The Guenevere Ratio
Concerning my column at EveryJoe, which holds that atheists, while being personally moral or not as their nature and consciences direct, are unable to account for the universality of the moral code, a reader with counterfeit name of False Keraptis asked the following:
I’m both an atheist and a believer in objective morality. How is this possible? Well, I’d say objective mortality comes from two sources: reason and instinct.
First, reason: by thinking logically and rigorously, we can determine the optimal way for rational agents to interact with each other. Game theory, and especially the iterated prisoner’s dilemma, are the best and most promising efforts I’ve seen in this area, and while they’re valuable and inspiring, I admit, they’re woefully incomplete. However, it’s not unreasonable to think that there exists a larger body of objective morality that we haven’t yet discovered or described, but which we intuitively grasp, just as someone ignorant of Euclid’s methods might still have good spatial intuition.
Secondly, even though we have not fully described or discovered objective morality, the laboratory of evolution has given us instinctual insight into it through millennia of trial and error. If there does exist an optimal way for humans to interact with each other, and there seems to, then generation upon generation of life in social groups will have equipped us with a sense of morality that at least approximates it.
Now, one might object that I haven’t explained morality, but rather some vague idea of optimal behavior to maximize an equally vague combination self-interest and the group’s interest. I would say that’s exactly what morality is. All humans feel and respect the same moral rules because we have the same instincts, honed to make us follow a standard of behavior that gave our ancestors success. Further, because natural selection is patient and powerful, I would argue that these instincts come ever closer to the objectively optimal way for us to interact with one another.
My comment: I was also an atheist and a believer in objective morality when I was an atheist. My argument was very similar to yours. I would raise three questions:
First, is morality universal? By ‘universal’ I mean that there is a moral code whose imperatives, maxims, or commands have authority over all rational beings, everywhere and at all times (leaving aside for the moment whether there are times when one imperative overrules another). Because my argument is not that there are not moral atheists; nor do I argue that atheists are not prudent nor law abiding. My argument is that if there is a universal morality, atheists cannot account for it.
I would argue that a moral rule is not a moral rule if it is not universal, for the same reason that a rule of logic (such as ‘A is A’) is not a rule of logic if it is not universal. If we can find a time or a place where ‘A is A’ is not true and not valid, then it is not a rule properly so called: it is nothing more than a convenient convention, a custom, or a habit of thought that is sometimes true and sometimes not. It is a rule of grammar.
Second, if one source of morality is the game theory of optimizing behavior, then what authority does optimal behavior have over my conscience? If moral rules are merely my selfish desires seeking an optimally efficient method of satisfaction, then what motive, aside from a selfish one, prompts me to be concerned with the good of the group? If moral rules are merely my selfish desires seeking an optimally efficient method of satisfaction, then under what circumstances would I commit an act of self sacrifice for preserving my wife, children, city, nation, cause or church? Are we defining ‘morality’ such that self sacrifice is never permitted, never compelled?
Third, if the other source of morality is instinct brought about by trial and error, then what authority can possibility forbid me from making the error? Making the error is a beneficial part of the process of discovery. If our moral code is an approximation based on generally successful strategies, how do I know whether my particular tactical decision here and now falls within the approximation?
Let me use an example of a particular tactical decision: If I am in a war, generally one should not outrun one’s own supply lines; and yet if I am in the position to outflank the Maginot Line, rushing forward beyond my supply lines may be the wise course in this one instance even if it is not generally prudent. And even if it does not fall within this approximation, what authority does this blindly evolved approximation have over me?
What, if any, reason aside from a prudential regard for my own self interest imposes a duty that should I conform my behavior to this standard? You seem to be describing the mere opposite of duty.
You seem to be making the claim that this particular moral lapse is not likely to conduce to my long term pleasure and happiness. But what authority does long term pleasure and happiness have over me? Why is the authority of short term happiness not as great or, because the future is uncertain and man is mortal, greater?
Allow me to explain why I am asking about authority. Let us take a real-make believe case to make this point clear:
Suppose I am in love with Queen Guenevere, both because she is a total babe, and because Arthur is really too old for her anyway. Suppose I must decide between the delights of luscious and enthusiastic adultery with her on the one hand, and the treason against my liege lord, my sworn word, and all rules of friendship and fellowship on the other. And I am French.
