Moral Universals: Just Say No.

There are a variety of different conceptions of what “universal human morality” means, all of them involving varying degrees of absurdity. Perhaps the simplest definition would be an 'innate' morality which all human beings share. Trouble is though, it's just wishful thinking, and ignores something, well, huge: The world around us.

Why are we so obsessed with morality and absolutes anyway..?

Hmm. I think it's because we are all natural scientists at at heart, and have come to expect that what looks like chaos on the surface, is nothing but a smokescreen that conceals a hidden order underneath. I mean hell, it works for stuff like tornados and wave-patterns, why not human behaviour..? Like my friend said to me the other day:

"In the science realm this comes in the form of things like Cymatics. It is interesting that the universe shows so much complexity and elegance, and undeniable order, because we haven't been able to figure out parts of it, some are quick to claim there a lack instead of a possible unity."

 Cymatics. Well, that was a new word for me too. So, underlying order in the macro-cosmic chaos hmm..? Sexy. But I think the opposite - that we are lured into nonsensical concepts like universals with regard to human behaviour exactly because of our infatuation with (and general misapplication of) mathematic principles in the broader world. We long for the sense of finality they lend, the stability; a panacea for the troubled human condition.

I mean sure, no-one's going to overly dispute the validity of things like the universal laws of motion for example - even if things do get a little screwy at relatavistic levels, they remain perfectly good for a huge class of masses and velocities.

Thus intuitively, we go on to think "Ah - so if we can find universal principles governing things so astronomically huge as planets or as tiny as quanta - it shouldn't be so difficult to sort out a few universals for a bunch of retarded homo sapiens."

Afterall, though it's hard to measure a planet's mass and velocity, it's comparitively easy to measure or own - all we have to do is stand on the bathroom scales and carry a stop watch while we move. Surely then, intuitively, human behaviour, in comparison to astrophysics, must be child's play..?

You wish. We wish.

It's all about variables. Universal laws in the mathematic world only work because phyicists have reduced the number of variables a particular formula deals with down to the absolute minimum. In the case of motion/gravitation - mass and velocity and distance of separation. Like this:

Now, imagine if Newton had also had to take into consideration how many moons a planet had. How old they were. If that planet was in a commited relationship with a comet, or liked pepperoni on it's pizzas, or was molested as a dust cloud,



or was orbitting in a dreary, monotonous solar system with no possibility of promotion to somewhere interesting. If that planet was depressed or on medication perhaps.

That would make his lovely short equation into something very weird indeed:

I think it must be accepted that human behaviour is an infinitely more complicated process than any of the situations we have so far managed to successfully find and apply universal principles to.

Firstly - each of us are pretty much unique beyond a certain threshold of resolution - look at even Siamese twins closely enough and you'll discern differences of temprement and will - and as such cannot really be catagorized as being uniform in property as we would say, a given mass, a chemical element or particle.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, no two situations to which the wannabe universal-izer may wish to apply a universal morality are the same either.

Let's take as an example something so mundane and everyday as "aquire food".

How would we begin reducing the elements of this scenario to a small enough array of behavioural variables to ever extract some sort of universal - "works for everyone - no matter what" - Kantian moral laws..?

I mean, for a start, how many ways are there of aquiring food..? How many fingers do you have..? Enough..?

Take one extreme. Self-canibalization. You could take a quick course in surgery, another in local anaesthesia, lop off a leg, fry it up and eat it. There you go, your belly is full, you aren't dead, and no other lifeform was exploited or damaged in any way. Super. Moral as hell.

But then, what about those who are dependent on our newly peg-legged friend - his selfish unselfish action has perhaps damaged his ability to look after his children, perhaps emotionally scarred his wife, decreased his usefulness to his colleagues at work... Blah blah ad infinitum.

The other extreme, bop someone on the head and eat their liver. The Hannibal Lector option. Surely that is pretty cut and dried. Immoral. But then, what if we're on a lifeboat, starving to death, one of us is in a coma, dying, and I take it upon myself to hack the guy up into cutlets and fricassé his ass for dinner. Not only have I saved my fellow survivors from starvation, but also, in shouldering the burden of conscience entailed by this act of 'murder', saved them from a mental/spiritual trauma POV. too.

I'm a fucking hero.

Any attempt to universalize human behaviour into black and white "this action is moral, this is not" equations - ones suitable for any individual, in any situation - are doomed simply because for all intents and purposes there are no sets of standard humans, nor sets of standard situations to which to apply morality to.

Now to move onto something else that's been bugging me thoughout the whole debate so far:

This whole "Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" version of morality that ILO are proposing. I always had morality down as a thing that required more than one to play.

I don't get this 'individualized morality' bit at all. I'm getting flashbacks of ILO's anarchist arguments, but this time substituting morals for law/governence. I mean, it didn't even sound convincing the first time.

Trolling around the net to find if indeed there have been *any* real-life examples of such a minimilist morality the best I can do is Aleister Crowley and Thelema.

I mean, actually now I've seen the picture, I'm convinced. He looks like a deeply moral man.

In abstract, and purely in the rarefied and unemotional medium of text, it's easy to declare 'morality is X.' but when we get down to cases and start comparing real individuals...



It becomes a no-brainer:



Equally moral..?

Morality and the designation of moral act/immoral act, is, like most of human observation and judgements, a process of comparison, and as such, needs at least two to play. Declaring a morality of one is like expecting to meet new, fun people by playing solitaire.

It's a catch 22 situation - a 'universal morality of one' is a meaningless concept, but expanding it to encapsulate two with any maintainance of rigor is equally impossible to achieve, without equally matched sets of people, and identical situations.

Universals, schmoonivershalz.