In Defense of a Non-Natural Moral Order
August 22, 2019 at 10:01 am
(This post was last modified: August 22, 2019 at 10:27 am by Acrobat.)
We're born perceiving the world and ourselves through our mind.
Somethings we recognize as existing solely in our mind: the dinner I'm imagining having, my preferences in clothes and music, things we recognize as subjective. Then there are things we recognize as existing independently of our minds, the table in my room, the sun outside the window, the color of my wife's dress, the two red apples in the fruit basket, things we recognize as objective.
Where does moral goodness and badness fit in? We (or atleast those like myself) seem to acknowledge that they appear as objective. They don't appear to us as matters of our personal taste and preference. The wrongness of the holocaust, isn't merely because I don't like it. It doesn't seem to be wrong because society says so either. The wrongness appears to exist independently of my subjective preferences, as well as societies opinion of it. It would appear to us as wrong, regardless of what society thought of it. Societies, like that of German society seem to incorporate some collective delusion to deny this, like a society deluded into believing in a moon landing conspiracy, rather than as a society with different taste in fashion.
When I tell my daughter she did something morally wrong, I'm not telling her it's wrong because I said it is, or wrong because I don't like it, nor am I telling her it's wrong because society, and others say it is. It's wrong in and of itself. (Some might chime in and suggest it's wrong because it's determinental to well being, but this just pushes the question back one step further, to the wrongness of doing things determinental to well being).
Good and bad appear to us (minds like mine) to exist objectively, outside of our mind, not as some construct purely within them. More like the table in my room, the sun outside my window, or the two apples in the fruit basket, than my taste in music, or some subjective desire, or aim I assigned to myself, or society imposed on me. It also seem to difficult to define, like an object we can see in front of us, but can't seem to properly describe, where the words fail to carry the entirety of it's meaning.
Yet, this objectiveness is peculiar, because it doesn't appear to be reducible to any set of natural (scientific of historical facts). We're not going to be able to dissect the holocaust into all its material facts, and find a property called badness among it.
Goodness and Badness appear objective, but non-natural/immaterial, exist in the way one might say of Plato's Form of the Good. As part of some sort of transcendent moral order.
This moral order appears to have a weight to it as well, like the pressure and tension one senses when touching or moving a table, or picking up a dumbbell. There seems to be a freedom to goodness, and imprisonment to badness. The Nazi's appear imprisoned, while Bonhoeffer appears to be free.
When we do things that are bad, this tension, appears like a rebelling, a violation of some primordial principle, rather than a committing of some social faux pas, it produces guilt, resentment, defiance, a desire to justify ourselves through lies and delusions, a weight on our shoulders. Where goodness, seems to exist as liberating in a way that badness is not, along side honesty and truth, a clear conscious, etc...
The goodness of the civil rights movement, abolitionism, that badness of the lynching trees, of the holocaust, seem so profoundly real, in a way that seems more real than anything else, including you or I. It seems easier for me to deny your existence, than the existness of the goodness and badness here.
I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on this?
(Just to be clear, this isn't an argument for God, or some sky wizard, but just for a transcendent moral order, a belief in which doesn't require you to believe in God. Attempts to make it about a God would likely to be dismissed or ignored)
Somethings we recognize as existing solely in our mind: the dinner I'm imagining having, my preferences in clothes and music, things we recognize as subjective. Then there are things we recognize as existing independently of our minds, the table in my room, the sun outside the window, the color of my wife's dress, the two red apples in the fruit basket, things we recognize as objective.
Where does moral goodness and badness fit in? We (or atleast those like myself) seem to acknowledge that they appear as objective. They don't appear to us as matters of our personal taste and preference. The wrongness of the holocaust, isn't merely because I don't like it. It doesn't seem to be wrong because society says so either. The wrongness appears to exist independently of my subjective preferences, as well as societies opinion of it. It would appear to us as wrong, regardless of what society thought of it. Societies, like that of German society seem to incorporate some collective delusion to deny this, like a society deluded into believing in a moon landing conspiracy, rather than as a society with different taste in fashion.
When I tell my daughter she did something morally wrong, I'm not telling her it's wrong because I said it is, or wrong because I don't like it, nor am I telling her it's wrong because society, and others say it is. It's wrong in and of itself. (Some might chime in and suggest it's wrong because it's determinental to well being, but this just pushes the question back one step further, to the wrongness of doing things determinental to well being).
Good and bad appear to us (minds like mine) to exist objectively, outside of our mind, not as some construct purely within them. More like the table in my room, the sun outside my window, or the two apples in the fruit basket, than my taste in music, or some subjective desire, or aim I assigned to myself, or society imposed on me. It also seem to difficult to define, like an object we can see in front of us, but can't seem to properly describe, where the words fail to carry the entirety of it's meaning.
Yet, this objectiveness is peculiar, because it doesn't appear to be reducible to any set of natural (scientific of historical facts). We're not going to be able to dissect the holocaust into all its material facts, and find a property called badness among it.
Goodness and Badness appear objective, but non-natural/immaterial, exist in the way one might say of Plato's Form of the Good. As part of some sort of transcendent moral order.
This moral order appears to have a weight to it as well, like the pressure and tension one senses when touching or moving a table, or picking up a dumbbell. There seems to be a freedom to goodness, and imprisonment to badness. The Nazi's appear imprisoned, while Bonhoeffer appears to be free.
When we do things that are bad, this tension, appears like a rebelling, a violation of some primordial principle, rather than a committing of some social faux pas, it produces guilt, resentment, defiance, a desire to justify ourselves through lies and delusions, a weight on our shoulders. Where goodness, seems to exist as liberating in a way that badness is not, along side honesty and truth, a clear conscious, etc...
The goodness of the civil rights movement, abolitionism, that badness of the lynching trees, of the holocaust, seem so profoundly real, in a way that seems more real than anything else, including you or I. It seems easier for me to deny your existence, than the existness of the goodness and badness here.
I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on this?
(Just to be clear, this isn't an argument for God, or some sky wizard, but just for a transcendent moral order, a belief in which doesn't require you to believe in God. Attempts to make it about a God would likely to be dismissed or ignored)
