investigation on Laffer Curve dynamics.]
(4) REDUCING INCLUSIVE COMPASSION
Fourthly, morality seems to psychologically enable people to hurt one group of people in the name of helping another group of people. Reality is such that in order to help one group of people, we must hurt another group of people. Morality tends to focus our minds on the help we render to the one group, and insulate our minds from the harm we do to the other group. As long as we are convinced that helping group “A” is morally right, we can avoid feeling remorse about harming group “B”. As R.G.H. Siu, a writer who was very concerned about the suffering we inflict upon one another, has observed: “Are not major ethical decisions being made by the thousands without explicit reference and serious concern with respect to the consequential suffering, especially on unseen third parties separated by space and time?” (R.G.H. Siu, Understanding and Minimizing the Infliction of Suffering, P323) “Indeed,” writes Nel Noddings in “A Woman’s Answer to Job”, “my great objection to the dominant [ethical] tradition is that it encourages us to seek justification not only for our own suffering but also for the suffering we inflict on each other.”
I will now give you an example in terms of war. As R.G.H. Siu had observed: “… many of the most horrible inflictions have been approved as ethical and moral, such as death-dealing wars and embargoes.” (P323)
Here is my example. I once heard an audio recording of a speech discussing the war in Iraq. (It was called “America Versus Americans”, of which there are several versions you can hear on the internet. The version of the speech that I heard, however, seems to have vanished from the internet.) The speaker, Objectivist Leonard Peikoff, was making a moral case giving U.S. soldiers free reign to kill Iraqi civilians indiscriminately. A member of the audience chastised Peikoff for this, calling Peikoff’s moral stance “disgusting”.
I was stricken by how Peikoff’s morality allows him to promote the killing of innocent people without remorse. His heart and mind were selectively disconnected from the harm he proposes for others. In this speech, he has every opportunity to express some kind, any kind, of remorse for the fate of the innocent. He even has a taunter in the audience who lets him know, in some form, that we expect at least some minimal expression of such remorse. But he will offer none of it. He is working from a strictly moral realm of justification, and without any hint of remorse or apology.
Again, Peikoff is able to disconnect from the suffering of the innocent because he keeps his mind strictly in the realm of morality, as opposed to a compassion that would embrace them even minimally in the form of remorse. He acknowledges their innocence and suffering strictly as a matter of fact, with no feeling, as mere cogs in a moral machine.
I think this part of Peikoff’s speech demonstrates morality’s power to disconnect one’s emotions from the suffering of others, and demonstrates this in the extreme.
But is this a feature of all morality? I suspect that it is, but that it is a matter of degree, depending on how seriously we take our morality. Much of the time, most morality is probably benign and even serves as a loose but functional cue for most of us to curb our malevolence and act kindly. But it is especially when conflicts arise among the beneficiaries of our kindness that we begin to take our morality seriously. This is when our morality lets us favor some beneficiaries without pause or remorse for those we abandon or screw over. So, no, not all morality has the extreme effect as it did for Peikoff. But all morality has the potential to go that extreme. All morality, even at its most benign, or even at its most supportive relationship with compassion, is the seed from which can grow such extremes of callousness and malevolence. All this seed requires to sprout such extremes is a situation where helping someone means hurting someone else.
What about Peikoff, who promotes killing innocent Iraqis in an alleged defense of our own nation? Would he be able to hold such a position if he lacked the morality to help him ignore his own callousness? Maybe. But I’m hedging a strong suspicion that he could not. Without morality, he’d have to face his own callousness head on, and he’d have to plainly display it to others without any compensating excuse. My guess is that having to face and expose such callousness would threaten his own image of himself as a compassionate person. He is, after all, expressing a kind of compassion for the people of the United States, believing we have been attacked by malevolent aggressors supported by the Iraqi government. He may be right or wrong about who initiated the malevolence and aggression. But given what he believes, he views himself as compassionate. He has an image of himself as a compassionate person. So I’m suggesting his own image of himself as a compassionate person can be used to help the cause of compassion generally, so long as we deprive him of his morality-based excuse to selectively abandon compassion.
Another related issue is moral blame. It seems to me that moral blame is a way of killing compassion towards those we blame. Once we say to someone “It is all your fault; you are to blame”, we disconnect ourselves from the possible sufferings of that person and thus fail to feel compassion for that person. Once moral blame is heaped upon someone, it can even seem absurd to feel compassion for that person. For example, we may be so focused on blaming the rapist for his raping that we disconnect from any and all of the ways in which the rapist himself may also be suffering, and thereby feel no compassion for him – and in fact feel only malevolence toward him. As R.G.H. Siu observed that with ethics, “Considerable attention is focused on blaming, with inflicted suffering as punishment.” (P323)
So these are what I see as the psychological ways morality can reduce inclusive compassion. And now I’d like to proceed to a bonus fifth point to help explain this reduction in inclusive compassion.
(5) PURE MORALITY IS IN PRINCIPLE A COMPASSION-VOID REASON FOR ACTION
Fifthly, I maintain that pure morality is compassion-void in logical principle.
But only pure morality is compassion-void. Morality deliberately mixed with compassion is another story leading to a confusion of its own. And I will cover this other story later. But for now I want to focus on morality that isn’t mixed with compassion and is therefore morality in its purest form.
Anyway, this fifth point about pure morality constitutes the logical makeup of morality that makes possible the psychological selective callousness in the fourth point above.
Pure morality is necessarily and logically callous, and this logical callousness is precisely why I suspect it leads to the psychological callousness described in point four above.
This does not mean all moralists are callous. It just means that their stated purely moral reasons for relieving the suffering of others are callous. Moralists, as people, aren’t necessarily callous, but pure morality itself necessarily is. And I suspect that sometimes the callousness of pure morality can make a moralist into a callous person, as described in point four above.
A summary of the logic of pure morality’s callousness runs roughly as follows:
PREMISE 1: Compassion is a desire. (the desire to relieve suffering)
PREMISE 2: Pure morality is a desire-void reason for action. (morality prohibits just going about acting on our desires, which are subjective and self-based)
SUB-CONCLUSION 1A: Therefore, pure morality is a compassion-void reason for action. (‘cause compassion is a desire, which is subjective and self-based)
SUB-CONCLUSION 1B: In other words, pure morality comprises reasons for action other than compassion (or any desire).
PREMISE 3: The absence of compassion toward suffering is callousness.
