In Defense of Moral Evaporation

 

I might be accused of simply saying, "ethics and morals change." That would be right, so far as the words go, but there is a lot more to it than that. There are large numbers of people who believe morals are absolute, unchanging rules and that ethical principles are invariant guidelines. Nonetheless, in practical life, most of them would agree with a mild form of a statement such as "things change." In other words, what most people believe is contradictory. Again, in the practice of their daily lives, they in fact believe in very fluid morals, but when they are asked abstractly or in a religious setting what they believe, they give a different answer. I think this is a very common behavior.

Philosophically, this disconnect between "thought" and "behavior may seem puzzling, but there is a simple psychological explanation. Most people are intensively trained to recite some ethical and moral principles, especially in settings controlled by those perceived as powerful leaders, such as public meetings. But, absent that immediate social pressure, individuals go about their daily lives as they see fit, which involves solving the problems of survival. In the context of daily life, the ethical formulas may not be considered at all, or only rarely. For that reason, I think everyday behavior and Darwinian forces are far more influential in determining morality and ethics than teachings. Thus, I look upon ethics as an empirical study which seeks general rules of "good" or "right" in behavior (or, if there is a difference, both).

Moral evaporation is one aspect of moral evolution, although not a necessary one. It is possible that morals evolve in a "straight line" from one set to the next, without ever dropping, deleting or revising some previous set. In such a case, there is no moral evaporation at all, as every instance of the moral set would simply be a larger set including all previous instances. On the other hand, finding moral evaporation implies the existence of moral evolution, as that means the (operative) moral set changed over time. While I think moral evaporation and evolution are always occurring side-by-side, and naturally related, they are two different concepts.

Moral evaporation is not the logical inverse, negative or reverse of moral evolution. Non-evolving systems might have moral evaporation, if a certain, fixed set of morals just degenerates and disappears over time. Of course, one might call that 'moral evolution,' but I prefer not to use the term that way. I consider moral evolution to involve a changing order of things, a set of things that has one appearance today, another tomorrow, and so on. The fixed set which disappears - evaporates - is at most a special case of evolution, although I think the term to use in that case is "de-evolution" or "devolution." Another term for that case is "degenerate moral evolution." In any event. "moral evaporation" is more about how morals change, not that they change, which includes the degenerate case. (We could ask how de-evolution occurred.) "Moral evolution" is historical, noting the fact of change.

Absolutist ethical systems have a hard time with moral evaporation and moral evolution. That's because ethical absolutists usually believe that there is an unchanging set of ethical principles which govern ethical behavior. They further believe that there is some sort of connection between the principles and morality (guidelines of ethical behavior) which fixes what is moral for all time. In short, absolutists usually deny that morals evolve. A typical example would be ethical principles grounded in external authority (kings, gods, etc), whose pronouncements and behavioral mandates are considered permanently infallible. Christian and Islamic fundamentalism, Stalinism, Hitlerism and other tyrannies are obvious instances of this sort of ethical system. There is parallelism in fixed ethical principles yielding equally unchanging moral prescriptions. This makes it possible to reduce life to a script. Choice is eliminated by habit, orders, diktat and necessity.

Military organizations usually have absolutist ethical systems which they require their members to believe and follow. Moreover, the military have a moral code based on its ethical principles that is applied strictly to its members. There is a good reason for authoritarian ethics among the military: members are pledged to die for each other. In military societies, loyalty and following orders are the highest virtues because such behavior is considered essential in surviving deadly battles. For soldiers, all else pales before the consideration of life and death which is their daily business. Among the military since ancient times, there is neither moral evolution nor evaporation; that would be considered treason. (That is also why military people have traditionally had a low regard for undisciplined, "soft" civilians.)

It is possible, however, to hold that ethical principles are universal (or, empirically general), while still allowing of moral evolution. [I hold the view that ethical principles are empirical and general, because they themselves are the result of learning - a form of evolution.] In such an ethical theory, there has to be a principle which allows of change, either changing circumstances or different methods of applying the principles. Moral evaporation might involve either of those cases. It could be that moral prescriptions go out of style, because the circumstances to which they apply no longer occur. Or, the moral prescriptions might "evaporate" if the ethical principles somehow change over time, resulting in a shifting set of consequential prescriptions.

Moral evaporation on account of changed circumstances seems easiest to posit. We might have had, for example, moral prescriptions about the treatment of gladiators and slaves. There might have been rules covering when a Noble was entitled to put someone to death, or take the pretty village girl to his bed. But, in modern societies, we deny the right to hold slaves or maintain gladiators, or to enforce ancient Noble perquisites. This denial is in part based on economic and social considerations. In an advanced industrial society, slaves and concubines are disruptive. Industrial organization requires well educated participants who are also motivated to do their work with a minimum of supervision. The machine-like assembly line, and other mechanistic models, govern our working lives and leave little room for dissipation. Whoring and drug addiction are enemies of corporate well-being. So, all those moral rules about slaves, gladiators and village girls have gone by the wayside. In the heat of urgent change, they evaporated.

