Download Thou shalt not kill: does morality exist

Thou shalt not kill: does morality exist?
„To exterminate human beings and at the same time to remain decent – that was
the essence of Nazism.‟ Heinrich Himmler.
This quotation is remarkable in several different ways. We are all aware of the
horrendous crimes committed under the Nazi policy of the Final Solution and
undoubtedly we would all condemn the perpetrators of these acts as immoral.
However Himmler (commander of the Nazi SS) clearly presented himself and his
fellow killers as acting morally. Whether or not he truly believes this is to some extent
irrelevant – in this quotation he clearly makes the distinction between the act
(„exterminate human beings‟) and the moral value of this act („and remain decent‟).
To us, the two terms are not separate, the act and the moral judgement are closely tied
together: exterminating human beings is intrinsically wrong. Yet can this coldblooded and horrific mass murder ever be justified and can moral statements be
absolute?
The Commandment „Thou shalt not kill‟ is one that has been present in the history of
human society. What is interesting is the universality of the taboo against killing in
human societies. There has never been a society where indiscriminate killing within
the society has been tolerated (if, to us, indiscriminate killing does occur, it is usually
in a highly ritualised and controlled way). The penalties may vary from one society to
another, but nowhere is it accepted as morally appropriate for members of a social
group to kill their fellows. There have been until recently societies in which killing of
„outsiders‟ is accepted, even desirable, but even these acts obliquely reinforce the
taboo. The Aztecs conducted mass human sacrifices, a seeming conveyor belt of
victims ascending the pyramids of old Mexico to have their hearts ritually torn out in
honour of the sun god. The headhunters of the Amazon and Papua New Guinea
embarked on highly ritualised forays against neighbouring groups of which the
ultimate, though apparently rarely achieved, end was the taking of an opponent‟s life,
the head serving as a palpable trophy. But why did the Aztecs sacrifice humans;
prisoners of their endless wars and criminals? Because it was the highest possible
offering they could make, vastly more valuable than a mere chicken or goat. And,
lurking in the collective psyche of Aztec society, the awareness that this was no
ordinary sacrifice but an act of transgression gave the utmost potency to the
ceremony. Similarly, the reason headhunters occasionally tried to kill, rather than
merely steal goods or women, was to remind their rivals that they had this ultimate
power, and were prepared to use it.
So then are moral statements like the one prohibiting murder absolute to all human
society? In answering this question I think it is worth embarking upon some
counterfactual history – namely what would‟ve happened had the Nazis won the
Second World War. Would the Holocaust (or the „Final Solution‟ to the „Jewish
Problem‟ as it would have been secretly known) still be considered an act of great
evil? Surely, to the Nazi social elites the opposite would have been true, the
destruction of European (and later world) Jewry would have been a great moral
victory and the assertion of superior Aryanism over an inferior and a dangerous race.
To a select group of radical intellectual nationalists within German society in the late
19th and early 20th century, the extermination of the Jews was a noble and
undoubtedly moral aim. Morality, it seems does not exist in a vacuum; to some extent
it is dependent upon the society in which it exists. For example we now feel it is
immoral to allow public executions, the persecution of minorities, racism, slavery,
etc; all actions that we once considered morally acceptable. Could the same have been
the case with the Holocaust in a Nazi held Europe?
So how do we condemn this view and assert our moral superiority over what we
consider to be immoral actions? It must be said, with some difficulty. Philosophers
have differed over the centuries to whether morality exits as a meaningful concept,
and if it does where it comes from. Immanuel Kant, for example, regarded moral
behaviour as a form of obligation: it is our duty to be good. However unless we
invoke a deity to grant us the power of moral absolutes1, is the „intuition‟ that we
„know‟ that murder is wrong founded in any sense of external reality, or is it simply a
personal opinion or culturally dependent view?