CONCLUSION: Pure morality is therefore a callous (non-compassionate) reason for action.
But now let’s unpack this summary and look at the details.
PREMISE 1: Compassion is a desire.
Compassion is a type of desire. It is the desire that the suffering of others be relieved. It could specifically be what I call “action compassion”, which is the desire to act toward relieving the suffering of others. Or it could be what I call “third party action compassion”, which is the desire that other people’s suffering be relieved by the efforts of people other than one’s self. So anyway, there are various types of compassion. But whatever the type, when the suffering of others is relieved, this desire, compassion, is gratified; and those who felt the compassion are happy (or at least relieved).
PREMISE 2: Pure morality is a desire-void reason for action.
Pure morality is made of obligatory commands for action, not desires for action. A pure moral command (or “duty” or “obligation” or “responsibility”) tells us what we must do (or not do) regardless of our desires about it – or regardless of whether we even have any desires about it.
One way we know this is because the pure moral command supposedly overrules desire as a reason for action. That’s how we regularly use pure morality.
Indeed, we most often call upon the desire-overruling property of pure morality to get people to act contrary to their desires. Moral commands tell the killer who desires to kill, not to kill, and tells the greedy who desire to hoard everything for themselves, to share instead. And every parent’s first instinct to get their children not to act on their desires to beat up other kids, is the moral command not to beat up other kids.
Here’s another way we know that pure morality is desire-void:
Pure morality’s reasons for action are always objective facts about the way things are outside of our mental realms. Whereas desires are subjective feelings inside our mental realms. Why must we obey a pure moral command? Because of something objective, like God’s divine plan, or the sacredness of nature, or the way things were “meant to be”, or that which is objectively appropriate, or because people have rights, and so on. But never because we just subjectively feel like it.
These two features of pure morality combine, such that the objectivity of pure morality’s reasons for action overrule subjective desire-based reason for action. And this can be useful in resolving conflicts that occur between desire-based reasons for action. Betty wants to kill Tyrone but Tyrone wants to live. There’s no way to decide whether Betty gets to kill Tyrone if we just go by their subjective desires. So we call upon the objective reasons for action provided by pure morality. Tyrone has an objective (or “God given”) right to keep living (and that overrules Betty’s subjective desire to kill him).
So the point here is: in order for pure morality’s objective reasons for action to overrule subjective desire-based reasons for action, pure morality’s objective reasons must themselves be something other than what they overrule – they must be something other than desire – they must be desire-void.
Therefore, pure morality’s objective reasons for action are desire-void.
SUB-CONCLUSION 1A: Therefore, pure morality is a compassion-void reason for action. (‘cause compassion is a desire, which is subjective and self-based)
This just follows from the two previous premises.
If compassion is a desire, and pure morality is a desire-void reason for action, then pure morality is a compassion-void reason for action.
SUB-CONCLUSION 1B: In other words, pure morality comprises reasons for action other than compassion (or any desire).
Self-explanatory. If pure morality is a compassion-void reason for action, then it must comprise reasons for action other than compassion.
PREMISE 3: The absence of compassion toward suffering is callousness.
I take this as obvious. It’s almost the very definition of callousness.
CONCLUSION: Pure morality is therefore a callous (non-compassionate) reason for action.
I’m certainly not the first and only person to understand morality this way. 18th century moral philosopher Emmanuel Kant famously described morality in terms of desire-void duty. As Ayn Rand explains:
The arch-advocate of “duty” [and therefore morality in general, says I, Luke] is Emmanuel Kant; he went so much farther than other theorists that they seem innocently benevolent by comparison. “Duty,” he holds, is the only standard of virtue; but virtue is not its own reward: if a reward is involved, it is no longer virtue. The only moral motivation, he holds, is devotion to duty for duty’s sake; only an action motivated exclusively by such devotion is a moral action (i.e., an action performed without any concern for “inclination” [desire {including the desire to ease suffering, says I, Luke}] or self-interest).
(Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It, P96)
[The quote uses the term “motivation” differently than I do, implying that motivation can include a “moral motivation”, the compulsion to act on moral duty.]
Let me repeat the crucial part of that: “…if a reward is involved, it is no longer virtue.” This means that if a desire is gratified, it is not moral. And since compassion is a desire, if compassionate desire is gratified, it is not moral. Purely moral reasons for action are desire-void, therefore compassion-void and callous.
Kant’s description of morality is often given the technical name “deontological.”
In a deontological theory, all personal desires are banished from the realm of morality; a personal desire [including the desire to ease the suffering of others] has no moral significance, be it a desire to create or a desire to kill. … If a man wants to be honest [or to ease suffering], he deserves no moral credit; as Kant would put it, such honesty [or compassion] is “praiseworthy,” but without “moral import.” Only a vicious represser, who feels a profound desire to lie, cheat and steal, but forces himself to act honestly for the sake of “duty,” would receive a recognition of moral worth from Kant and his ilk.
(Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It, P97)
[Note: I happen to regard deontological/duty-based morality as the only valid kind of moral theory. Consequentialism, for example, is an unstable position that, when challenged by rigorous logic, slides into either a deontological/duty-based theory, or slides into blatant non-moralism altogether. Therefore, when I see passages discussing duty/deontology, I regard the discussion as applicable to all morality.]
Here’s another passage from Kant himself that reinforces this point, wherein Kant describes a self-absorbed philanthropist who feels no compassion (he is callous), yet is morally good because he helps people from a sense of compassion-void duty:
Suppose then the mind of this friend of mankind to be clouded over with his own sorrow so that all sympathy with the lot of others is extinguished, and suppose him still to have the power to benefit others in distress, even though he is not touched by their trouble because he is sufficiently absorbed with his own; and now suppose that, even though no inclination moves him any longer, he nevertheless tears himself from this deadly insensibility and performs the action without any inclination at all, but solely from duty--then for the first time his action has genuine moral worth.
(Emmanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, tr. James W. Ellington. In Ethical philosophy Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1983, P11)
So this concludes my fifth point, which is meant to complement my fourth point about how morality often leads to a selective callousness, or reduces inclusive compassion.
What I’ve covered so far largely explains my confusion about whether morality ultimately increases or decreases compassion and our tendency to relieve one another’s suffering.
INJECTING COMPASSION INTO MORALITY
But there’s more to the story of my confusion. It goes deeper into some details that I hope will interest you. This deeper confusion pertains to what happens when we try to mix compassion into morality. If “pure morality” is compassion-void, can we solve this problem by injecting compassion into morality?
