2.3 Morality

To achieve a state of well-being and remain there as long as possible, all cultures and civilizations have produced a “social code.” This is a kind of set of “recipes” with guidelines and procedures which guarantee that all our efforts are focused on achieving relative good, if not for all, then at least for some groups of individuals.

When weather and climate affected the availability of food, our ancestors were forced to stop competing and put their heads together to survive.

Each culture, clan, or group that has formed an organized society developed its own social code for security purposes. This code is a compilation of experiences, premises, and good practices, in order to establish the "correct and expected" behavior for each situation.

Thanks to these varied codes, we didn't have to risk thinking about everything individually, as someone else had already done it for us.

These codes constituted the first social tendencies toward reciprocity and cooperation, so they were extremely useful for human coexistence. They offered precise indications on how we should: crop, hunt, eat, behave in public, obey, behave in private, take care of the offspring, procreate, lead, judge, label people, deal with hierarchy, deal with power, have fun, work, dress, study, exercise, sleep, etc.

A simple rule: What is good for everyone is preserved, what is bad for everyone is discarded.

For our ancestors, this social code was not a trivial or inconsequential matter, but an important tool for survival and progress into civilization.

In each culture, the degree of security depends on the amount of information and the ideas that were derived from this information. The more complete a code is, the more security it offers and the more durable the commonwealth tends to be.

The set of all these premises, ways of acting, mating, living, evaluating, and directing efforts to achieve a state of well-being (relative good) has been called morality.

In other words, in the beginning, morality was just a social code.

The word “morality” derives from the Latin word mōrālis, which means “relating to customs.” Although morality's main objective is to achieve well-being in the true interests of humankind, it can diverge enormously from one culture to another. Morality will depend on the perception that a group of people has of its own reality.

Like a social code, morality is founded by gathering information about good practices; but it is also created by establishing what is and what is not acceptable to a society in its pursuit of well-being.

Morality’s purpose is to provide a source of security and sufficient structure to confront all possible situations that people face and the best way to deal with them. In theory, the best action is supposed to be the one that maximizes well-being for the greatest number of people.[i]

All the information reached solely by observation through trial and error and the premises that were deemed to have been proven right by repetition were eventually gathered together, giving birth to science.

Although science does not dictate morality, it has played an important role in its creation and adjustment.

The word “science” comes from the Latin word scientia, which means "knowledge." In order to become knowledge, all relative truths must be verified by science, demonstrating them as true or false.

Science experiments with facts. A fact may or may not be explained by reason.

Sometimes factual sciences need to use statistical techniques during their factual research process in order to gain new knowledge based on experimentation and observation.

Much of scientific knowledge is based on "statistics.” Statistical data, which need interpretation, do not explain or reason the facts. Simply classifying data and measuring the ways that two variables move together does not necessarily mean that we know why they are moving.[ii]

On the other hand, once humans became conscious beings, various religions emerged. Although most of them focused on answering questions that intrigued us about the afterlife, they also focused on ”good” behavior in this life. So, for millennia, religion was the main source of morality.

Every religion has two fundamental fields of interest: life before death, and life after death. In order to establish how we should behave in this life before death, religions gave rise to social rules and norms, like: don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, don't kill.

These rules and norms usually gave birth to legal laws. Laws explicitly control people’s behavior within a society, in an attempt to create order out of chaos. They command, allow or prohibit, and also reward or punish particular social behaviors.

Everything that is imposed, limited, and controlled by law eventually tends to be accepted as being rooted in morality. Even appalling and inhuman laws have been accepted without moral issues, if not by all, then at least by the majority of people.

Although there are universal moral rules that are shared across most cultures, morality is relative to different societies and different contexts. Therefore, whether or not an action is considered correct may depend on the framework (such as the culture) in which it takes place. This is what makes morality a culturally relative phenomenon.

When two groups are exposed to one another’s different valuation systems, there is a clash of cultures. This is generally shocking for both groups.

Some historically accepted premises have been proven wrong, so what is considered moral tends to change, as it is scrutinized and adjusted over time. For instance, the practice of human sacrifice, sometimes even of children, to influence nature on crops or rain, used to be a morally accepted activity. Nowadays, human sacrifice is an unthinkable practice in almost all cultures.

The same goes for slavery, forced marriages, dueling to death, cocaine medication, incest, human zoos, rape, cannibalism, skull trepanning, child marriages, pedophilia, zoophilia, public execution, witch-hunt, torture, and more.