In the early 20th century a new philosophical movement (the Vienna Circle)
developed in Vienna that rejected „metaphysical‟ claims, among which were
statements of aesthetics and morality. Logical Positivism asserted that a statement is
only meaningful if it can either be: verified (a synthetic or scientific statement, for
example water boils at 100oC); or if it is meaningful due to the content of the
statement itself (an analytic statement, e.g. A triangle has three sides, statements of
maths or logic). They therefore rejected any idea that there were meaningful objective
moral absolutes, as the statement „Murder is wrong‟ can‟t be falsified and has no
meaning as an analytic statement either. David Hume (the 18th century Scottish
philosopher) was also used to support this argument, as he proposed the naturalistic
fallacy: an „ought‟ (a moral statement) can‟t be derived from an „is‟ (set of events).
For example the statement „There are people starving in Burundi‟ does not necessarily
lead to „It is right to help them‟ as there is another process where we as a society
assign the act of helping starving strangers who live thousands of miles away as
moral. At its greatest extent A.J.Ayer (1910-1989) reduced statements of morality to
meaningless, subjective opinion in what he called his „Boo/Hurrah theory‟. When we
say „murder is wrong‟, to Ayer, we are simply saying „I believe murder is wrong‟ in
“a particular tone of horror, or written it with the addition of some special
exclamation marks”.
However, if this is the case, why do we still feel a such a keen sense of right and
wrong that seems in many cases to be universal? Why does the statement „The Nazis
brutally murdered millions of Jews‟ necessarily (to us) seem to lead us to „This is
wrong‟? The study of meta-ethics (the analysis of ethical language) has tried to meet
this challenge. In 1903 G.E.Moore (1873-1958) argued that good is a simple,
unanalysable property just as a primary colour is: he argued that good couldn‟t be
defined saying „If I am asked „What is good?‟ my answer is that good is good, and
that is the end of the matter.‟ However this obviously just shifts the whole problem
1
This concept has several key problems: firstly the God of the Old testament seems reticent to follow
his own moral absolutes often commanding his people to genocide in the manner fitting his status as an
exclusively tribal God (this criticism doesn‟t apply to the New Testament); secondly Hume‟s criticism
that the pantheon of conflicting Gods over the ages neatly cancel each other out (why should the
Judaeo-Christian God exist rather then Odin or Baal?); and finally I personally do not believe in the
existence of a God who is interested in human society (I can‟t rule out the possibility of an Aristotelian
Prime Mover: it is a meaningless proposition as it can‟t be falsified).
back a stage – we may accept that we have moral intuition, but what is more
important is where this comes from. It is probable that moral intuition seems to come
largely from social conditioning, so surely we have no moral authority over another
culture‟s actions? Can we really go to Afghanistan and confidently assert that our
Western culture is superior to the local one? Can we even condemn horrific cultural
practices like female circumcision and the ancient Hindu practice of sati, the suicide
of a widow on the burning pyre of her husband? We have to be careful not to fall into
the trap of 19th imperialism: bible in one hand (and all the cultural baggage of late
Victorian society) and enforce this with the gun in the other. In the aftermath of the
9/11 attacks Tony Blair made a bold speech declaring his desire for „justice‟:
„Justice not only to punish the guilty. But justice to bring those same values
of democracy and freedom to people round the world…The starving, the
wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor
from the deserts of Northern Africa to the slums of Gaza, to the mountain
ranges of Afghanistan: they too are our cause‟.
This, to me, seems to be promoting a quite blatant return to imperialism and the sense
of moral superiority; yet I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Blair that the government of
the Taliban was „immoral‟. Can we make moral statements about other cultures‟
activities without the whiff of imperialism? It seems ridiculous if we can‟t.
Undeniably Genghis Khan was acting in a culturally acceptable manner to the
Mongols when he ordered the slaughter of literally millions in the cities of central
Asia, but can simply behaving in a culturally acceptable manner really support such
brutal massacres?