Mixing compassion into morality, such that morality’s command to relieve the suffering of others agrees with one’s desire to relieve the suffering of others, is what I call “compassion convergence”. Moral duty and compassionate desire converge on the same action. Unless otherwise specified, I’ll just use the single word “convergence” in place of “compassion convergence”.
THE “HOW MANY TANKS” QUESTION
My first confusion about the convergence situation pertains to whether moral duty and compassionate desire trade off occupying “mental space”. When we feel moral duty, does that feeling occupy mental space that could have been occupied by feeling compassionate desire instead? And does that occupation therefore reduce the amount of compassionate desire we feel?
I call this the “How Many Tanks” question.
Imagine our minds have finite capacities to feel things like moral duty or compassionate desire. These finite capacities are like tanks that can be filled with fluids. When we feel the maximum possible amount of moral duty, it could be said that our moral duty tank is full. Correspondingly with compassionate desire. But the question is: do moral duty and compassionate desire share the same tank? Or do they each have their own? If they share the same tank, then whatever amount of moral duty is in that tank displaces the compassionate desire that could have been there instead, thereby reducing the amount of compassionate desire we could have otherwise felt. But if they each have their separate tanks, then neither could displace the other and moral duty could not reduce our capacity for compassionate desire.
Answering this question, if it can be answered, would require psychological research that I suspect has never been done.
But it can be asserted with some certainty that moral duty and compassionate desire share the same tank in one respect: time. The time we spend feeling moral duty (pure moral duty) does reduce the time we could have spent feeling compassionate desire instead. But the question here is: is there some mental mechanism connected to moral duty that compensates for this reduction of compassionate desire by increasing the capacity of the shared tank in a dimension other than time, such as intensity? Does moral duty take time from compassionate desire, but give more intensity to compassionate desire?
Again, another uninvestigated issue for psychological study.
POSSIBLE WEAK HAPPINESS FOR THOSE WHO GIVE 'TILL IT HURTS
My second confusion about convergence pertains to whether convergence succeeds at solving the problem of giving ‘till it hurts and then some.
I have previously mentioned my concern about this problem. (It was my second way that morality can cause suffering covered above.) Convergence can be seen as an attempt to solve this problem. By assuring that we have both moral duty and compassionate desire to relieve the suffering of others, we can assure that when we do act to relieve suffering, we get our compassionate desires gratified, and are therefore happy to some degree. As we do our duty to relieve suffering, we also gratify our compassionate desires and feel happy. But I’m skeptical of, and therefore confused about, whether convergence supplies enough gratification to overcome the problem of giving ‘till it hurts.
Consider that on the one hand, we make relieving suffering our moral duty precisely because we regard our compassion as too weak to get us to actually go out there and relieve the suffering of others. Moral duty makes us do what weak compassionate desires won’t. The important thing here is the premise that compassionate desires are too weak.
Now, on the other hand, if our compassionate desires are too weak, then gratifying them leads to a correspondingly weak happiness. And this weak happiness cannot compensate for the misery of being morally commanded to act. The weakness of our compassion means that our compassion was opposed by even stronger selfish desires that conflicted with it. Those stronger selfish desires were frustrated by the moral command to relieve suffering, therefore causing at least some suffering. If the weak happiness of gratifying weak compassionate desires and the suffering of frustrating the stronger selfish desires are proportional to the strength of the desires involved, then likely the happiness of gratifying the compassionate desires was less than the suffering of frustrating the stronger selfish desires. And in this case suffering still wins. And maybe it wins by a significant degree.
Maybe. Maybe not. It remains conceivable that these relationships are not proportional at all. Gratifying the weaker compassionate desires may generate a happiness stronger than the suffering of frustrating the stronger selfish desires. In this case happiness wins.
But again, this is probably a matter for science to study.
PROBLEMS WITH SPECIFIC TYPES OF CONVERGENCE
But now let’s consider some specific ways we might try injecting compassionate desire into morality. The first of these is what I call “morally commanded compassion”.
MORALLY COMMANDED COMPASSION
Morally commanded compassion is when it is our moral duty to feel compassionate desire, and of sufficient intensity to make us act on that compassion, thus relieving the suffering of others.
The problem with this is that it is unclear whether compassionate desires can be commanded into existence. Can we truly feel compassionate desire because we are morally commanded to feel it?
On the one hand, I suppose we could be morally “guilted” into at least trying or pretending to feel compassion. And maybe our attempt to feel more compassion might actually work to some degree.
But I seriously doubt that a moral command can make people genuinely feel a compassion they would have otherwise not felt. Moral philosopher Immanuel Kant agrees here. He stated: “… love as an inclination cannot be commanded.”
COMPASSION TRIGGERED RELIEF DUTY
And here’s a confusing type of convergence. What happens to compassionate desire when acting on it is our moral duty?
This type of convergence I call “Compassion Triggered Relief Duty”. This is when our compassion triggers moral duty to relieve the suffering of others. It’s like moral duty is sitting around waiting for us to have compassion. And when we do have compassion, moral duty springs into action, commanding us to relieve the suffering specified by the compassion.
While the two confusions I have about all convergence apply here (“how many tanks” and “weak happiness”), this specific type of convergence presents an additional confusion.
Here is my confusion:
On the one hand, it could be that we feel more compassion because it is the trigger involved here. By making compassion the trigger for moral duty, moral duty therefore makes us pay more attention to our compassion, and thereby makes us nurture our compassion to some degree we otherwise would not. This seems plausible and even likely.
On the other hand, it could be that we feel less compassion because it is merely a trigger and not the real reason we act. Compassion could atrophy precisely because moral duty does almost all the real work of getting us to act. It’s like: “Why bother nurturing my compassion? I’m commanded to act regardless.” This seems less plausible and likely, but still possible.
This type of convergence also puts a new spin on the problem of weak happiness for those who give ‘till it hurts. We might also develop a resentment toward those who suffer and therefore inspire compassion in us. And this could lead us to avoid compassion with a kind of “pre-emptive callousness”. It’s like: “Damn you! Your suffering is gonna inspire compassion in me, which will trigger my moral obligation to help you. And then I’ll be suffering too! So I’m gonna ignore your suffering to avoid all that.” It is preemptive callousness. This also seems plausible and even likely.
But maybe this compassion triggered relief duty convergence has no effect on compassion either way.
