Having pizza and beer with a friend of mine a few weeks ago, I experienced one of those rare shifts—a re-ordering of my world view. He is a Christian, and apparently wiser than I. I have been troubled over recent years by a question: What does it mean for morality when the world you once thought you knew may be gone or going away?
I have basically been a utilitarian, even while recognizing the defects of pure utilitarianism. While I never pretended utilitarianism provided a wholly satisfactory moral framework, I basically thought the structures of morality exist for utilitarian purposes: for the greatest wellbeing of the most people.
Our sense of morality is based on our understanding of what is good. Our understanding of what is good is shaped and refined in the context of the world-as-we-understand-it. In the world I am used to, needlessly putting carbon into the atmosphere is bad; working to mitigate climate change is good. But if we reach a tipping point, as appears likely, all that becomes potentially irrelevant. If society collapses (bear with my flights of fancy here: even if ours isn’t about to collapse, societal collapse is something that happens from time to time), notions about not shoplifting seem quaint; similarly, I might need to re-think my aversion to vigilantism.
I shared this problem with my friend and he was unfazed. He didn’t think his morality would change: he would still value the same basics: kindness, compassion, integrity. And–whoosh–my moral scaffolding came crashing down. My problem of morality in a potentially unfamiliar world is solved: It’s not my job to know what actions might lead to the greatest good in a novel matrix. I can go back to basics–core moral values.
But I’m an atheist, not a Christian. Where do those core moral values come from, if not from God?
Now here, I want to go in two different directions. First, I want to explain where I think they come from. Then, I want to explain why it doesn’t matter.
Where morals come from: I think moral values come from urges that are pretty central to the human experience. About 95% to 97% of us are hard-wired for empathy. From a young age, we don’t like to see others suffer. It’s why, per Hume, I don’t step on my neighbor’s gouty toes. Not because a rulebook tells me it’s wrong, but because I instinctively recoil from doing so. Another core urge is fairness. Again, from a very young age, children exhibit an intuitive sense of fair and unfair. More abstractly, I would argue we have a core drive toward integrity. So in my new view, morality extrapolates these core urges into general principles. Help others, don’t hurt them. Don’t lie, cheat, steal. And so on.
Why it doesn’t matter where they come from: I’m an atheist, and I think morals come from basic human urges. You’re a Christian, and you think morals come from God. Could hardly be more different. But in each case, morals manifest as principles. And by and large, those principles are the same, whether you get them from God or human urges: Kindness/compassion/love. Fairness/justice. Integrity/faithfulness. You say potayto, I say potahto: still a starchy tuber.
Why the trolley problem is unsolvable: If you think you’ve solved the trolley problem, just keep tweaking the variables, and eventually you can come to a point where your solution is untenable. For brevity, I won’t argue that point here, but assume it. We can argue it later if we must. I want to explain why it’s unsolvable. Here’s why: The trolley problem by design pits moral principles against each other. Fundamentally, it pits fairness against empathy and compassion. You choose compassion over fairness? Ok, we’ll load up the fairness side of the equation until you just cannot make that choice. You choose fairness over compassion? OK, we’ll load up the compassion side of the equation until you just cannot make that choice. This is not a defect in your reasoning, nor is it a failure of moral principles. It’s a reflection that these moral principles operate along different axes, and in life we sometimes have to weigh one principle against another.
Why it’s OK: It’s OK that the trolley problem is unsolvable because by design it is unsolvable. Neither fairness nor empathy inherently outranks the other. And there is no formula for weighing them against each other. What is the moral thing to do in any version of it? It’s to do your best to figure out whether apples are more important than oranges. If you make an honest effort to do the right thing, you are doing the right thing–by making that effort.
Questions:
- OK, tear into my assertion that it doesn’t matter where morality comes from. What’s wrong with it?
- Do moral principles really operate along different axes? Or do they all point in the same direction?
- Should a good moral system be able to solve every moral dilemma?