The fact that marriage is a sacrament established by God Almighty and that my oath to my liege was witnessed and will be enforced by Saint George and Jesus Christ in this hypothetical is disregarded. In this hypothetical, there is no supernatural authority to establish rules against adultery, fornication, false friendship, treachery, oath-breaking and skirt-chasing. In this hypothetical, there is nothing but manmade rules enforced by manmade authority.
The fact that the behavior of betraying my liege is non-optimal does not, in and of itself, create any moral imperative I am bound to obey. All it imposes is a risk, or a cost: if my paramour and I are caught in the midst of our flagrant delectation with my iron trousers around my knightly ankles, it might cause a civil war.
When I weigh this against her total babilicious hotness, I am making a merely prudential judgment, as I might weigh the cost of buying a horse versus buying a suit of armor. I consult my self interest and the group interest, and I make a choice like a consumer as to which future to purchase.
Now, if I have understood you, you have said this is exactly what morality is; a vague guideline for a prudential decision based on individual and group experience, including the experience of evolution written into our genes and social mores, assuming we attempt to find an optimal behavior; and I assume you mean morality is this and nothing more.
Morality, therefore, by this theory, is an instinctive and cultural rule for harmonizing and optimizing personal and group efficiency, weal, and happiness.
(Please correct me if I misunderstand your point here; I am not trying to put words in your mouth.)
By this theory, moral rules therefore include maxims like: first come, first served; one man divides the loot in half, the other man selects his share first; whoever improves the property owns the property; whoever first files a formally valid claim owns the property; whoever has been in adverse possession for seven years owns the property; and so on.
There are two objections here.
The first is that if morality is the evolved instinct created by natural selection in our genes and created by game theory selection in our ‘memes’ or inter-generational customs, then one of those instincts or evolved customs, all experience overwhelmingly shows, is that we have a duty to believe in a supernatural sanction for the moral code.
By this logic, the reason why every race and eon of man has believed that the lawgiver and divine judge enforcing the moral law is a god or gods, is because that is the optimal belief. God is something we believe by evolved instinct.
Disbelieving in God, according to this logic, must be an immoral act, because it is something the group has quite clearly evolved to help enforce the moral rules of society. Perhaps this instinct evolved because a man who fears the retribution of an omniscient and inescapable judge may sometimes obey the law even when no human witnesses and no human policemen are in line of sight.
But whatever the case, believing in God is a manmade instinctive and cultural rule useful for optimizing group and individual interests.
If the fact that something is a useful instinctive and cultural rule either makes it a moral imperative or not. If not, then the fact that adultery, treason and false friendship is against the cultural rule has no authority and we may disobey. But if so, then the fact that atheism is against the cultural rule has authority and we may not disobey.
The second objection is that the immediate and unambiguous experience of every single man who ever lived, including yourself, is that when the still, small voice of conscience speaks, the conscience convicts the guilty as if it speaks with authority.
You theory does not fit the observed facts, including facts or your own experience inside your own head. Nor can this experience be an illusion, since illusions are caused by distortions of the medium or defects in the sensory apparatus, but here there is no apparatus and no medium; the experience is immediate. Your conscience is in your thoughts.
By immediate hence indubitable experience, we all know a bad decision in the moral sphere makes one feel as if one has committed treason, that one has disobeyed something (or someone) one ought to obey.
It feels like betrayal, not merely like an imprudent judgment call. One feels guilty, as if one has committed a crime, even when the social rules do not call it a crime. It is a sin, not an innocent mistake.
When, on the other hand, a man is deciding between buying a horse versus using the same money to buy armor, or when a general is deciding between a cautious advance versus a bold advance which runs the risk of outrunning his supply lines, there is no still, small voice which speaks in his mind with authority. He is merely weighing the costs and benefits of one proposed act against another. The only reason why there is a decision taking place at all is because the outcomes of both options are not perfectly seen.