SUFFERING TRIGGERED RELIEF DUTY
Now I want to discuss a type of moral triggering that can easily be mistaken for a type of convergence, but which is not convergence at all.
Instead of making compassionate desire the trigger for relief duty, make the suffering of others the real relief trigger. Compassion or not, the suffering of others triggers your moral duty to act and relieve that suffering. (This is simply called “Altruism”.)
This type of moral triggering can be seen as an attempt to fix some of the problems of compassion-triggered relief duty convergence, especially the problem of pre-emptive callousness toward those who suffer, since they trigger compassion that in turn triggers the suffering of morally giving ‘till it hurts. The attitude here is: “Forget convergence altogether. No use trying to mix or inject compassion into morality. We just have the moral duty to relieve the suffering of others no matter our desires.”
While suffering triggered relief duty implores us to “forget convergence”, a type of convergence may still happen here: accidental convergence.
ACCIDENTAL CONVERGENCE
Accidental convergence is when morality simply commands us to relieve the suffering of others no matter our desires, but we just happen to feel a compassionate desire to relieve suffering as well.
The only confusions associated with accidental convergence are those that apply to all convergence in general: the “how many tanks” problem and the “weak happiness” problem.
REDUNDANT CONVERGENCE
Now I want to consider the type of convergence in which compassionate desire is strong enough on its own to get us to act, to actually go out there and relieve the suffering of others. In this case the moral command to relieve the suffering of others is redundant.
Any of the types of convergence I have so far covered could also be redundant convergences. Even compassion triggered relief duty convergence could be redundant. The very compassion that triggers moral relief duty could also be sufficient on its own to inspire suffering relief action. Although we rely on compassion triggered relief duty convergence to compensate for compassion that is too weak to inspire action, our compassion may not always be too weak. Sometimes it could be strong enough, depending on the person, the time of day, the relation to the suffering person, and so on.
When moral commands are redundant like this, morality itself is unnecessary, even useless – pointless.
But moral commands are rarely redundant like this, so we keep morality around to handle the usual case in which compassionate desires are too weak. And this presents the confusions I have explored so far.
DUTY TRIGGERED GRATIFICATION
Now I want to mention a relationship between desire-void duty and the desire to perform such duty. This is where someone desires to do their moral duty, such that when they comply with their duty, they have a desire gratified.
This is a type of convergence, but this type of convergence has little to do with mixing compassion into morality. It is not compassion convergence. The desire involved here isn’t compassionate desire, but rather the desire to follow orders and be a “good” person.
Another variation of this is when someone desires to be acknowledged by others as a morally virtuous person, and therefore obeys moral duty to gratify that desire.
Although this type of convergence isn’t a compassion convergence, it can accompany any of the other compassion convergence types I have been discussing, and thereby become confused with a compassion convergence.
CHECKING IN WITH THE CONFUSION
Well, the whole point of what I’ve so far written is that I’m confused and skeptical about whether morality actually relieves more suffering than it creates, even when we try to inject and mix compassionate desire into desire-void moral duty. And I’ve hinted that some scientific studies might ease this confusion.
Now I want to explore another confusion I have that involves morality.
3: IF MORALITY PERMITS OR INCREASES SUFFERING, CAN WE FIX IT?
Suppose morality really does create or permit more suffering than it relieves and is a threat to compassion in the ways I have been suggesting. And suppose that the various ways of injecting compassion into morality are also failures. My next confusion pertains to whether we can fix this problem.
If morality is real such that we really do have Kantian deontological desire-void moral duties, then the solution lay in ignoring them, which, for many people, may not be possible.
If morality is a delusion such that Kantian deontological desire-void duties don’t exist, then the solution would be to expose morality as the delusion it is. And I doubt this would work very well either. If morality is a delusion, it is a delusion that humanity is too naturally prone to have. The morality delusion is a trait that the human mind has evolved through the forces of natural selection. Morality likely had survival value at some point in our past, and perhaps has survival value today. Consider that merely acting according to our desires can get us into trouble, especially as children. We need some way to overrule harmful desires, and morality is that way that evolved. Recall the four suffering-reducing advantages to overruling desires I described previously.
So I really can’t tell whether we can even fix the problem.
4: IF MORALITY PERMITS OR INCREASES SUFFERING, HOW CAN WE TRY TO FIX IT?
But suppose we try to fix morality’s increased suffering problem anyway. Even here there is confusion.
There are two basic competing methods to fix the problem and I’m confused about which one is more effective.
METHOD 1: Redefine morality as compassion (or at least benevolence). In other words, get rid of morality. Then make compassion and benevolence take over all the old moral terminology. From then on, when people speak of the moral “good” or “duty”, it really means compassion or benevolence. And so from then on morality is just compassion and benevolence dressed up and disguised as the old morality we got rid of.
METHOD 2: Don’t bother redefining morality. Just get rid of morality – ignore it. Don’t use moral words like “duty” anymore. Don’t even use words that could have a moral meaning in a moral context anymore. Pretend like morality doesn’t exist. When we talk about helping others, we use only words like “help”, “compassion” and “benevolence”.
I can see advantages and disadvantages in both methods.
The advantage of METHOD 1 is that it capitalizes on our habit of using moral terminology. We can keep using all the moral words to which we’ve grown accustomed. Secondly, it also capitalizes on our intuition that morality has a stronger claim on our behavior than mere compassionate desires. Morality is supposed to overrule desires. That’s why we call upon it to get people to behave a certain way in spite of their desires not to behave that way. So there’s a strength this method tries to barrow from Kantian deontological desire-void morality, without actually being Kantian deontological desire-void morality.
The disadvantage of METHOD 1 is that we need to redefine all those moral words in our minds, in terms of compassion and benevolence. And this can be quite the disadvantage because many moralists will refuse to do it, bringing back all the old definitions and sense of morality as Kantian compassion-void duty. And the presence of all these old school moralists will confuse many of us. Secondly the attempt to borrow strength from Kantian deontological desire-void morality without actually being Kantian deontological desire-void morality must fail. You can’t have the strength without that source of that strength. And the source of that strength is Kantian deontological desire-void morality. So the attempt to borrow that strength only sets us on a slippery slope back into Kantian deontological desire-void morality.
The advantage of METHOD 2 is that it makes clear that we are talking about compassion and benevolence when we mean to talk about compassion and benevolence. There’s no confusion between compassionate desires on the one hand, and Kantian compassion-void moral duty on the other. Instances of compassion convergence no longer occur and confuse us.
