Morality as a Source of Dictatorship

Moral values are by their nature absolute. In and of themselves they do not countenance a more-or-less response. When we modify our allegiance to them it is usually because they conflict with each other or that the real world we face is inconsistent with them. When we do breach a moral value in these cases we often say we are being “practical.” In contrast, the real world we live in is a mater of more-or-less, a matter of probability. Nature knows no certainty. Thus we humans are faced with a world of moral values and a natural world that couldn’t care less about those values.

There is yet another world we face, the world of society consisting of other human beings. This world, from the perspective of the individual, has elements of both the real world and the world of moral values. This societal world can respond to the demands of morality, which is one major source of social change. It can also behave like a natural force by, for example, putting people to death for violation of its laws. Because of its dual nature society is vulnerable to major shifts in how its members are treated.

One of the main devices for manipulating this societal world is to define its moral component in terms of religion or custom. In so doing we impose what would otherwise be personal values on the society as a whole. This leaves no room for individual dissent. In his essay On Liberty John Stuart Mill saw this distinction between personal moral values and society’s moral values as clearly as anyone when he asked “What, then, is the rightful limit to the sovereignty of the individual over himself? Where does the authority of society begin? How much of human life should be assigned to individuality, and how much to society? His answer, broadly put, was that when one’s act had a significant affect on others it was society’s concern; when it did not it was the individual’s domain. Thus, for example, consensual homosexual activity would be none of society’s business.

We can now see why moral values, being absolute and therefore arbitrary, requiring no additional proof or reason, when transferred from the individual to society, members of which may not choose to accept them, become the instruments of dictatorship. This is why societies that place a high emphasis on moral values are so often dictatorial in nature. John Calvin’s Geneva is an excellent example. This is also why so much of the world’s history has been shot through with conflict and bloodshed, namely, because some people sought to impose their beliefs and values on others.

This tendency in humans to transfer personal values to the social realm is exceptionally pernicious for a democratic society in which the right of the individual not to be subordinated to the dominance of others is crucial to democracy’s existence.

In our own time the attempt to impose religious values, often veiled with the phrase “family values,” by Christian fundamentalists, should not be viewed as a religious issue only. It is by its nature the leading edge of dictatorship, which G. W. Bush is facilitating with every arbitrary action of his imperial presidency. The Religious Right is an enemy of democracy as surely as are fundamentalist Muslims and must be shown as such to a citizenry that is obviously baffled and bamboozled by confusions that our nation’s founders saw through clearly.

Bob Newhard