Some people might prefer to say that such morals have merely lapsed. If the morals in question are thought to be consequential upon some permanent set of ethical principles and circumstances, perhaps that is true. In such a case, the reality of a moral prescription has not disappeared; it is merely unused. But, I don't agree with that analysis: over time we have actually changed the ethical principles. I deny there is some set of ethical principles which condoned Roman gladiator owners and still applies today, because what's involved in owning a gladiator or granting aristocratic privileges is an ethical principle that conflicts with modern ideas. Today, we think it's unethical for anyone to own gladiators or slaves, or be a self-willed aristocrat. (We believe in the rule of law.) Our declarations result from introducing some new ethical concepts, such as the intrinsic worth of individuals. Consequent on those new ideas is the new Kantian rule, that it is immoral to treat people merely as a means. Instead, we must treat people as ends in themselves. The new ethical principles contradict and displace the old ones, and set loose all the old moral considerations as well. There are no rules left about the treatment of slaves, because the class of slaves has been abolished (in ethics). Thus, moral evaporation is indicative of changed ethics; it is a clue to ethical and moral evolution.

Historically, moral evaporation may begin with changed circumstances and then progress to changed principles (as assumed above). New economic methods might replace some old necessities, such as slaves. While the old necessity becomes a curiosity, new economic and social forms require new guidelines for proper operation. That is, the change of circumstances may create new moral rules, or shift the interpretation of old ones. Eventually we generalize the new morality and enshrine it in ethical principles, which displaces the old ideas. For a time, the moralities of slavery and industrial work may overlap, but sooner or later one or the other will become dominant. When that happens, the old order loses its ethical justification, and the old morality is set adrift.

It is also possible for moral evaporation to happen the other way; i.e., a change in principles comes about, which then changes the circumstances in which morality applies. The American and French revolutions were such cases, as they changed the basic ethics of entire societies. The ethical justification of monarchy (autocracy) disappeared in the Enlightenment. It was not longer possible to found authority on a God-given right or privilege. Democratic assumptions eventually undermined ethical principles granting special privileges to a few aristocrats (or nouveau rich, etc). The change in social consciousness, initially expressed in violent overthrow of the existing order, implicitly put forward new ethical principles. Over time, that caused the demise of old prescriptions of behavior; i.e., in fact, morality evaporated. (That's why the displaced often ask, 'what's this world coming to?')

When ethical principles change, so may the method of their application. In the previous example, revolutionary times introduced new ethical ideas, but, by and large, the manner in which ethical princples were applied to ordinary behavior did not change - at least, not right away. The old way of thinking in the ancien regime was hierarchical and authoritative, whereas the new way was independent and without authority. Even though the introduction of democracy changed life dramatically, probably most people continued to think of right and wrong behavior the same as before the revolution. An example of this sort of thing is the tendency of revolutions to end by recreating what was displaced. Thus, Napoleon made himself Emperor probably because he learned in his youth that the accepted form of authority is a Monarch. Despite being an active partisan of and for the French Revolution as an adult, and apparently believing he was spreading the new ideas throughout Europe, Napoleon couldn't get past the notion of the State requiring a crowned ruler. In the same way, Joseph Stalin created himself the "little Father" (meaning, the Tsar) out of the Bolshevik revolution. Those men apparently could not grasp the full implications and direction of the new thinking, so they reverted to what they learned as youths, assisted by their venality. It is indeed a rare man who grasps the full implications of the new order, and acts accordingly. (The United States was fortunate in its Founding Fathers who collectively appreciated the new order more than most.)

The foregoing examples are intended to show that "morality" is a concept derived from observation of social behavior. Specific morals are rules or guidelines that people adopt with respect to their behavior, similar to laws. In fact, I might hold that law is the concrete implementation of a social élan, a system of morality. Usually, however, morality is something imbedded in individuals by training - especially early learning - and not legislated. (Hence, 'you cannot legislate morality.') An individuals' morality is implicit in "relevant" behavior; i.e., behavior normally judged under moral maxims. But, in a semi-vicious circle, we abstract from behavior what we consider to be the individual's morals. In other words, the only observable is what people do, say etc - the public evidence that is behavior. Everything else is an hypothesis, even a theory, about behavior. At the highest level of abstraction, we have ethical theories; theories about "ought" and "right" and "good." Ethical theories are intended to unify the inferred morals (maxims) into a system. Nothing is different in this academic process from the study of physics or biology.

Ethical theories, on my view, are closely linked to anthropology, sociology, political science and law, because such theories depend upon scientific (valid) observations and theories of behavior and recommend patterns of regulation based on those observations. What humans are about, and how they "ought" to act, starts with the empirical derived facts. Within this framework, it makes sense that morals are subject to change, probably by several mechanisms. Moral evaporation is one mechanism, related to historical "forgetfulness," in which one era, one social consciousness, passes into another. I also like the term because there is no easy demarcation between some "age of innocence" and an "Aquarian age," for example. Things "flow" from one scene to the next, because, at bottom, ours is a chaotic world. It is, as it were, that the microscopic stuff of the Universe condenses at certain places and times into a visible entity, only to dissolve away; an evanescent, shimmering rainbow.

What I hope to achieve by introducing this very nebulous concept of moral evaporation, is to shift ethical discussions from rigid, formal battles over "The Good," "The Right," "Ought" and the like to more scientific discussions of the ethical princples which people and societies develop. This puts ethics on a solid, empirical foundation, with it its own, special place. Best of all, it allows ethics to be extended to other species than homo sapiens. We might consider ethics among Bonobos and ETs, for example, and what relevance that has for our society.