The disadvantage of METHOD 2 is that we need to sell the idea to a public that is likely unwilling to part with morality, or even moral terminology.
Interestingly, METHOD 1 is actually being attempted by a scholar named Alonzo Fyfe. He has constructed a moral theory called “Desire Utilitarianism”, or more recently simply called “Desirism”. According to desirism, morality is the realm of reasons for action. And desire is the only reason for action that exists. In other words, Kantian deontological desire-void duty does not even exist, leaving desire as the only moral reason for action, including compassionate desire.
METHOD 2 has also been attempted, by me. I tried to construct a philosophy called “Secular Benevolism”. This philosophy takes no stand on whether Kantian deontological desire-void morality exists, but rather that if it does exist, we might relieve more of one another’s suffering if we ignore it and speak only of our desires to relieve such suffering. As such, Secular Benevolism is a benevolent and compassionate non-moralism.
Both these methods aim at trying to get people to feel more compassion and benevolence, and thus act on it, causing a reduction in suffering.
Alonzo Fyfe’s Desirism posits that desires are somewhat malleable, such that through praise and condemnation, we can get people to feel more compassion and benevolence, what he calls “good” desires.
My Secular Benevolism posits that:
(1) Removing all morality and moral terminology from the realm of behavior will deprive us of our capacity to morally rationalize our callousness and malevolence. As in, we can no longer say things like: “Don’t blame me for hurting those people. I was only doing my moral duty.” This is especially relevant in those cases where helping group “A” also hurts group “B”. We can no longer rationalize hurting group “B” by reference to our moral duty to help group “A”.
(2) It therefore forces us to own the balance of compassion and benevolence versus callousness and malevolence we feel.
(3) Most of us have a natural desire to favor compassion and benevolence. Most of us have an image of ourselves as compassionate and benevolent.
(4) Most of us therefore would feel a more inclusive compassion. When helping group “A” hurts group “B”, our inclusive compassion for both groups can prompt us to seek solutions that help both parties, or at least reduces the harm to group “B”.
The end result is the same as for Alonzo Fyfe’s Desirism. We end up feeling more compassion and benevolence, what he calls “good” desires.
But returning to my confusion about which method is more effective, I must confess that I don’t know. Perhaps using both methods would cover more ground than either one alone. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Perhaps neither method makes any difference at all, as people will always adhere to Kantian deontological desire-void morality no matter what Alonzo and I write.
If morality does increase or permit more suffering than it relieves, perhaps it just can’t be fixed.
[I explore this issue deeper in my writing, “Desire Utilitarianism Versus Secular Benevolism”]
5: DOES MORALITY EVEN EXIST?
My next confusion about morality is whether it even exists.
BY MORALITY, I MEAN DEONTOLOGICAL, DESIRE-VOID (MOTIVATION-VOID) MORALITY
But first let me state once again that when I speak of morality and its phenomena here, I mean the Kantian deontological desire-void sense of morality only. I’m not talking about any of the various attempts to inter-theoretically reduce Kantian deontological desire-void morality to desire or its related phenomena, such as gratification or happiness. In my book, these intertheoretic reductions just attempt to disguise desire as deontological morality in order to cater to our intuition that morality is stronger than desire – to borrow the strength of morality without the cause of that strength. I regard Kantian deontological desire-void morality as the only morality. I think Kant had it right. Also, I regard consequentialism and utilitarianism and so on as logically unstable positions that, when logical rigor is applied to them, reduce either to Kantian deontological desire-void morality, or reduce to straight up non-moralism. This means that when I look at consequentialism or utilitarianism, I see Kantian deontological desire-void morality lurking at some essential place within. And to eliminate the Kantian stuff would make it all collapse to desire and gratification and happiness – non-morality.
MY VIEW OF MORAL PHENOMENA
Here’s my predicament:
First, I do not feel moral phenomena like duty, obligation, right or responsibility. I cannot see good or evil. When it comes to morality or any moral phenomena I just don’t detect any of it.
From my perspective, my failure to detect the existence of morality or its phenomena could have either one of two causes:
Cause 1: Moral phenomena exist, and I am unable to detect them. I am “morally blind”.
Cause 2: Moral phenomena do not exist. There’s nothing for me to detect. And moralists who claim to detect moral phenomena are delusional.
MY VIEW OF ARGUMENTS FOR MORALITY
Furthermore, I’ve never encountered an argument for the existence of moral phenomena that convinced me that such phenomena exist.
From my perspective, my failure to be convinced by argument for the existence of morality or its phenomena could have any one of four causes:
Case 1: Morality does exist. And, an argument that would convince me does exist, but I just have not encountered it yet.
Case 2: Morality does exist. But an argument that would convince me does not exist and cannot exist in principle.
Case 3: Morality does not exist. Those who believe in morality are delusional. But, bizarrely, an argument that would convince me of morality’s existence does exist, and I just have not encountered it yet. I can yet be converted to the delusion.
Case 4: Morality does not exist. Those who believe in morality are delusional. And an argument that would convince me of morality’s existence does not exist and cannot exist in principle.
Whatever the cause, I can’t tell whether morality exists or not. (I call this inability to tell “meta-ethical agnosticism”.) Yet the vast majority of people swear morality does exist. Most folks report feeling moral obligations and so on. They report that certain arguments for the existence of morality are convincing. But I still have logical reasons to doubt the reports of moralists.
There are two reasons I cannot trust the reports of moralists. The first reason for this doubt is that all the moralist arguments for the existence of morality and moral phenomena that I’ve so far encountered just fail. The second reason is that, to me, moralists seem to be in denial of moral anti-realism. That is, it seems like moralists believe in moral phenomena because believing so is emotionally helpful, not because they really do exist. And people do seem to believe in all sorts of emotionally helpful myths.
On the other hand, I cannot completely dismiss the claims of moralists. Failed arguments for the existence of moral phenomena do not necessarily mean moral phenomena are a myth. It could be that moral phenomena do indeed exist, but that their existence either has not yet been successfully demonstrated by argument, or that their existence cannot be demonstrated by argument in principle, such as with many philosophically fundamental phenomena, like consciousness. Also, just because moral phenomena are emotionally helpful to believe in, this does not necessarily mean they are a myth. It just might be the case that moral phenomena do exist, and that believing in them just happens to be emotionally helpful.
