Morality

Morality Tis Better On Thee Than Me
It’s the Holiday season and I got to thinking about the message of Love that Jesus brought to the world. Not only did Christianity make Agape Love part of the social fabric of our culture, the spiritual message promoted a kind of National honesty and culturally instilled set of ethics that enabled business and social intercourse to proceed with an inherent ease that was the envy of the world. Needless to say, science, rationalism, progressive philosophy, and a general coarsening of social and personal behavior, brought about by an entitlement mentality, greed, and all of the other deadly sins, have all combined to make things like morality and ethics seem “old fashioned” and not at all relevant to modern life. Morality has gotten all mixed up with economics at its most basic levels and prompted Steven Levitt to address morality and economics in his book, Freakonomics, to wit: “Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work—whereas economics represents how it actually does work”. The reason why morality and economics are intertwined is because Government, and everyone else, uses incentives to motivate people’s behavior for one reason or another and these incentives influence morality and economics. The classic example of morality and economics getting caught up together is the Daycare Center that began using a negative monetary incentive to address the problem of late pickup by parents. The Daycare Center imposed a $5.00 fine on parents who were up to 15 minutes late. As a result of the “negative” incentive, late pickups surged because it was easier to pay the $5.00 fine than deal with the hassle of being on time. When there was no fine imposed, morality drove the parents to pickup on time because of a desire not to impose on their friends at the Daycare Center, i.e., when the $5.00 fine was imposed, a trivial monetary value was substituted for a Morality value which relieved the parents of any moral or ethic incentive. Needless to say, if the fine imposed would have been, say, $50.00, the outcome would have been much different. So what is this thing called Morality and what are its foundations? Jonathon Haidt at www.moralfoundations.org has it all figured out, to wit:
The Foundations of Morality
1) Harm/care, related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. This foundation underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.2) Fairness/reciprocity, related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. This foundation generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy.3) Ingroup/loyalty, related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. This foundation underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it's "one for all, and all for one." 4) Authority/respect, shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. This foundation underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.5) Purity/sanctity, shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. This foundation underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).
As you can see, most of the foundations of morality are based upon the evolutionary values instilled by the necessity of survival. These values are becoming less and less relevant in the modern world where the struggle to survive is being mitigated by science, technology and social governance. So if you ever wondered why morality and ethics seems to be going the way of your last week’s paycheck, it may well be because science and technology, married to the ideal of socialism, is rewriting what morality and ethics are. I guess our progeny will discover what this neo-morality will be. So cherish Christianity’s message of Love as it is repeated this Christmas and perhaps the morality and ethics it portended, through the foundations listed above, will fall on fresh ears and remain relevant. But if not, then I guess its “Back To The Future” of dog eat dog. Sure is beginning to look that way, don’t you think?