So what was the organic Yogic process, taking birth and consummating in the human system became the static, dogmatic tragedy of religion. The psycho-biological evolution which is a human imperative became the disturbing excess of Gods. How can we then trust moral frameworks of religions after knowing this? When religions in themselves are false and fantastical, what validity will their moral codes have? None at all.
These dogmatic moral codes rightly repelled many of us and hence new, secular frameworks rushed to fill the vacuum. However, these ‘reason’ based moral frameworks are themselves riddled by severe contradictions. The problems of poor definition, arbitrariness, inconsistency, and most self-defeating of them all, relativism, still persists. Before we analyse these secular models, a basic question begs for attention.
Why should we act morally? Towards what end?
If there is no religious God, and hence we have no fear of him, what will make us act morally? Think about it.
Modern moral theorists and philosophers of ethics have come up with two distinct categories of moral theories. One is the ‘deontological’ kind, based on the foundational idea of duty and obligation. The other is ‘consequentialism’, based on the effects or consequences of our actions.
Deontological morality
Immanuel Kant, formidable German philosopher and a central figure of modern philosophy formulated the deontological model. It is entirely a priori, meaning that he conceptualised it in the realm of logic and reason alone, with no interaction with real-life scenarios and situations. It is non-empirical, independent of context. Its normative guidelines; codes of conduct are as simple as: “You must do this. It is your obligation to do that”. Its driving principle is that we are rational humans who possess a common-sense moral intuition. We inherently know what we must do. Kant in his ‘Groundwork for the metaphysics of morals’ states that our ‘rational will’ underpins this model of morality.
Rational will? We shall see about that, but not just yet.
This duty based model does not answer the question about why we must be moral, what its incentive, its impetus should be. Is there a purpose to adhering to any set of moral codes, apart from allowing the smooth functioning of the community, the society, or the country we live in? If that is to be our main duty, our prime obligation, it means society is dictating our rationale and reason. Right? Well then that is dogmatic too. Where earlier a fantastical God was making rules for me, now society is. That is a slight improvement if at all.
What is duty? Why the duty? Duty in a vacuum is difficult to understand. Not all of us can carry out such forced duty, with no instinctive, innate impetus. In fact, many times such duty feels outright unnatural. Such ‘dry’ duty can easily turn to grudging obligation. In truth, most people carry out their duties as defence against fear of punishment. No, such dry duty and obligation will fail, as it often does.
Moral Consequentialism
Consequentialism says that we should judge an action morally only through the results it produces. An action can be good or bad depending on its effects on the people and environment of its context. Utilitarianism is one such consequentialism theory which judges actions by the utility it has for people affected by it. Any action is moral if it benefits a greater number of people than it harms. Jeremy Bentham in his system of utilitarianism says, “We should tally the consequences of each action we perform and determine on a case-by-case basis whether an action is morally right or wrong”. He further adds “We should tally the pleasure and pain produced by our action and hence decide”.
It seems more comprehensive than the deontological model because at least it considers the context, the situation in question. But again, there are varieties of utilitarianism, each an adjustment of the initial wafer-thin, simplistic concept.
First, the notion of the ‘greatest common good’ and ‘least common harm’ is entirely subjective. What is pleasurable or painful for someone might not be so for another. Also, what seems like short term harm may be long term gain and vice versa. These value judgements can hardly be universal, except in commonly agreed extreme cases of murder, terrorism, violence, etc. The modern day financial system, among other systems which ride on this amorphous idea of the ‘greatest common good’ often crash and burn. The curse of poor definition makes the consequentialism framework relative and entirely subjective. Not unlike the concept of ‘God’, it dies the death of a thousand qualifications. Reasoning becomes its own bane.
Gross disconnect from human psychology
In addition, the normative guidelines of both the duty and consequence based models are callous in their gross disconnect from human psychology. Immanuel Kant says that we possess a rational will which tells us ‘We must do this or that’, while Jeremy Bentham says ‘We must tally our pleasures and pains”. Really? Are real-life situations unemotional and dry where we can pontificate our actions in calm leisure? What about the fact that our emotions guide most of our actions? Where is the role of emotions here? It is ideal to think that we should be rational, but how often are we? Is controlling your emotions the answer? How much, how often? Is it even possible?
