[The Spinozist Mormon] Persistent Morality and Praiseworthiness

[Christian Y. Cardall]

Blake has steered the conversation on free will to the nature of morality, and the question of what makes actions ‘moral,’ worthy of praise or blame; see this comment. Does determinism imply that moral systems are mere social convention, and further that no actions are worthy of praise or blame? I don’t think so.

Determinism does not imply willy-nilly moral relativism, or that anything under the sun might be arbitrarily agreed upon by social creatures and actually turn out to be workable. (Hence in answer to Blake’s question ‘Why is Zion desirable?’, I would suggest it turns out to be that which is permanently sustainable—uniquely so, in a Mormon perspective.) I agree with Blake that there are deep instincts or tendencies in us that are very closely related to our capacity and need for relationships that range from cooperative to loving, and that these instincts underpin widely-shared (Blake would say universal and absolute) moral precepts.

But whether or not these deep tendencies amount to eternal, unchanging moral absolutes, or instead merely appear to be so compared to typical human lifetimes and experience, depends on which track of my thinking I’m on at the moment. In an eternal Mormon view I suppose they might be taken as eternal and unchanging. In a non-religious naturalistic view, I see the deep instincts—not all of which are ‘morally praiseworthy’—as products of evolution, existing in an uneasy balance that ‘works.’ (Recall that part of the ‘genius’ of evolution is that that which does not work is eliminated.) It is a persistent balance, one exhibiting strong hysteresis, but not utter permanence: it can shift and adapt, to some extent purposefully and to some extent automatically, with the ever-changing conditions in which humanity finds itself.

These changes are due in no small part to humanity’s technological capabilities: consider for example changes in what society tolerates in terms of sexuality as a result of birth control and disease prevention, simply because these technologies allow a wider range of mixes of deep tendencies toward variety and jealousy to be expressed without unacceptable social costs.

I note in passing that the possibility of unchanging moral absolutes under a Mormon perspective does necessarily make them (or at least their proper ethical implementation) easily recognizable. Consider a wedding feast described by Joseph, which featured (post reception of the Word of Wisdom) his blessing of “three servers filled with glasses of wine” passed around: “I doubt whether the pages of history can boast of a more splendid and inocent wedding and feast than this for it was conducted after the order of heaven” (Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling, p. 310; the context makes clear that by “order of heaven” Joseph was referring not only to the ceremony itself, but the entire social experience). Obviously there has been a change since then, to absolute prohibition of alcohol. Or, consider the change from many wives to one. Do these changes represent unmitigated progress towards implementation of the true moral absolutes, or are they temporary ‘law of Moses’-style exigencies required by the conditions of external society, with previous practices to be restored at a glorious future day? Mormonism provides no ready answer, for unprecedented progress and restoration were both ideas Joseph readily drew upon as needed.

Enough on the consistency of persistent (and not merely arbitrary) morality with determinism; how about the praiseworthiness (or blameworthiness) of actions? I would suggest that whether we attach moral meaning to someone’s actions affecting others results from two things: first, a sense that their processes of scenario formulation are functioning accurately (i.e. that they are not mentally ill); and second, that their decision reveals internal rules and values consistent with those deemed ‘worthy’. These two criteria for praise- or blameworthiness do not require a genuinely open future, but are consistent with causal determinism. The deceptive perception of causal openness may simply be an artifact of our not being privy to the internal rules and values used by the agent to ‘compute’ a selection among scenarios until these rules and values are (partially) revealed by the observed selection.

For a final insight into the true minimality of the threshold of our perceptions of merit and blame, I refer to a past comment of Blake’s about dogs simply urinating where they please, in contrast to humans. This is wrong: dogs can and do learn to control themselves, and can learn many other more complicated things besides. Observing properly-done tasks, their masters say “Good boy!”—and such praise is not empty, but sincerely considered well-deserved.

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Posted by Christian Y. Cardall to The Spinozist Mormon at 12/28/2005 10:49:00 AM