Finally, I also realize that believing moral anti-realism also offers some emotional help, and thus makes me appear to be in denial of moral realism. Either side can reasonably accuse the other of pragmatically believing a myth (and of being in denial of the truth). And this is the ultimate confusion.
Now let’s examine the details of my meta-ethical position: mainly the failed arguments and the likelihood of denial based on the emotional helpfulness of believing in moral realism.
Let’s begin by addressing the flawed arguments. But as I address them, I will also speculate a little about the denial aspect. And when I’m done with the flawed arguments, I’ll focus exclusively on the denial aspect.
FLAWED ARGUMENTS FOR MORAL REALISM
Moralists have several arguments for the existence of moral phenomena. But I see these arguments as falling into three basic categories that ultimately fail:
ARGUMENT FROM VOLITION
The argument from volition runs like this:
Premise 1: We have volition.
Premise 2: Because we have volition, our behavior would be indeterministically chaotic if we didn’t have morality to guide our choices in an ordered fashion.
Premise 3: Our behavior is not indeterministically chaotic. We behave significantly in an ordered fashion.
Conclusion: Morality and moral phenomena must exist as precisely that which guides our volition toward ordered behavior.
I believe this is the full argument that is often expressed in abbreviated form “We need morality to guide our volition, otherwise we could not survive the chaos that would ensue.”
The argument from volition fails because premise 1 may be false (we might not have volition), and Premise 2 is false (even if we do have volition, morality is not the only phenomena that could guide and order our choices. Desire could guide and order them instead).
We might not have volition because there’s no evidence for it, and no argument for it that could not be defeated by replacing volition with desire.
The evidence for volition is supposed to be available through direct introspection. Just look inside your mind and you will find yourself making choices. But these choices more precisely resemble the formation of desire preferences. These preferences often become rationalized as choices made for reasons other than desire preferences. But this could be just because the subject has an additional desire to “disown” their desire preferences. I’ll have much more to say about this “disowning” later.
In my opinion the strongest argument for volition is the one demonstrating that volition is axiomatic, i.e., that the very act of denying volition (proposing determinism) requires volition. It goes like this:
Premise 1: For us to know the theory determinism is true, the theory of determinism must be arrived at by being objective. We can’t establish determinism as true just by wishing it or being all subjective about it. “Truth judgements” require Objectivity.
Premise 2: Objectivity requires mental focus on the facts of reality.
Premise 3: We are not automatically in mental focus all the time. We frequently and randomly go out of mental focus.
Premise 4: To prevent ourselves from frequently and randomly losing focus, we need volition so we can choose to be in focus long enough to be objective in our thinking about a topic, such as the topic of determinism.
Premise 5: Objectivity thus requires a sustained mental focus which can only exist if volition exists, so that we can choose that focus.
Conclusion: To know whether determinism is true requires objectivity, which requires volition. Therefore determinism cannot be true.
This argument fails at Premise 4. Mental focus need not be chosen through volition. Mental focus can be achieved by simply desiring it. Desires are deterministic. And objectivity is therefore possible deterministically. It just means that who is objective and who is not is a matter of deterministic factors controlling their desire for that focus and objectivity. Those who desire to focus and be objective can know whether or not a theory is true, including the theory of determinism. Therefore, our knowing the truth of determinism is compatible with determinism being true.
But even if we do have volition, morality need not be that single realm which guides and brings order to it. Desire could just as well guide and order it. Moralists may object to having volition guided by a deterministic phenomena like desire. Having deterministic desire rule over volition rather defeats the effect of volition in the first place. But desire is no more deterministic than morality. Morality is supposed to be determined by the facts, not some optional willy-nilly flux of arbitrariness. The deterministic nature of the moral good is precisely its effectiveness in giving order to an otherwise chaotic volition. So if moralists have a problem with a deterministic phenomenon “ruling over” volition, they have to explain why they’re ok with having the determined nature of morality rule over volition instead.
The only true objection to having desire guide volition is that desires aren’t all morally good. But this objection is irrelevant here. We are here only concerned with taming a chaotically indeterministic volition. Not only that but the objection is also circular in the context of arguing for the existence of moral phenomena.
I said that I’d have more to say about desire disowning later. I have something to say about it presently. I believe I have just given an example of how philosophers have evaded the relevance of desire. They have ignored the possible role of desire in focusing and being objective. They have ignored the possible role of desire in guiding (or even replacing) volition. This desire-evasive philosophizing is to me evidence that they want to disown their own desires.
Desire disowning will also show up in the other two basic categories of arguments for morality that I will now address: the disowned bold assertion and the disowned appeal to desire.
DISOWNED BOLD ASSERTION
A disowned bold assertion is an argument that reduces to a bold assertion for the existence of moral phenomena, but which is disguised as an argument from prior premises, probably because the arguer desires to “disown” the fact that he is just making a bold assertion – and then disown that very desire. In this category we will find all the failed attempts at arguing an “ought” from an “is”, wherein it turns out to be just a bold assertion of “ought”. Also in this category are arguments that accuse the meta-ethical agnostic of knowing deep down that moral phenomena do exist, but of denying it to escape moral responsibility.
Disowned bold assertion number 1: Failed “ought” from “is” arguments.
Philosopher David Hume is credited with the statement “No ought from an is” and the supporting arguments. But his exact intention with that argument is up for much debate. I want to steer clear of that debate by ignoring Hume and inserting my own interpretation of that famous phrase. To me, the phrase shall mean that one cannot collect a bunch of morally void facts about the word (the “is”) and derive through logical argument the existence of a moral phenomena (the “ought”). Any attempt to do so is always circular. If one has apparently demonstrated the existence of a moral phenomena, one has only done so because he has snuck in the existence of a moral phenomena within the premises of his argument. The sneaking-in reduces to a bold assertion. Bold assertion and circularity are two sides of the same problem for an argument.
Overly simple example: One morally ought to eat healthy food. The argument for this is because eating healthy food contributes optimally to one’s survival. And one morally ought to survive. Therefore, there is such a thing as a moral ought.
Here the ought has been “snuck” into the premises of the argument. You ought to eat because you ought to survive. The “ought” of survival is a bold assertion of moral phenomena, making the argument for the moral phenomena circular.
Stronger example: One morally ought to survive because if you die, you can’t even consider the issue. You need to survive to even consider whether you morally ought to survive. Therefore, you morally ought to survive. Here the fact that you need to survive in order to consider the issue is the “is” from which can be concluded that one must survive, which is the moral “ought”.