Practices once considered to be morally acceptable have been examined and corrected by science. For instance, until the 1960s, smoking cigarettes was morally accepted and even recommended by physicians to pregnant women, as a means of alleviating stress.

If some moral code does not go through constant scrutiny, it will inevitably tend to deviate from its primary purpose, running the risk of becoming rigid, moralistic, and even destructive.

Yes, moralism and morality are not the same. As a matter of fact, the word “moralistic” is used to describe somebody with an uninformed, legalistic, and narrow sense of morality.

The teaching of morality should not be confused with teaching moralism. Indeed, moralism has been the worst enemy of morality because they are so frequently mixed up.

  Morality ≠ moralism

Moralistic people make harsh judgments based on their own ideas of what is right or wrong and they are the champions at using ‘double standards’, which in other languages is literally “double morale”: “it is right for me to do it, but not for you/them.”

While morality’s main purpose is to bring well-being to humanity, moralism is manifested as an arrogant overconcern over others’ moral behavior, which can, in turn, lead to something worse: self-righteousness[iii] or "moral superiority", an ugly and perverse complex that can also be called "moral absolutism.”

The opposite of being moral would be: immoral, amoral, double standards, and moralism.

Immoral behavior is behavior that deliberately violates a moral agreement. Being immoral is often mistaken for being amoral, which would be used to describe someone who doesn’t know what right or wrong means in a specific moral system.

√ Morality: Living according to moral standards in a specific moral system in order to achieve well-being (relative good) for oneself and for everybody else (commonwealth)

x amoral Not being aware of or not knowing what right or wrong means in a specific moral system, or not being able to adapt to it.

x immoral Making decisions that purposely violate a well-known moral agreement.

x double standard Or “double moral standard” is thinking that the rules apply to others but not to us.

x moralism Also called moral absolutism, it is an arrogant overconcern over others’ moral behavior that can be judgmental and sententious.

A decent and reasonable morality is fundamental for human coexistence.

In theory, any individual who adheres to their own culture’s moral system (whichever it is) will have far more opportunities to succeed in achieving well-being in their culture than those who rebel against it.

Whether it is through immorality or amorality, when a member of a community does not live according to the established moral standards, they become more likely to end up in a state of ill-being (relative bad). This happens not just through punishment by other members of the community, but also through natural consequences.

This is particularly evident when someone does not follow the agreements and moral rules which concern social responsibility, work, family, respect for private property, collaboration, and so on.

On the other hand, rebels play a crucial role in all societies when it comes to adjusting and scrutinizing what is considered morally acceptable or “normal.” Even though their rebellion is at a high cost to themselves as individuals, rebels makes us think again.

Continuous questioning will prevent morality from becoming obsolete or losing effectiveness in its goal of achieving well-being for most people.

Art (literature, painting, music, theater, comedy, etc.) also extends the limits of morality by exploring freer and more creative responses, provoking innovative ways of thinking.

In 1788, Immanuel Kant proposed a fundamental commandment to recognize when an action can be considered moral or not: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” [iv]

 In other words, according to Kant, in order to recognize or determine whether the action we are doing can be considered "moral,” these questions must be answered: What would happen if everyone performed the same action? Would it still be correct? Or could it be harmful? What if everyone did it? Would something good happen? Or something bad?

Morality is a complex social code measured through “values.” These shared values are constructed primarily around survival requirements and social needs such as food, shelter, health, family, friendship, freedom, education, work, community, and so on.

As a matter of fact, our well-being is defined by these values. Let’s understand by value anything that we can valorize as being important to our pursuit of well-being. This would include anything that has a certain level of importance and priority in our scale of interest and appreciation when it comes to the aim of achieving relative good.

There is a fundamental difference between facts and values. Facts are truths and statements that create premises about the real world. Values are human opinions based on needs, emotions, beliefs, feelings, and culture.

Values are nothing more than "evaluations,” “appraisals,” and, as part of morality, they vary from culture to culture, from person to person, and even from time to time. The notion of well-being is also dependent on an evaluation system.

Relative values define the relative good or well-being, when it comes to family, health, education, beauty, prestige, pleasure, comfort, work, science, success, money, religion, security, friendship, freedom, community, occupation, social activities, recognition, laws, security system, culture, government and so on.

Let’s consider a few examples of values:

   Family: as a source of joy, love, and security. Family is one of the most important values we may have. The sense of belonging that family can give us may be our most significant source of well-being. Morality guides us on how to honor the elders and how to raise the young. If we do not have a physical family, anyone might become our family: a friend; a neighbor; a workfellow. It can be anyone with whom we can have a real sense of belonging.

