A violent mugger stands in the dock. He is undoubtedly guilty, and has caused his victim huge amounts of suffering by his actions, robbing her of happiness and giving her physical and mental scars against which she must constantly struggle. Surely we must condemn his actions as intrinsically morally wrong?

In order to answer this question, let us first make an assumption that there is no god. I will give no justification of this assumption, as the aim of this essay is to examine its implications, not its truth. For many moral systems the lack of a higher authority causes irreparable damage. Much of the morality of even a secular society such as Britain is based on prior religiosity, and more is based on the concept of god than many would like to pretend. I do not for a second however believe that, in the absence of such a higher moral authority, we are all doomed to chaos, anarchy and selfishness. The main purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that not only is the usual notion of morality false, but that it is also counter-productive.

There are four potential reasons for us to condemn the mugger's actions as intrinsically wrong:

  1. What he has done is intrinsically morally wrong and we should thus describe it as such.
  2. It is to his benefit to think that what he did was intrinsically morally wrong, and so we should tell him as such.
  3. It is to the benefit of the victim to think the mugger's actions intrinsically evil, so she should be told as such.
  4. It is to the benefit of others (oneself included) to think as such.

Let us think about these in turn.

1
Without a higher authority there is no basis for an objective judgement as to the intrinsic rightness or wrongness of an action. Many attempts have been made to reconcile this difficulty by basing moralities on a huge variety of worldly premises, and to my mind they have all failed. This is not to say that all such systems are without merit, but the fact remains that, in the absence of god, the notion of morality remains to be proved not disproved and a sound basis (derived from other than pragmatic grounds, eg 2,3,4) has yet to be found. I do not think this to be a failing of the human imagination, but rather a search for the non-existent. Instead, if we are but animals on a planet, why on earth should there be a notion of right and wrong more fundamental than our own definitions of the words?

2
I was once on a train from Slough, which pulled into platform 4a of Reading Station. The train stopped at the platform, and twenty minutes went by. The long awaited announcement came: ‘This train has been delayed, because we have misplaced the locomotive’. Strangely enough everyone accepted this reason quite happily, even though surely it can't have gone far. Human beings need reasons. "This train has been delayed" frustrates, whereas even a reason probably more ridiculous than any you could have imagined does something to calm the nerves. It is foolish to try to persuade anybody of anything without giving some sort of reason, however inadequate it might be. The mugger, standing in the dock, is listening to the judge deliver his verdict. As the words evil, callous, disregard and horrific are wheeled out the mugger is whisked back to his childhood. As a ten year old boy he stands before the schooolmaster, having stolen a few coins. He is told with utmost certainty that what he has done is evil.

‘Stealing is evil’ is ‘This train has been delayed.’ This makes no progress - it doesn't explain anything and, besides, what basis does the schoolmaster have for judging what is good and evil? The description of an act as evil is useless. If an individual is prepared to break through the barrier "evil" then he is prepared to do it again. Thus he finds himself again in the dock, hearing the same old words, only now the damage done is far more serious.

‘Stealing is against the rules’ is a misplacement of the locomotive. It is a genuine reason, though it hardly tells the whole story, and is much better than the single meaningless word ‘evil’. There is, we hope, a better option than both of these, but British Rail have never supplied me with it.

3
Is the knowledge that an act is intrinsically morally wrong useful for the victim? I believe not. Again the victim is presented with a dead-end reason, and in the inevitable struggle to come to terms with trauma there is little comfort to be had from the word evil. At this stage I do not claim to back up this belief with psychiatry or psychology, but I feel fairly sure that there is more opportunity for repairing damage in understanding motive, rather than using the coverall "wrong". I certainly do not feel that the concept of intrinsic moral wrong conveys actual benefit on a victim.

4
For the observer, the same logic applies. If we are to learn from what we are experiencing, so as to try and make the best of a bad situation, then this requires analysis of motive and reason, not the comfort blanket of moral wrong.

What Next?

If we abandon the notion of intrinsic moral wrong and right, what are we to replace it with? Morality is not only an illusion, but a counter-productive one, yet if we have no alternative then surely we are all to be at the mercy of those now called evil. Are we to let our children steal and lie, for them to grow up to be muggers and murderers? I do not here delve into human nature in a state of anarchy, but instead offer an alternative course of action.

The boy again stands in front of the schoolmaster, on a guilty charge of theft. The boy is told not that the act is evil, but instead that such acts can be expected to diminish his own happiness. This would make much more sense from both ends of the lesson. Suppose, to take the example to extremes, that the boy had stolen the coins from a bullying landlord to support his dying brother. Telling him that stealing is evil here will merely diminish the effectiveness of the deterrant "evil" to nothing, since the notion "evil" loses consistency with its application to a perfectly reasonable act. The message to convey is instead that the boy will in general be unable to enjoy such benefits as the love of a brother if he does not learn to avoid such acts as stealing. This is the real and comprehensible reason the train was delayed. This, coupled with a punishment, is a more effective deterrant than "evil", coupled with the same punishment.

One might reasonably ask however: how can we justify punishing stealing if we do not believe it to be morally wrong? This objection stems from the assumption that any legal code must derive from an ethical code. In answer to this I propose the following:

Zed

Imagine you are living on a wild island with another person, Bob. You are isolated from all outside contact. There are trees to build houses, plants and animals to eat, but there are dangerous beasts around, and food and supplies are limited. Having seperated to different sides of the island, a boat arrives on your beach carrying Zed. Zed is a real professional who makes you an offer. For a very small fee Zed will stay on the island and police the honesty of your little community of two. When someone makes a promise, Zed will let the other one know how fully it was carried out.

Do you accept Zed's offer? If, in your brief experience, you are fairly certain that Bob is trustworthy, then the small fee is not worth bothering with. Bob will carry out his promises, and you don't need to pay Zed. However, if Bob looked very shifty, or very lazy, or you weren't sure of his trustworthiness, then as long as the fee was small enough you should be able to come to an agreement with Zed. After all, then you could take turns to watch for dangerous animals, or one could fish and one could hunt, with the spoils being split between you. Worth paying the small fee for Zed so that you can judge how much business to do with Bob. You will of course not do quite as well as if you didn't hire Zed, because you have to pay him a small fee, but much better than if you were falling for lies, or having to check up personally on every promise made.

Zed is, of course, a legal system. In this case he doesn't punish people explicity, but his outing of an untrustworthy individual is in fact punitive in the long run. If we realise that mutual trusting can bring greater happiness (so we are not scared of what Zed will say about us), and we are not satisfied as to Bob's trustworthiness, we should certainly hire Zed if the price is right. We do not hire him because of any belief in the moral rightness or wrongness of keeping promises, but merely so as to have a method of securing favourable outcomes when presented with an untrusted character. This should be the entire basis of legality. Of course our world is not this easy, and the ten year old boy, as a child, must be presented with a simplified rule of cause and effect about lying and stealing, and should be punished, but there is no reason to con him with confusing notions of intrinsic evil.

In Conclusion

I believe that concepts of moral right and wrong are misguided. We have used them as tools to structure our world but these concepts have, like many others, outlived their usefulness and become a millstone round our necks, tied as they are to the need for belief in a higher authority than ourselves. In their stead we need a new incentive to guide our actions. This incentive is our own happiness. The question must surely now be how to make choices to maximise that, once the antiquated notion of morals is abandoned. The mugger did not maximise his, for he now stands to lose a great deal. The victim, sadly, was not given a choice. The mugger is finished, but perhaps the ten year old boy need not have been.

Giles Hayter
London
February 2009