At this point it is probably worth examining the view of another philosopher, Plato
(428-347 BCE). In one of his many „dilemmas‟ (written debates with set characters,
in this case Socrates and Euthrypro) Plato questions whether, and if so how,
„goodness‟ exists. He asked „Is an action good because the Gods command it; or do
the Gods command what is good‟, the second statement implying there is an external
source of goodness the „Gods‟ simply correspond to. For the purpose of this essay
(i.e. rejecting the existence or influence of God), if we replace the word „Gods‟ with
„society‟ it is worth briefly analysing this. If the first statement is the case, this means
that if it was socially acceptable to rape, murder and commit other „crimes‟ these
would subsequently be known as „good‟ actions. This seems unacceptable to us.
However if the second statement is the case (that the laws of society simply
correspond with an external source of moral absolutes) then there is the problem of
where these moral absolutes come from.
Perhaps Darwinism has some importance in this respect. Talking in biological terms,
it is more evolutionary advantageous for individuals to exist within a society that
encourages mutual assistance, is stable, and protects individuals; rather than an
anarchic society of indiscriminate violence. If a set of individuals „developed‟ the
ability of having moral absolutes arguably they would be more successful then their
chaotic neighbours who spent more time fighting, and less time supporting their
society and encouraging procreation.
In conclusion I would argue that one could divide moral statements into two groups.
Firstly there seem to be transient or culturally relative moral statements, for example
our society currently doesn‟t tolerate racism, sexism, slavery, capital punishment, and
homophobia. However this has certainly not been the case for the majority of our
history2 - these moral statements don‟t seem as powerful as the one prohibiting
murder. These statements can be loosely categorised as supporting human rights, but
the concept of human rights is a relatively recent one in our nation. In short I would
argue these less powerful moral statements are intrinsically linked to individual
societies: Saudi Arabia mutilates criminals as punishment; we don‟t. However 1000
years ago the law in Saudi Arabia under a Muslim Caliph was probably a lot fairer
then Dark Age Britain. This „moral zeitgeist‟ as it is sometimes known (i.e. as society
develops so do aspects of our behaviour) has a major influence upon its members, but
little upon members of other societies, and may be relegated to history if the progress
of society takes another turn.3
Secondly there are a select set of unchanging universal moral values such as murder,
incest and theft. These, I would argue, have remained with us due to the fact they
encourage the promotion of a functioning, stable, and constructive society that allow
the individuals greater chance of survival (and thus a greater chance of passing on
their genetic material). I would argue that these will remain in the human race for ever
as quite simply they are programmed within in us in the form of social contract and
genetics. Dawkins‟ meme theory regarding how „ideas‟ or accepted social taboos can
behave in a similar way to genetic material, passing down the generations select traits
whilst weaning off others, is especially interesting when considering why we have
universal moral absolutes. Essentially these taboos are repellent to our species and
opposed to our well being and survival – we want societies where genetic material is
passed on freely (under the auspice of that anachronistic and distasteful idea „survival
of the fittest‟4) and frequently, not where violence disrupts this process and kills
members before they can reproduce. Though some might find this analysis rather cold
and sterile, I think it is really the only way of explaining where our sense of morality
comes from. Essentially morality is based on empathy – a tool that encourages more
successful societies – and it may turn out that the solution, along with so many others,
is after all genetic. Evidence that empathy may have originated in an evolutionary step
can be found in some hereditary personality disorders such as Sotos syndrome, a rare
hereditary disorder where the individual is missing a gene5 that allows the individual
to empathise with others (requiring them to be taught through therapy how to
recognise and sympathize with others). Perhaps the birth of the ability to empathise
brought with it the first moral absolutes, for example the knowledge that „thou shalt
not kill‟, the „fact‟ that it is intrinsically wrong to murder – something even Himmler
recognised.
2
Homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967; capital punishment in 1964; the full enfranchisement of
women in 1928; slavery banned in the „Empire‟ in 1833; and there are still racial equality acts being
passed through Parliament.
3
Using the example of homosexuality again: it was acceptable and even promoted in Ancient Greece
and other civilizations but condemned in Europe until the second half of the 20th century.
4
The Nazis warped use of this term has led it to be treated with caution by biologists when dealing
with the public.
5
This is assumed to be a gene – though to my knowledge this hasn‟t been officially proved.