Religion: as a guide and vessel where we can develop our beliefs and our faith with the main purpose of experiencing spirituality. We will later see how religion (when it is moderate, rather than extremist) is a useful key to keeping the relative and the absolute in balance.

Ourselves:     as a source of all our potential. Our estimation of value in our self is called “self-esteem,” and the love we have for ourselves is called “self-love.” These are different but both are fundamental for our well-being.

     Work: as an activity that makes us useful. It gives us satisfaction and an opportunity to survive, to be productive, and to share its fruits. It is said that work is the fountain of eternal youth.

   Money: as the fruit of our work, a source of subsistence, security, and sharing. Some prefer not to add money to a list of values, but it is money that gives an evaluation of the “price” or “value” of all the things on sale (whether it be the roof over our head, electricity, holidays, food, job, goodies, services, or whatever.)

Pleasure: as a reason and motivation for enjoyment.

Friendship: as the best opportunity to love and appreciate the people who happen to be our friends. For instance, in the later stages of life, people frequently mention friendship as one of the most important values in their lives.

The more values we have, the more colors there are in our life.

Anyone who is able to value their family or friends will recognize how amazing a simple life can be. Values provide richness and colorfulness in the well-being of existence: they can turn the ordinary into extraordinary.

English writer Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) once wrote: “A way to value anything is to understand the fact that we could lose it.” This phrase shows the importance of not taking anything or anybody we might miss for granted. Our values can be established in different ways:

Through example, we learn to value by looking at the people around us: what they value, we value. That is the foundation of our culture. Until adolescence, we do not question the values learned by example.

Through experience, values can be acquired through our own experiences: by the lack or loss of something or someone, or because of a need or a desire. 

Through teaching and training, instilled directly by our family, school, friends, church, political or social group, especially in the case of "moral values" that we will see later.

Every value is valid to the person who holds it. For that reason, only respect for others’ values allows different people to live together in harmony. A lack of such respect leads to conflicts, even among those who love each other with devotion.

When the values of a society are well established and fulfill the well-being of the majority of people, it can be said that “their morale is high.” In this case, displays of creativity, freedom of speech, innovations, entrepreneurship, sense of humor, and the arts, in general, begin to flourish. By contrast, for example after a war, or under a totalitarian regime, people's most precious values have come under attack, so, it can be said that “their morale is low.” In this case, signs of desperation, lack of joy, and resentments tend to arise.

The lack of values represents an absence of appreciation for life per se, which tends to encourage “mediocracy”[i]. In turn, mediocracy opens the door to nihilism, which is the rejection of all morality, based on the belief that life is meaningless.

When values are reduced to the common denominator of “money,” and the concept of happiness and unhappiness to “wealth,” then, as a logical response, consumerism and materialism will tend to increase. Similarly, when the common denominator is “pleasure,” hedonism will be the logical response.

When values are not prioritized, it is common for people to waste energy on the wrong values. For example, it often happens that, when looking for professional success, we might neglect family or health, until it is too late; or when we give more importance to recognition and status instead of friendship.

Any scale of values shows the order of importance of those values. Therefore, it is helpful to establish priorities that are consistent with our reality and the reality we want to live in.

Our values define us. They are part of our present.

Our scale of values defines our future. It determines what we will become and where we are going.

[i]    Mediocracy means ‘Rule by the Mediocre’. A system in which mediocrity is rewarded. Mediocrity is the quality of being average or ordinary: ‘is not good, not bad but in the middle’. Being mediocre is not being able to appreciate and value beyond common values. Is to settle for “safe" thinking to prevent from setting goals and trying to be better in any area. The lack of appreciation and values lower the standards to the values of the herd, preventing us to cross the line to our greatest potential. 

[i]     Utilitarianism is a theory founded at the end of the 18th century by Jeremy Bentham, which states that the best action is the one that produces the greatest well-being for the greatest number of individuals (common wealth).

[ii]    In statistics two variables moving together does not necessarily mean that we know why they are moving. That is why correlation (relation) does not imply causation (cause).

[iii]    Self-righteousness is a feeling or display of moral superiority derived from a false sense that one's beliefs, actions, or affiliations are of greater virtue than those of the average person. There is a big difference between self-righteousness and authentic confidence or certainty because self-righteousness comes from fear. Authentic certainty comes from reason and facts.

[iv]   Emmanuel Kant Introduced in 1785 his book: Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals in which he proposed his “categorical imperative” as the central philosophical concept defined as a way of evaluating motivations for action.