The Parable of the King’s Pillar
A reader with the god-loving name of Theophilus asks:
- How is “I ought to obey all universal moral principles” not self-evident? That is what “universal” means.
- Is your argument that the existence of universal moral principles presupposes a Creator?
My comment:
“I ought to obey all universal moral principles” is not self evident if the moral principles in question are merely a list or description of moral principles human beings beforehand, and for other reasons, already obey.
I do not argue that the existence of universal moral principles necessarily presuppose a Creator, but I do argue that no other explanation for the existence of universal moral principles is rational.
I say one must either accept the existence of universal moral law implies a lawgiver, or one must lay one’s hand over one’s mouth, after saying human knowledge cannot reach to the origin or governing principles of the moral order.
Accounts of how the time and space arose from nonbeing to form an ordered, rational, and beautiful cosmos suffer a similar defect. One either must argue that creation implies creator, or one must assert the causes and aims of creation are beyond human reason to know.
Attempts to argue creation without a creator, or law without a lawgiver, break down into logical incoherence.
Here is my reasoning. Forgive the length of it, but the modern age forgets so much that it is so basic, one must reinvent the wheel with every conversation, and restate basics.
There are four types of causation: the mechanical cause is prior in time; the material cause is what it is made of; the final cause is the end or purpose served; the formal cause is either a definition, a shape, or a matter of formal logic.
Suppose a king says, “After Mayday of this year, no rule of my kingdom is enforceable at law until it is written on this pillar. Violators will be burned to death by laser-fire.”
And on the day appointed, the king writes on the pillar: “No stealing.”
Suppose now Raskolnikov, our philosophical thief, asks a law abiding subject, a youth named Horton, born into this kingdom and protected by its laws all his life, and who has sworn fealty to the king freely, why Horton should obey the rule? What gives it imperative force?
Here are some possible replies from Horton:
1. I ought obey the rule because the king’s stonecutter used a chisel and wrote the words reciting the rule on the pillar on Mayday of this year.
2. I ought obey the rule because it is written on the pillar, and the pillar is made of stone.
3. I ought obey the rule because the king is the lawful authority, and without obedience to lawful authority, anarchy results.
4. Moreover, I ought to obey the rule because it is prudent to avoid death by laser-fire, and the fact that the rule is written on the pillar provides me good reason to believe such is my fate should I be caught stealing.
5. I ought obey the rule because it I vowed fealty to the king, and I meant what I said and I said what I meant, because Horton is faithful, one hundred percent.
6. I ought to obey the rule because the king has properly discerned the same moral intuition from right reason that I myself, and all good men, possess, namely, that theft is unjust.
None of these reasons is wrong, nor do they clash with each other. But they are actually answering slightly different questions.
Raskolnikov is actually asking what makes this instance of a proposed moral imperative actually be a moral imperative.
The first answer is the mechanical cause. It recites the prior cause leading to the current event, but does not tell us what it is about Mayday that makes the rule a moral imperative.
The second answer is the material cause. Rules written on the pillar are written in stone, and that is why the rule is written there. The rule could not exist if the stone of the pillar did not exist. Nonetheless, it gives no account as to why this rule is an moral imperative.
The third answer gives the final cause: it is to deter anarchy that such rules are announced and enforced. It is a true answer, but it only establishes the purpose the rule hopes to serve, not its status as a moral imperative.
The fourth answer is likewise a description of a final cause, but, in this case, a final cause which is illegitimate. It is conditional rather than absolute (because Horton may or may not avoid stealing were the penalty less certain or less terrifying). It is a description of a motive, not a deduction from first principles making anyone aware of a moral imperative he must acknowledge he ought to obey.
The fifth answer supplies a defect missing in all other answers, because it refers to duty itself. The thought runs that, given that we all know one must keep faith with one’s word in general, and given that this is a case of lawful authority to which Horton is given his word in specific, therefore Horton must keep faith in this case. It is a purely formal answer, given in terms of essence and accident.
Unfortunately, this answer is tautological, because Horton does not reveal whether or not giving fealty to this king, before he gave it, was itself a moral imperative or not.
The final answer is also a formal answer, but is more useful. It speaks to a fact we all know that theft violates a moral imperative which would be imperative whether this king or any other enforced any rule against it or not.