A bad decision in this field feels like an imprudent judgment call, and one might later regret an unwise decision, but one does not feel one has done anything morally wrong. It is a mistake, not a sin. There is no crime, and no guilt.
By contrast, in moral decisions, there is no weighing of the benefits of one course versus the other. There is a rule which one tacitly admits has authority over one’s behavior, and there is a temptation to break the rule and defy the authority. The outcome of both courses of action are perfectly well known, because the morality of the rule does not depend on consequences.
If you commit adultery with the lovely, lovely Guinevere, whether the sin is ever discovered or not will not shift the adultery from one category to another: it is not immoral because you are caught. It is either moral or immoral based on the nature of the act.
As evidence that all men tacitly acknowledge that moral decisions are not merely prudential decisions, allow me to point out that no court of law mitigates a crime on the grounds that it was prudent: suppose a judge punished a man who stole a dollar with a ten years in jail but punished a man who stole a thousand dollars with a week in jail. Suppose the judge said the only reason for the difference in the penalty was that stealing a thousand dollars is more prudent, since the reward of a successful theft is higher, and justifies the risk of being caught. We would know that judge is unjust.
Or, to use the example above, if Arthur punished an adulterer with death who dallied with a peasant, on the grounds that the reward was small versus the risk of being caught, but forgave and freed someone who committed adultery with the Queen, on the grounds that she is totally hot, and a queen besides, ergo the reward was so great that it outweighed the possible risk of being caught — ergo it was a prudent decision.
But that is absurd. All that would really happen in that case is that the judge would punish the more prudent criminal MORE severely, in order to rob any potential criminals of any prudential reason for violating the law.
Indeed, one might say the main point of punishing crimes at all is to change the risk-reward ratio so that one’s prudential judgments are forced to conform to the moral code. The moral code cannot be merely a risk reward ratio because then there would be nothing to conform risk-reward ratios to, and punishments would be meaningless.
In sum, a moral code consists, by definition, of moral imperatives which have an authority to demand conformity to their rule. By definition, this authority is universal and ubiquitous.
If a Martian knowingly and gleefully committed adultery with your wife, you would condemn the Martian’s act, even if the Martian came from a different line of culture and evolution as Earthmen. Likewise if you committed adultery with a married Martian girl.
The prudential decision of whether to commit adultery or not rests only on the question of how hot she is, and whether her angry husband has a heat ray.
By the logic of prudential decisions, a rule that is otherwise universal which makes a certain behavior too risky to contemplate, when an exception comes along that changes the risk and reward ratio then by this logic, adultery is lawful when it is prudent because it is prudent.
Any exception that changes the risk reward ratio breaks the rule, such as when Merlin can cast a glamor on Uther Pendragon to enable him to commit adultery with Ygraine, the hot, hot wife of Gorlois so there is no chance of discovery, AND the true born king of England shall come forth of the mating.
By that logic, Uther was a saint because he was not discovered whereas Lancelot was a sinner, for performing the selfsame act, merely under conditions that were imprudent.
Prudential decisions consist of contemplating and weighing conditional factors only. All prudential decisions are particular, and depend on the circumstance, because the risks and rewards depend on the specific circumstances.
By definition, then, prudential decisions cannot be universal and cannot have authority that compels the conscience. Ergo they cannot be moral decisions.
If moral decisions were prudential decisions, instead of the Ten Commandments or the Four Noble Truths, we would have the one rule: Don’t Get Caught.
That is not a moral judgment, that is the insolent defiance and diametric opposite of a moral judgment.
Ergo, atheism, because it holds that there is no legislator and no judge with authority and power over all creation, cannot hold that there is a universal rule of morality covering all creation; and if it is not a universal rule, it is not a moral rule at all.
The atheist version of Lancelot has no reason not to commit adultery and treason, save for a prudential calculation concerning his chances of not getting caught versus the immense rewards of embracing a queen in the hot delights of Cupid. Loyalty and honor and fear of God have nothing to do with this version of Lancelot, nor does chivalry.
But a Lancelot without chivalry is not Lancelot at all. Explaining Lancelot without chivalry cannot explain him.
In other words, the atheist model of the universe is illogical and incomplete, because Lancelot cannot be explained.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
