4S: The moral argument eviscerated again
Defining morality
It is both disingenuous and foolish to contend that there are no valid, secular uses of commonly used words that make up the language of morality and ethics. Before defining any words, we should consider what a definition is.
Defining definitions
Words don’t have meanings; words have usages. There is nothing that cosmically grounds a word as though locking it in metaphysical amber to a particular meaning. A word is a mouth noise when spoken, and a visible marking when written. In the abstract, words are firing neurons that represent ideas when thought. Words are mere avatars, a layer of abstraction that serve as an imperfect canvas for ideation. They have no platonic form and occupy no territory in any known dimension of space and time.
Words have no meanings except those we pour into them. Pedantically, I see meaning and definition as being slightly different, but only slightly. A meaning is determined by the individual making the noise or mark. It corresponds to the intent within that person’s brain. A word might mean something to me that is different from what it means to you. I am not wrong. That is what the word means to me. For the sake of productive conversation about that word, we will have to negotiate a common definition.
A definition is a social construct. It is a product of negotiation on the collective meaning of a word. We all agree on a particular definition so that communication is possible. The definition is no more correct than the individual meaning. By definition, there can be no correct definition. All we have is a successful negotiation that leads to a culturally accepted, common usage so that we know what the other means without the need for endless debates about meaning with the utterance of every word. Without this linguistic concession, communication would not be possible.
Finally, definitions cannot be true. They have no truth value whatsoever and are wholly dependent on cultural acceptance. A dictionary is not a compendium of true definitions. It is a summary of what we have agreed particular words should mean. We do not get definitions from the dictionary. The dictionary gets definitions from us. That is why revisions of dictionaries include new words we have coined and altered meanings of words that once denoted some other idea.
To recap, a word means what the speaker or the writer of that word intends it to mean. A definition is the production of two or more people negotiating a common meaning of a word for the sake of successful communication. And there can be no truth value in a definition. It is a mere reflection of the culture that negotiated the meaning in the first place. And that negotiation is never static, but is ongoing.
Dead languages have appeal insofar as all linguistic negotiation is complete. Definitions are frozen in amber and do not change from one speaker to the next. But functioning societies do not communicate with dead languages because their society is a living, breathing entity. It lives. To live is to grow and to grow is to change. In a living society, constant linguistic negotiation is a feature and not a bug. With that in mind, let is negotiate the definitions of words that are signposts of our shared moral landscape.
Morality
Morality is a particular system of values and conduct of a person or society according to at least one dictionary definition. I chose this definition because it gives me the opportunity to quibble over a few key points. But before the extreme pedantry begins, I want to add my own spin to the word and reveal more of what morality means to me. It might well differ from what it means to you.
Generally, I only care about social flourishing. I have no need for personal morality insofar as it relates to something an individual does that has no direct or adverse effect on another. You can curse like a drunken sailer when at home alone without it having any effect on anyone else. I care not that some consider cursing to be a moral wrong in and of itself. Your individual behavior that does not adversely affect anyone else is not a proper focus of morality except to say that it is entirely amoral. I believe the vast majority of behavior is entirely devoid of moral content and is thus beyond the scope of my definitional intent.
Morality is that which concerns social benefit and social harm. It is a subset of descriptions we apply to actions that helps us categorize the beneficial or harmful content of past actions and predict the benefit or harm of future actions.
Further, and more controversially, I believe that morality is properly descriptive rather than prescriptive. Philosophically, I don’t believe in moral oughts. That would imply a moral law. And in turn, would imply an ultimate arbiter of moral law. It transforms morality into a list of divine commands to which we have no access except via mysterious, metaphysical forces. There is much more to be said on this front that will have to wait for another time.
We don’t need moral laws to behave morally as I define the concept. We need only to aim at the goal of our actions to be socially beneficial or socially neutral. If you do actions that would be described as socially beneficial, then you would be described as a moral person. It is purely descriptive. The prescriptive aspect of morality is a secondary effect of the description. If you want to be described as moral, then you will do actions that accord with that description. It is not an ought beyond your desire for that outcome.
Systemic
In the definition I provided, we see morality described as a system of values and conduct. I take issue with systematizing descriptions. We can categorize descriptions but not systematize them. It makes sense to categorize values and behaviors that lead to social benefit as morality. But to systematize it is to make it a de facto law. At that point, it is no longer descriptive but prescriptive.
What exactly is a system of values? To be meaningful, values must have a goal. Without a beneficial goal, values are mere vices disguised as something noble. Morality is not a system of behavior; it is a category of behavior.