Horton in this last answer is saying that here is an unwritten rule we all know and acknowledge merits obedience even if it were never enforced, that just so happens to have been written down by a king who promises to enforce it.
In this case, the cause is a matter of logic: “I ought obey this rule because I ought to obey lawful authorities when acting within the scope of their authority, that is, within the ambit of right reason.”
Or, to put it another way, this answer states that we all have a pre-existing duty to be virtuous; one virtue is justice; justice requires obedience to lawful authority; the rule written on the king’s pillar is an example of lawful authority; therefore, because of a moral imperative I already acknowledge to be valid and which I already obey, I must acknowledge and obey this too.
This is a formal answer rather than a mechanical answer because the premiss is prior in logic to the conclusion, not a cause prior in time to an effect.
This is a formal answer rather than a material answer because the answer would be the same no matter where the rule were published, whether verbally, written in a book, written on a pillar, and so on.
This is a formal answer rather than a final answer, because the answer would be the same no matter what motive, intention, deterrent, reward, passion or inclination urged or tempted or threatened one into obedience or disobedience.
Despite how the question is worded, Raskolnikov is not asking Horton why he, personally, feels moved to obey the rule.
Raskolnikov is asking from whence comes the moral imperative that we ought to obey this rule (whether you or I happen to obey it or not in any given instance).
The Kantian Universal Moral Imperative, like the alleged universal codes of any number of honest atheists, is indeed self-evident, but only because it is a tautology.
Any answer which does not refer to a moral imperative already acknowledged to be authoritative does not actually provide a moral imperative.
“I ought to obey all universal moral principles” is circular. It assumes what it itself is attempting to prove. It is a tautology, and is it in that sense self-evident, because all tautologies are self evident.
But what it actually is, is a definition. It is a man saying, “Looking through the moral imperatives in my mind, I notice that they differ from the passions and appetites and from the conclusions of reason and from the evidence of the senses in that a moral imperative is universal and unconditional by definition: if it applies to all men, it must apply to me, and if it applies to me, it must apply to all men, or else it is not a moral imperative. ”
One cannot obey a definition, because a definition only sets the bounds to distinguish what is rightly called by one name from what is not.
A definition cannot accept an oath of fealty nor issue a command, nor command the moral authority of a king, father, teacher, or sage, or any other figure one might be rightly bound to obey.
This matter, which is so plain and so obvious, is so surrounded by modern mental fog, obfuscation, and lies, a word of discrimination is needed.
If the king’s rule forbids stealing, this is in keeping with Right Reason, and the law has moral force. If the king’s rule forbids driving on the left side of public roads, on the other hand, this is a regulation.
Right Reason might command obedience to the king’s regulations, but it does do regardless of the content of the regulation. He might have decided all should drive on the right.
If the king’s rule, as the moderns would have it, forbids Whites stealing from Blacks, but allows Blacks to steal from Whites, this is an offense against Right Reason, because it contradicts the self evident moral intuition that all men are created equal. In which case, two moral imperatives, that of obedience to the king, and that of obedience to Right Reason, would be in conflict, and a third, higher principle must be consulted to resolve the conflict.
Right Reason is the set of moral intuitions all men know even as we know the laws of logic, that is, it is a set of axioms all men use even if not all men can articulate them.
This can be seen by the fact that one cannot even discuss the question of whether or not who ought to obey Right Reason without obeying one of the moral intuitions Right Reason promotes, namely, a duty of honesty or mental integrity during such a discussion.
The most notable feature of modern (post-Cartesian) philosophy is the inability to account for Right Reason, or, indeed, open hostility toward it.
Freud, for example, asserted that moral intuitions was nothing more than the internalized habits of social conditioning in the young: as if any society anywhere could have with equal legitimacy raised the next generation to abhor truth, virtue and beauty rather than adore.
Marx likewise proposed that moral reasoning was nothing more than the ideological superstructure conditioned into each category of economic class by the material shapes and masses of the tools used to produce goods, as the hand mill producing the fealty codes of the middle ages, or the assembly line producing the contractual codes of limited liability corporations. Each set of economic behavior, even though one man at the same time can participate in one or more, such as investing or wage earning, was held by Marx to define the membership of mutually exclusive castes, proles versus bourgeoisie, with mutually exclusive moral principles — a goobledegook of jabberwocky I defy any sane man to interpret.
