Right vs. Good?

Yesterday, subergoober texted me and mentioned that he wanted to ask me some questions about doing what is right vs. doing what is good, so I want to briefly address some of this.  I don't know his particular question, but I do have some thoughts on this issue in general.  Once I talk to him, I will probably have more to write.

My first thought is that the question, on its face, is something of a misstatement.  I would say that right and good are self-referential (they are not necessarily synonymous, but they are closely related).  I would say that the right thing to do is a good act, and good acts are the right thing to do - they are terms which inform and define one another; as I said, very close to synonymous.

A much more interesting question, however, and I think that this is what supergoober may have intended with his question is "good vs. necessary".  Of course, implicit in this question is the concept of the "necessary evil", an idea that I have used in previous arguments/justifications for certain things, but one which, of late, I have come to feel is quite weak and can be used as a justification for almost anything.  As a result, I do not believe that the idea of "necessary evil" is a tenable position to defend.

However, there are many necessary acts that are morally neutral, and, in fact, some acts that are "evil" are less evil or even morally neutral given context.  In fact, much of morality is not about the actual act, but about the context of the ramifications and of the intent behind the act.

For example, many religions view sex outside of marriage as wrong.  In fact, there is a lot, generally, of interest in sexual ethics.  The actual sexual act is not the moral concern (even at the heart of the Catholic religious teaching - I am Catholic, by the way - the essence of the teaching is not actually about the sex act), rather the impact it has on the people involved.  Sex can be morally good, morally neutral, or morally evil (in my opinion).  When it serves to enhance the relationship between two loving individuals, when it deepens the relationship, when it is mutually expressive of love and it brings those two people closer in their relationship, then it is a moral good.  When it is simply two consenting individuals meeting for mutual physical gratification of a need or perceived need, it is morally neutral (though I would argue that this situation is extremely rare - people do not come in to sexual encounters with equal power, with well-identified and conveyed intentions, etc.).  When it sex is solely for one of the partner's personal gratification with no care to the other person, or when it is done to establish control or power over another, or when it is done to demean another is when it is morally evil.

(Side note - this is not to say that a committed, loving couple cannot engage in behavior that would appear demeaning to others when viewed out of context; rather, if the behavior serves to strengthen the loving relationship, it is appropriate and good)

If an act becomes necessary (for example, if the act is compelled) - it ceases to have moral implications, in effect becoming morally neutral.  For example, if I were to tell you that if you don't steal a loaf of bread, I will kill your wife, you would have little option but to steal the bread (a lesser evil than the taking of a life) or somehow stop me by restraining, injuring, or even killing me (again, done in the service of preserving a life). 

You may have noted that I remarked that one thing was "less evil" than another.  While I do believe that there is an absolute morality (that is, there are things that are unequivocally right or wrong), but that does not preclude gradations.  It is entirely possible for things to be more or less right or wrong under this structure.  Most people erroneously believe that belief in an absolute morality precludes gradation; it does not.  Stating that there is a right answer does not mean that there aren't lesser right answers, better wrong answers, and completely wrong answers.

In a non-moral sense that allows for visualization of this, consider the equation

x² = 9.  The correct answer to this equation is positive or negative 3.  A slightly less correct answer would be positive and negative 3 (a subtle set distinction in math).  Answering 3 is partially correct, answering 4.5 is kind of wrong (dividing instead of taking the square root, but still applying algebra), answering 0 is patently wrong (just a guess, but still in the realm of mathematics), answering "tomato" is about as wrong as you can get.  

Just because there is a right answer does not preclude gradation (the essence of partial credit in a classroom).  

As far as I am concerned, morality is essentially based on the impact on the lives, feelings, and spirits of people (basically how it impacts people emotionally, intellectually, and physically).  I have not fully thought this out yet, but the worse impact you have on a person (or persons, including yourself) the more evil it is.  Obviously, this culminates with taking a life or lives (though I am sure I could potentially conceive of a way to come up with something more evil without taking a life).  Some people would argue that I am missing out when I do not specifically address the world, or the environment, etc., but I would argue that there is a moral obligation to uphold the environment to be able to allow other people the positive experience of beauty, as well as to be able to live in a healthy, life-affirming, and positive way.

Again, this seems to be somewhat relativistic in that I base it on the impact on human beings; however, I believe that there is an absolute positive or negative impact on people whether they realize it or not.  Take, for example, a person who routinely engages in meaningless sex with strangers for physical gratification.  I would argue that this person may be satisfying a physical need, but may be damaging themselves and their partners emotionally.  If the acts serve only to make them more base and less "fully human" (that is fully expressed as an intellectual, physical, emotional, and spiritual being) then they are doing something evil - both to the other people involved and to themself.  There is a moral obligation to any human being, including yourself.  

More forthcoming later...  

I Am Back, One More Time

 So here I am, one more time.  I think this time I will be able to maintain a presence a bit longer than the last foray onto the internet, as I have been laid up because of a car accident.  No martial arts, going out, or really doing much of anything except going to teach and coming home to read and watch crappy TV.

So, hopefully, I will find enough things to write about, that I will continue forward with this.

The first topic I want to address came from a conversation with Supergoober.  He was mentioning some things about cultural relativism that both he and his girlfriend had been speculating about.  In many ways, she ascribes to some form of cultural relativism - because there are so many different expressions of morality across cultures, it is difficult to imagine that there is one possible right answer to moral questions.

I do not agree with this perspective.  I do believe that there could be (and is) an absolute morality.  Whether it is actually possible to know this absolute morality is debatable (and I would argue that it is likely that the absolute morality is unknowable), but just because cultures exist that have different interpretations of morality is not sufficient evidence that there is no moral absolute.

A brief aside - I teach math, and suppose I assign a problem, x² + 7x – 18 = 0.  I don't even want to tell you the number of ways that I have seen a problem like this done incorrectly.  Am I therefore to assume that there are that many ways of doing the problem, and that there is no actual correct answer. 

Of course, most people will agree, even if they don't know how to do it, that there is a correct answer (or in this case, answers).  There are lots of ways of getting a problem wrong, and the more complex the problem, the more possible wrong ways of getting it wrong. 

This is called "Descriptive Relativism".  Just because we can describe a lot of ways that cultures have defined morality does not mean that there is actually more than one "right" way.  Descriptive relativism does not preclude an absolute morality.

Of course, descriptive relativism does not preclude cultural relativism either.  There are a number of other issues that I have with cultural relativism, but the description above was just to establish that it is possible for descriptive relativism and absolute morality to exist in the same realm.

There are aspects of cultural relativism that defy common sense, and others that defy logic.  I should probably address these two topics separately, but in all likelihood I will not.  I am writing things as they come to me, so I will probably end up mixing the two, as that is the way I think. 

But as a brief aside, we might contemplate, "What about individual relativism?"  Most philosophers simply state that individual relativism is an untenable premise.  If every individual can construct their own morality, then there is no possibility of anyone ever being wrong.  Since each person decides their own morality, ever action they take is right, and if they later regret it, it is simply a matter of their personal morality has changed.  The reason I will actually look at individual relativism is because it contributes to cultural relativism.  If cultural relativism is correct, individual relativism must (at least in part) be valid.  

The reason I contend this is that cultures are made of individuals.  A culture can only establish a morality based on the opinions of the individuals in that culture, therefore, individuals actually determine the morality of a culture.

While this may seem overly simplistic, I think that it is a very important fact - if the culture determines its own morality, then the individual members of that culture must be participants in the creation of the morality.  That means that for cultural relativism to exist, individual relativism must also exist.  

More on this later...  

I am getting a little tired.