I don’t have a system of values or behavior. I might have a method for navigating through life in a socially beneficial or neutral manner. But that method has no force of law or prescription even for me. It is my method until it is displaced by something better. Those who wish to reduce morality to a system seem to me to have the motive of control. Lawmakers and control freaks devise systems. Operating in a way that provides benefit to others does not require a system, just the desire to do no harm, or at least as little harm as possible.
Religion
Religion is the ultimate system. It predefines every important aspect of a person’s life. It provides the false cloak of moral certainty without the need to do the hard work of moral calculus. A god has already established what is moral. And his high priests are there to help you interpret his most high will. As a faithful adherent, you never have to rely on your own understanding. Indeed, you are commanded not to.
Religion is a generic word that does not only encompass theism. Atheists can also be quite religious. In some ways, humanism is a religion, or can be. It is a system with creeds and prophets. I am not a humanist. I could agree with every tenet of that faith and still not subscribe to humanism as a religion.
Wokeism is a newly coined word that was minted by its opponents as a pejorative. It is the most ungenerous read of social ideas and practices lumped together to form a parody of what any single individual actually believes. To the extent that wokeism is an invented religion of the political right to describe their counterparts on the left, it is a religion that should also be avoided. Much more can be said about this that will have to wait for another time.
Wherever you find thought systems that prescribe values and behaviors, you will find a religion. Americanism is a religion. Trumpism is a religion. Note the many excommunications that have occurred. All religion is bad.
Laws
That said, there is an unavoidable necessity for some systems to exist. There can be no community without systems. There can be no society. And with no society, there can be no lasting culture. Anarchy is as much an enemy of morality as religion. We are social creatures. And like it or not, social creatures need social structures. And social structures require laws.
Laws are the prescriptive and systematic arm of the collective goals. At the end of the book of Judges, we find the idea that everyone did what was right in their own eyes. This was a harsh condemnation of the state of affairs at that time in that place. It was the best literary depiction of anarchy I know. We cannot have a thriving society that produces flourishing for all when everybody does what is right in their own eyes. As a society, we are a collective and must live communally. We cannot survive any other way.
We have no choice but to adopt a system of laws. The conflict is usually over which system should hold sway rather than over whether or not there should be a system. Personally, I don’t have a system. But as a member of a collective, I must choose the social structure that has the best chance of achieving the goal. We hove no choice but to be somewhat partisan in the effort to make everyone free.
As humans, we have landed on the system of nations and national autonomy. Each nation gets to establish its own laws governing the behavior of its people. As such, nationalism cannot be entirely avoided. I am a product of the system of laws into which I was born. There is no escaping that. Further, I agree that we need laws. I will go a step further and say that all laws are moral laws in that they exist to further societal good and reduce societal harm. This is where my ideas of morality and the necessity of moral law collide.
All laws are moral laws. And all laws are prescriptive. Therefore, morality is prescriptive, at least on a national level. Remember that we are organized by nations. That is not a necessity and could change at some point in the future. But given the fact at this time, it could be said that morality is also national seeing that laws are national and not global. We have international arrangements that make some laws international among cooperating nations. But that is still a far cry from laws being global.
If laws are an expression of morality and laws are national prescriptions, then morality can only be national. If you believe in universal morality, then you would have to be opposed to nationalism at its core. It is interesting that those who are insistent on universal moral standards are often the loudest opponents of globalization. That is another interesting idea to be pursued another time.
Morality without god
Having done the definitional work, we can now address the conversation-shattering grenade that keeps going off: morality without reference to or necessity of a god.
This next section first appeared in a post I made on the 4S discussion board:
I keeps saying again and again that religionists and secularists don’t mean the same thing with these terms at all. We are speaking different languages that happen to use words that sound alike. One group is talking about pizza toppings and the other is talking about nuclear mushroom clouds. Talking past each other is putting it mildly.
I will say that the effort to communicate fails largely on the Christian side of things because they are committed to a religious definition of certain words and are constitutionally incapable of conceding that those are not the only valid meanings. I don’t believe secularists are equally locked into such definitional commitments.
We can say something like, “Putting fish on pizza is an unforgivable sin” and not mean anything to do with a god or a religious concept. It is just a way to convey extreme distaste for something. And that is not the only secular use of the word. A Christian who is communicating honestly wouldn’t protest that fish on pizza does not violate any law of god because they know that is not what was meant.
Even Christians recognize usages of evil beyond any religious content. They will often refer to natural evil in reference to a storm that kills a thousand people. It wasn’t evil in that it was a violation of god’s will. It was just a terrible thing that is part of how nature operates. Secularists also refer to natural evils. We know what we mean. And that is not the only secular usage of the word.