Modern writers likewise propose that moral sentiments are the side effect of evolutionary pressures, and that a predisposition towards altruism in certain cases promotes the fertility and longevity of the tribe, so that a selfish gene programs the helpless meat robots of mankind to be unselfish, because a group of molecules in a sperm cell can somehow have an ulterior purpose due to statistical outcomes of their unintentional self-reproduction so as to mimic intentional goal-seeking behavior while being unintentional. Thus we have an instinctive desire to save our nephews from danger.
But we also (apparently) have an instinctive desire to rape and murder, ravage, loot and burn, and we do not have a genetically programmed instinct which tells us why we should use our free will to decide to prioritize the good instincts over the evil ones.
Some writers go further and say we have no free will, because our genetic programming forces us to suffer the illusion that we do, therefore we should use our free will to decide to believe this claptrap.
Occam’s razor, if nothing else, would propose that if no intelligent being in the sidereal universe at any point in time can imagine or perform any rational actions without reference to some ultimate moral imperative (such as a duty of self-survival, or a duty of self-sacrifice for the sake of the young, or a duty to live as befits an honest soul) then, logically, the simplest and best explanation of the universality of this illusion is that it is not an illusion.
One can bark orders at a dog, or exchange words with a lunatic or sociopath, but, in the strict sense, one cannot talk sense with an irrational creature.
A rational creature must not only reflect at least some logical coherence in his speech for rational speech to be possible, he must also reflect at least some moral reasoning.
It is by reason that we know two contradictory statements cannot both be true at the same time and in the same sense. Likewise, it is by reason that we know the Golden Rule. No rational discussion is possible without adherence to the first; no honest discussion is possible without adherence to the second.
So, then, if Right Reason includes moral imperatives, known by universal intuition, which, if a man denies, he lies, then it is by reason why know what is right and wrong in logic, as well as what is right and wrong in morality.
“I ought to obey all universal moral principles” is nothing more than a description of the Golden Rule, that is, a formal definition of a property moral imperatives must have to be moral imperatives.
I agree it is self evident in the sense that A is A. A moral rule must be moral to be a moral rule. A standard must be standardized to be a standard.
What is not self evident is why Raskolnikov, or anyone, is under a duty to obey moral rules. “I ought to obey all universal moral principles” is a description of something just and virtuous men already believe. It is a formal description. It is not a reason to obey. It is not a command which carries its own authority. It is not an imperative. In that sense it is not self evident.
In order to be a command, there must be a commander. In order to be an imperative, there must be an imperator. In order to be a rule, there must be a ruler. In order to be a law, there must be a lawmaker.
We call things the “law” of gravity or the “law” or grammar or the “law” of supply and demand which describe invariant relations or regularities of behavior. This is in analogy to human law, where the enforcement by the sword of the magistrate hopes to mimic on earth the regularity seen in the motions of heaven, and the perfection and virtue other rational creatures known to us, such as angels, are known to exhibit.
But it is an analogy only: such laws are not laws. They are descriptions. A description cannot demand fealty. A description cannot inspire fear, awe, love. A description is not a king.
Atheists are pathetic things. I speak from personal experience. We atheists who are consistently logical — and we are a vanishing breed, being corrupted and destroyed by irrational atheists — we of course deduce, because all rational beings must, that there is a rational order to the universe, including the moral order.
We obey that moral order for the same reason all men do. We know by an undeniable intuition that the Golden Rule makes an absolute, undeniable, moral demand on our behavior, whether we like it or not, whether in our best interest or not.
Logical atheists unable to see logic to its logical conclusion use some fallacy or flimsy to avoid the inevitable conclusion waiting at the end of their chain of reasoning: in order even to have a discussion about the nature of the moral order that binds us all, we must already be bound by it.
You cannot have an honest discussion with an dishonest man. That includes discussions about the moral imperative to be honest.
Those pleading to be excused from the universal duty of honesty and fairness honest expect their plea to be heard honestly and fairly.
If no one in the universe, or at any time, can deny one moral imperative, this means moral imperatives exist, universally and eternally, and are not manmade.