But the real argument smuggles moral “ought” into its first premise in place of the “is”.
Near as I can tell, this is the real argument:
Premise 1: There exists a moral “ought” called “survival”.
Premise 2: Survival is a base level moral “ought”. (The reason it is “base level” is explained in the next premise.)
Premise 3: The basic fact that we ought to survive is a base-level moral “ought” that extends an additional meta-level “ought” dictating that we morally ought to discover that basic fact. Not only ought you do it, but you ought to discover that you ought to do it. All base level moral “oughts” extend this additional moral “ought” about the base level moral “ought” (a meta-level “ought”), namely that one ought to discover the existence of that base level moral “ought”. [In a later writing titled “Cognitive Prerequisite Bating”, I give this form of argument another name (Cognitive Prerequisite bating), and offer what I take to be an example.]
Premise 4: One morally ought to satisfy whatever conditions are required to discover that one morally ought to survive.
Premise 5: Survival is a condition required to discover that one “ought” to survive. (Survival is also its own extended meta-level “ought”.)
Conclusion: One morally ought to survive. (There exists a moral “ought” called “survival”.)
Hence the argument is circular. It begins in premise 1 asserting the existence of a moral “ought”, which is what it concludes. In this real argument, the “ought” is a bold and circular assertion. The original abbreviated version of the argument relies on our intuitive understanding that we must survive in order to know whether survival is an “ought”, and that this is a fact, an “is”. As such, the abbreviated version pulls a fast one on us, making it easy to disown the fact that it is really a bold assertion.
Disowned bold assertion number 2: Accusations of denial.
This is when the moralist states something like: “Moral phenomena exist. You non-moralists know moral phenomena exist, but are just denying it to avoid moral responsibility.” *This is essentially still just a bold assertion behind a smokescreen of psychological speculation about plausible reasons why someone would willfully deny what has been asserted. The bold asserter just shifts attention to these plausible reasons to distract everyone from the fact that she has made a bold assertion.
I want to point out that the previous paragraph contains my own counter accusation of denial, beginning at the asterisk. I have boldly accused the bold asserter of boldly asserting something for which there is no evidence or good argument, and denying it by throwing up a smokescreen of accusation. There is a pattern of mutual accusation here.
Bold asserter A: “You are in denial of my theory.”
Bold asserter B: “You just accuse me of denial because you are in denial of my theory.”
Bold asserter A: “You just accuse me of that because you are in denial of my accusation of your denial about my theory.”
And so on ad nauseum.
The meta-ethical agnostic is aware of this mutual accusation dynamic, and ultimately how logically inconclusive it is. Both parties’ accusations fail because the other party’s counter accusation undercuts our own, and has as much validity (or lack of validity) as our own. The mutual accusation dynamic is the mutual undercutting dynamic. The meta-ethical agnostic’s awareness of this mutual undercutting dynamic is also the major reason the meta-ethical agnostic is agnostic, rather than straight up moral anti-realist. The moralist’s accusation of denial could be correct. The meta-ethical agnostic could be in denial. After all, people in denial often don’t know they are in denial. So the meta-ethical agnostic allows for this possibility. But it remains inconclusive because the moral anti-realist’s counter accusation could be the true one.
But whether or not the meta-ethical agnostic truly is in denial, the moralist’s claim still reduces to a bold assertion. And the accompanying accusation of denial makes it look like a bold assertion the moralist is trying to disown as a bold assertion. At best, the moralist can say: “Well it may be a bold assertion, but the moral anti-realist is so much in denial that she can’t see that the bold assertion is valid.”
Regardless, the bold assertion fails to prove or demonstrate the existence of moral phenomena. Now on to the disowned desire appeal.
DISOWNED DESIRE APPEAL (DISOWNED MOTIVATION APPEAL)
A disowned desire appeal is an argument that reduces to an appeal to desire, but which is disguised as an argument from prior premises, probably because the arguer desires to “disown” the fact that he is appealing to desire – and then disown that very desire. In this category we will find all the failed arguments that implicitly take the form “But if you don’t do what you morally should do, something will happen that you desire not to happen.” [I consider all appeals to “equal footing phobia” to be a variant on this form of argument.]
An example of the real argument runs like this:
Premise 1: Moral phenomena exist, among which is duty.
Premise 2: If you shirk your duty, you’ll burn in hell.
Premise 3: You don’t want to burn in hell.
Conclusion A: You therefore want to do your duty.
Conclusion B: Duty therefore exists.
Conclusion C: Therefore, moral phenomena exist.
So again we see circular bold assertion as with the “is” / “ought” type arguments, but with a special twist. It tries to scare you into believing in moral phenomena. But logically it begins with what it tries to scare you into believing, so it isn’t really a logical argument at all. But it tries to look like a logical argument, and therefore “disown” the fact that it is really a logically invalid appeal to desire.
More complex version:
Premise 1: There exists a scientifically verifiable optimal course of action to achieve human flourishing.
Premise 2: Human flourishing is the moral good (and that course of action is the moral good).
Premise 3: Moral good is a moral phenomena.
Conclusion: Moral phenomena exist.
This argument tries to pull a fast one on us at Premise 2, expecting us to equate human flourishing with moral good. But really, human flourishing is nothing more than a high rate of desire gratification. So human flourishing is something most of us desire. The argument appeals to our desire, expecting us to confuse our desire with moral good. (And many of us do confuse the two.)
This is, unless human flourishing really is the moral good and not desire gratification, in which case we get circularity again, like this:
Premise 1: Moral phenomena exist, among which is moral good.
Premise 2: Human flourishing is the moral good.
Premise 3: There exists a scientifically verifiable optimal course of action to achieve human flourishing.
Premise 4: There exists a scientifically verifiable optimal course of action to achieve the good.
Premise 5: Moral good is a moral phenomena.
Conclusion: Moral phenomena exist.
Again, circularity.
And again, appeal to desire. Even if human flourishing is the moral good, most of us still desire it too. So we again confuse the two.
And in both cases all the emphasis placed on “scientifically verifiable” makes it look like a successful “is” / “ought” type argument too. After all, what better authority on “is” can there be other than science? And again, a successful “is” / “ought” argument is something many of us desire. So the argument as a whole appeals to our desire for a successful “is” / “ought” argument. But all that emphasis on science is just a smokescreen to distract us from the basic fact that the argument is still an illogical appeal to desire on both counts.
And this very smokescreen amounts to yet another instance of disowning what the argument is really about: an appeal to desire.