Often, evil is used as a synonym for malevolence. Voldemort was pure evil. That statement has no religious content whatsoever. Here is a definition of malevolent:
wishing evil or harm to another or others; showing ill will; ill-disposed; malicious:
His failures made him malevolent toward those who were successful.
evil; harmful; injurious:a malevolent inclination to destroy the happiness of others.
Astrology. evil or malign in influence.
Take note of how often “evil” comes up in this definition. Also notice how rare (never) anything theological comes up. Religionists are trying to co-opt the language so that secularists are forced to either acknowledge a god or abandon speaking. That is absolutely absurd and we have conceded quite enough ground to that foolishness.
Definitionally, there is never a reason to make reference to a god or godology when using the language of morality. Theo-centric religion is just one system of thought, values, and behaviors in competition with others for dominance and control. It is not the end-all be-all with regard to all things moral. Christianity is just one of those theo-centric systems and is no more the last word in morality than is communism. All of these systems must be individually evaluated for their predictive power to determine the greater good for all. The difference is that godology systems want to win by default.
Conclusion: Secular vs. sectarian
Just as anything can be a religion, anything can be a sect. A sect tends to be a religionized subset of something else. Things get very meta when the sect is a religious subset of another religion. It is not uncommon for wars to be fought between sects of the same parent entity.
It is not just that there are systems vying for dominance; sects within those systems are vying for dominance. It could be argued that Trumpism is a sect of white nationalism. But within Trumpism is the battle between religious fundamentalists and what remains of politically conservative, religious moderates. Even now, both groups within Trumpism are desperately trying to define the morality of abortion. It is not just white nationalism, or Trumpism, or religious fundamentalism at play. It is sects within sects withins sects of a given system. The same can be said of the political and religious left, only starting from a different parent system.
Other nations tend to be defined by the dominant sect. Often, they were formed by or conquered by a particular sect with specific sectarian goals. The innovation of the American experiment was the attempt at a secular, sectarian-free system. It is the road less traveled and for good reason. It is hard to the point of being impossible. But it was an impossible dream worth pursuing.
To be secular is to be non-religious, non-sectarian. It embraces neither godology nor statism. It is raceless, classless, and utterly neutral to the degree possible. It prays neither to YHWH not Allah, nor any of the other billion gods that are nonetheless welcome within her borders. It insists on the fantasy of equality even in the undeniable reality of inequity. The American system is both triumphant and failed in its attempt to be a system that is not a sectarian hellscape like almost every other nation.
We are an infectious blister of contradictions. We are a republic and a democracy. We recognize religion without being religious. We neither stop it nor promote it despite the impossibility of walking that jagged line. We are majority rule while protecting the rights of the minority against the majority. We are republican, democrat, and nazi. And yet, we are none of the above.
Our culture is pizza and snails. Our music is rap and Mozart. Our sport is football, both kinds. Our language is some version of English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and a thousand other tongues that can be heard being spoken at once in any of our major cities.
We are hetero, homo, trans, and queer in ways that are hard to define. We are the true embodiment of infinite diversity in infinite combinations. The one thing we can never afford to be is sectarian. Because that would be the end of the American dream.
No sectarian group can ever be allowed to define what is moral for all. Regardless of the contributions of any particular sectarian group, we must always recognize the moral contributions of all who make up this melting pot of ideas and values.
The most dangerous kind of talk that has become common today is when Christians claim to be the sole providers of the good in the world and throughout history. This is an elevation that no sect deserves and leads to the subordination of all others. It is the primary ingredient of religious war.
Notice how the Bible demonizes the Canaanites. They were described in terms of evil that made them almost subhuman. That classification justified any and every horror schemed up by the righteous. Compare that to how the religious right refers to all others in this country. If you are not one of them, you are just a Canaanite. And we know exactly how that ended for the Canaanites.
Ironically, it didn’t end so well for the Jews either. Because sectarianism is incestuous, breeding more versions of itself that end up devouring the system that spawned it. The Jews were the righteous until they became evil, and the targets of the worst kind of butchery imaginable. Pardon me for my lack of tears shed for the products of that system.
Finally, that is the fate that also awaits America if sectarian forces finally succeed at supplanting the dream of secularism. When Trumpism and white nationalism win, the days are numbered before the factions in that system turn on one another.
We began by defining morality. But we end with a warning to never define it in such a way that any given sectarian system becomes the arbiter and ultimate judge of prescriptive good.
And that’s the view from this skeptic. See you in the comments…
David Johnson