In order to escape this inevitable conclusion, some may indeed try to tie all moral reasoning into a type of self interest or self preservation rightly understood, or a need to care for the young, or tie their moral reasoning to some other moral imperative known intuitively with not one iota more or less authority than the one they deny.
See, for example, Ayn Rand deny the moral intuition imposing a duty of mercy and altruism, in the name of a moral intuition imposing a duty to uphold justice and self-sovereignty (most especially, a man’s self-sovereign right to own and dispose of the fruits of his labor).
In this, she is no different from the vile Marxist she opposes so vehemently, who would abrogate all duties of justice and liberty in the name of upholding the duty of charity and altruism.
In a like manner, some mountebanks and buffoons assert that equality and liberty are mutually exclusive, and use the moral authority of the one to disparage any duty owed the other.
I am ashamed to live among a generation men so stupid that this discussion need take place, or so gullible as to be fooled by a simple ambiguity of speech. As I had to explain, again and again, that my shoe is not going to heaven because it has a sole.
In reality there is a self evident moral imperative demanded we treat each man equally before the law, on the grounds that guilt and innocence are individual properties, whereas only human nature is inherited by birth to all men. (Human nature is what theologians call ‘original sin.’)
It is likewise self evident that no man by birth has a right to invade the rights of another, to defraud his mind, harm his flesh, dishonor his name, seduce his daughter, steal his goods, trespass on his land, or end his life.
It is in order to diminish, insofar as possible, such invasions, assaults, lies, and trespasses, that governments are instituted among men, and by mutual oath or unspoken understanding, the community acts as a group to deter the danger posed by man to man.
That sovereigns, whether single kings, gathered nobles, or assemblies of the multitude, might pose a danger equally immoral as the mere anarchy they cure, justifies rule of law, and the jealous protection of the individual rights of the unpopular, and, with it, the recognition of natural rights known by the moral intuitions common to all men.
These natural rights, by definition, cannot spring from the sovereign, since they are both logically prior to the institution of sovereignty, and prior in time.
The sovereign, again, by definition, can only make manmade law: such as when and if to salute the flag, when to vote, how to contribute taxes, or which side of the highway motorists must drive. We know these are manmade because when the opposite law is enacted, or none at all, no moral intuition is offended.
The law against murder, theft, riot, arson are not manmade.
Written law is only clarifying and expressing a moral intuition already known to all honest men.
In recent days, many of the magistrates and elected officials of the Democrat Party, out of partisan zeal, as an act of insurrection, enacted de facto manmade laws allowing Marxists to riot, loot and burn, but by the same law threatened those who defended themselves by flourishing firearms against the rampaging mob.
Likewise the Democrats allowed and encouraged Marxists to deface public pro-American monuments without hindrance, but punished patriots who defaced public anti-American monuments, such as slogans written on sidewalks.
All men know this offends justice, liberty, equality, and a whole host of moral intuitions on which the laws are based.
Even those partisan liars who pretend to have no such intuition will hotly denounce the self same law or practice when it is applied evenhandedly. For example, answer the heckle “Black Lives Matter” by saying “White Lives Matter” and the matter is clear. The anarchists rest for their moral authority on the very law they denounce, in this case, a moral imperative for equality under the law.
The laws protecting liberty and equality cannot undone without offense to the higher principles on which laws are made.
This means those principles are not manmade. And yet they carry imperative weight no honest man denies.
To break manmade law offends the sovereign. The subject swears fealty to the king he serves, and the citizen pledges allegiance to the laws. That oath is abrogated by rebellion.
Whom does breach of principle offend? To whom is our oath of fealty or pledge of allegiance?
Pity the poor atheist. If he does not abandon his chain of reasoning before reaching the final conclusion, he must recognize a body of moral imperatives, applicable to all men, which is variously called Right Reason, or Natural Law, or, by C.S. Lewis, called the Tao.
The atheist can rightly argue that no one can deny or repudiate this body of imperative commands and laws binding even on those who never consented to obey them, therefore they are universal and eternal.
But he cannot account for how they arose, nor why they are authoritative.
He hears the voice of the Logos, the living God, and admits it is a voice that speaks, as spirits do, directly into the heart, and with an authoritative force not to be denied. But the conclusion that the voice of God must have a God as its source is a leap too far, and one he cannot make.
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.