MORE ON DISOWNING AND DENIAL
Now that I’ve somewhat covered the basic categories of arguments for moral realism, I want to discuss the “disowning” and “denial” aspect more.
For both these last two basic categories of argument I emphasize the “disowning” part because that helps defend meta-ethical agnosticism in the end. It gives another plausible reason why meta-ethical agnostics cannot trust moralists at their word.
Also, in my mind it is not enough to show that moralists use logically flawed arguments. I must also go the additional mile and speculate about why they make these flawed arguments, why they can't be trusted. I and my fellow meta-ethical agnostics must accuse them of disowning and denial (or, more precisely, offer plausible speculation, as they must accuse us in return).
And here’s why: All theories, to approach completeness, must explain as many relevant objects in the world as possible. People who challenge the theory are among the relevant objects in the world to be explained. Therefore, a complete theory must explain why people challenge it. So meta-ethical agnostics must explain why moralists challenge meta-ethical agnosticism (and vice-versa). My explanation is a psychological speculation to the effect that challengers disown their motives for their flawed arguments, which is in turn evidence that they are in denial of moral-anti-realism.
Therefore I am simply developing my accusation of denial here, giving details about why moralists deny the truth of moral anti-realism. And since I know such accusations are logically inconclusive, what I’m driving at here is nothing more than a strong speculation. But I believe it is a significant speculation regardless, and must be taken seriously, so seriously that we meta-ethical agnostics have serious reason not to trust moralists at their word.
So what precisely is this speculation? If moral anti-realism is true, why would moralists be in denial of it?
As we have seen especially in the argument from volition, moral realism displays evidence of desire evasiveness. This is a clue. It is compatible with the idea that desire is scary. It is scary because few of us have our strongest desires gratified. In other words, reality is a harsh place where gratification of desire is scarce. Most of us suffer miserable lives.
Earlier in this text I have speculated about some plausible specific ways people use morality to overrule desires and disown their own desires in order to ease their suffering. I let those speculations stand as instrumental to my accusation of denial. Moralists are in denial of anti-moralism because of the ways morality eases their suffering.
I am here suggesting that all the ways morality pits itself against desire suggest that morality is all about coping with frustrated desires, and also maximizing desire gratification, while pretending it is something else. It is a culture of disowning scary desire as a means of coping with frustration and seeking out gratification disguised as desire-void duty.
But the point is; the meta-ethical agnostic has valid reason not to trust moral realists.
But again I’d like to stress that those who cannot be trusted may still be telling the truth. Hence the contingency stance. Hence the agnosticism. Hence the confusion about whether morality exists.
EPISTEMOLOGICAL EMPATHY WITH MORAL REALIST
I now want to expand on a major reason that moral realists could be correct.
Remember the second possible cause I listed for my meta-ethical agnosticism.
Cause 2: Morality does exist. But an argument that would convince me does not exist and cannot exist in principle.
I also touched on it again:
“It could be that moral phenomena do indeed exist, but … that their existence cannot be demonstrated by argument in principle, such as with many philosophically fundamental phenomena, like consciousness.”
So I consider it possible that moral realists are stuck in the position where their belief in moral phenomena is completely true, but that it is impossible for them to convey this truth to those who cannot experience moral phenomena. After all, this is also the case with motivation. It is impossible for creatures that experience motivation (desire and aversion) to prove the existence of motivation to those who cannot experience motivation.
Therefore, the problem moralists are having as they try to convince me that morality exists might be the same problem I would have trying to convince a motivation-void creature that motivations exist.
I especially consider such when I imagine myself doing just that:
Motivation-Void Creature: “Prove to me that motivations exist.”
Me: “Introspect. You are motivated to seek that proof.”
Motivation-Void Creature: “Incorrect. I am programmed to seek that proof.”
Me: “But you have an aversion against my denying you that proof. If I deny you, you will feel frustration.”
Motivation-Void Creature: “Incorrect. I am programmed to seek that proof. If you deny me, I will follow my programming to the next step.”
Me: “Then try to explain why I am denying you that proof.”
Motivation-Void Creature: “You could be programmed to deny me that proof. In fact, I can explain all your behavior as caused by your programming. This phenomenon you call ‘motivation’ explains nothing that I can’t more simply explain as programming.”
Me: “Really? Smiling? Laughter? Crying? Fighting? Avoiding death?”
Motivation-Void Creature: “Yes. All that behavior could be programming.”
Me: “But how do you explain the fact that so many of us attribute our behavior to motivation?”
Motivation-Void Creature: “You could be programmed to make false statements about the causes of your behavior. You could be programmed to deny that you are programmed.”
Me: “Well, if you don’t act on your motivations, you will not experience gratification.”
Motivation-Void Creature: “I have no motivations to gratify, only programming to execute.”
And on and on like this. Since this creature doesn’t already experience motivation, there’s no way I can prove to it that motivation exists. And this dialog sounds a lot like me and a moral realist:
Me: “Prove to me that moral phenomena exist.”
Moral Realist: “Introspect. You find it morally appropriate to seek that proof.”
Me: “Incorrect. I am motivated to seek that proof. I desire it.”
Moral Realist: “But you think you have a moral right to that proof. If I deny you, you will think I’m violating your right.”
Me: “Incorrect. I am motivated to seek that proof. If you deny me, I will have a frustrated motivation.”
Moral Realist: “Then try to explain why I am denying you that proof.”
Me: “You could be motivated to deny me that proof. In fact, I can explain all your behavior as caused by your motivations. This phenomenon you call ‘morality’ explains nothing that I can’t more simply explain as motivations.”
Moral Realist: “Really? Helping the poor? Defending freedom? Educating each other? Avoiding death?”
Me: “Yes. All that behavior could be caused by motivation.”
Moral Realist: “But how do you explain the fact that so many of us attribute our behavior to morality?”
Me: “You could be motivated to make false statements about the causes of your behavior. You could be motivated to deny that you are motivated.”
Moral Realist: “Well, If you don’t act on your moral duty, you will be evil.”
Me: “I have no moral duties to obey, only motivations to gratify.”
The moral realist is stuck, just as I would be stuck in my trying to prove to a motivation-void creature that motivations exist.
Anyway, this concludes my confusion as to whether morality even exists.
And it also concludes all of my confusions about morality.
[Drop the mic. Cue: Kicking Giant’s song “The Town Idiot” @ 2:13.]
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