Barely. People act immorally (by society’s standards), more often than not in impulse. How often and how many people can be rational about their anger? Most of our actions are compulsions, simply not guided by any rational logic. Most of the times we are under the influence of uncontrollable urges, we just cannot be calm and rational. That is human nature. What rationality are they talking of, the philosophers, Kant, Hobbes, Locke, and Aquinas, all of them? Also, even when people are calm, collected, in control, they hardly decide by ‘tallying pain and pleasure’ or by ‘calculating for the greater common good’. That is ridiculous! Our impulses guide even our ostensibly good acts. The truth is that a large part of our behaviors, traits, and impulses do not arise from the conscious mind at all. They spring forth unawares from the recesses of our psyches and even from beyond, from the dense jungles of our samskaras. More often that not, a person acting wrongly does not grasp its wrongness. He often feels righteous about it, justifies it as an act of self-defense and self-preservation.
Can you reason with someone addicted to alcohol? Can you inspire him to quit because it is his ‘duty’ to do, will he ‘tally the pain and pleasure’ created by his actions? Not in most cases, because addiction is a convolution, a perversion of the samskaric psyche-mind. It is out of the realm of logic or control; in fact we are being controlled. The ghostly conductor of our painful samskaras is playing the orchestra of our destructive actions. Rationality and willpower will not make an addict sober, at least not permanently. ‘Tallying the pleasure and pain’, or even will-power will be a fanciful palliative, a short-term solution. A band-aid to cover wounds that are deeper than the skin.
These secular moral theories fail to consider the psychological drivers underpinning our actions and sadly, psychology itself fails to consider the extra-psyche-mind realm of our samskaras. For an alcoholic, no entreaties of obligation and duty, no pleas for maximizing welfare will truly work. Not even psychological rehabilitation. Not for the long term.
You cannot reason with a dishonest, money-crazed businessman about becoming more honest and fair in his dealings, about being less of a mercenary and more charitable. He will not understand the ‘duty’ you so loftily speak of, he may not grasp the need to maximise the welfare of his community at his own expense. Not because he is not rational, but because he is a slave of his samskaric psyche-mind loop. His samskaras make him believe that he must, must earn as much money and hoard as much to be safe. To be secure in the world, to be worthy and receive love from others. His emotional cognitions about life make him feel and act this way.
How much effect can the force of will or reason have on samskaras and impulses, which control you? How much effect can logical coaxing as ‘You must do this’ or ‘You should tally pleasure and pain’ have on impressions and urges that are beyond logic?
The delusions of common-sense intuition
Also, both the deontological and consequentialism constructs rely on common sense and intuition. It feels obvious to us that we possess moral intuition. It seems we inherently know what is right and wrong, what we must and must not do. How valid is this intuition? It is quite possible that the societies and cultures we live in have conditioned our intuitions. From the moment we take birth, we undergo a seemingly benign, but often harmful indoctrination into value systems which make us acceptable in our societies. If you look closely, you will notice that socio-economic pressures and cultural traditions lead a large part of our value systems.
“You must respect the rights of others. You must not physically harm anyone.” That seems indisputable until you look at societies where other ideas are the norm. In most countries physically punishing children has legal repercussions, but in others it is an acceptable part of parenting. Marrying out of one’s community is blasphemy enough in some societies to be punishable by murder, by leaders themselves. It is moral intuition for them.
Seen from a consequentialism perspective, marrying out of such a community will be immoral because it creates pain for more people and pleasure for less. Going by that logic one should not stand up for anything then, justified or not, because it will fail in the tally of pain and pleasure. No? Another society which thinks it is intuitive to marry the person you love will welcome the same marriage.Where is the validity of moral intuition here? Is it not a matter of conditioning?
In many Islamic societies women must cover from head to toe and moral policing is strict enough to ensure they comply. To others it might seem human rights were being violated, but who are they to decide if it is not making anyone unhappy? Most of these Muslim women themselves consider the hijab and burka comforting and hence necessary. It is moral intuition for them even if it is a gross violation for others.
We can give many examples where neither the duty nor consequence based moral framework is compelling. They cannot be trustworthy models for morality, in more ways than one. To know more about why science cannot provide us a framework for morals and values, read an earlier blog ( LINK).
Keeping in mind the flaws of the known moral frameworks, what should the characteristics of a legitimate system of morals and ethics be?
- It should be absolute, as opposed to relative across time, cultures, religions.
- It should not/cannot be entirely in the realm of logic and rationality, divorced from the human psyche-mind.
- It should be teleological, it must have a purpose, a need. The end goal must be clearly outlined, it must have an impetus, a stimulus for adhering.
- It should be able to provide evidence for the fruit of moral righteousness.
Can there be such an alternate system? Maybe.
Maybe there already is one in place and it is a simple matter of discovering it.
Maybe we can reveal it to ourselves, and then necessarily, for our society and our world.