Moral Values and Mankind's Survival

As I have noted previously, morality is a two edged sword.
On the one hand it may promote community harmony by way of common consent; on the other it may promote some of the worst violence when the morals of one society are opposed to those of another society. Obviously, the threat posed by radically differing moral systems, especially in a world of increasing lethality of weaponry, must be addressed if our species is to survive. This is the subject of a new book by Sam Harris (Previous books: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason; Letters to a Christian Nation) titled The Moral Landscape Thinking About Human Values in Universal Terms. The book is due out in early October this year.

At least since Socrates asked "What is the Good?" humans have been asking what moral values are. Are they derived from other sources, if so what sources? Many societies, having a deity to protect them against adversity derived their moral values from said deity as did the Hebrews when Moses descended from the mountain top with their god's commandments. With the Age of Reason humans began to think about other origins for moral values. Emmanuel Kant supposed they were derived from social necessity, e.g. The injunction against lying was necessary because no society could persist if everybody lied. However, many people continue to believe that morality is derived from their god. As such there is no way to challenge those values without impiety or worse. Hence Christians can require everyone in a society to observe their religious days and Muslims can deny females an education. This feature of moral judgments, namely, their absolute arbitrariness, makes them impervious to any other human needs. This is the basic reason that such values present considerable danger to a world of different moral systems, which is being increasingly forced to live closer to each other and more interdependently.

That this issue has immediate practical and major significance can be illustrated by the following. One of the most influential books of the last few years, especially in conservative circles, is Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order in which it is argued that with the end of the Cold War the origins of conflict shifted from ideological differences to cultural differences. Thus the basic issue in our invasion of Iraq is not oil, but an episode in a fundamental clash between East and West. In this clash Huntington urges America and Europe to stand firm, indeed assertively, in support of Western values, such as human rights, democracy, and capitalism, as though democracy and capitalism are inherently compatible. Can you imagine a planet torn by such conflicts, where every resource conflict becomes a cultural conflict and all this embroilment in the context of increasingly lethal modern weaponry? In all probability it would be the end of civilization, if not our species. An instance of this kind of shift from political to cultural alignments can be found, especially since the "coalition of the willing" has been so gravely depleted, in the media's increasing use of "West" and "Western" when referring to the troops of the United States and its remaining allies. It is now referring to our invasion of Afghanistan as a fight between the insurgents and the West. This change in terminology is insidious, morally reprehensible, and extremely dangerous. The corporate powers that be and their religious cohorts are willing to risk a global conflict between cultures to further their own narrow and pecuniary interests. This is but one episode in the malicious use of global cultural fault lines. A brief, but articulate favorable review of Huntington's book by retired United States diplomat Marc E. Nicholson may be found at http://www.amazon.com/Clash-Civilizations-Remaking-World-Order/product-reviews/0684844419/ref=undefinedhist_5?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addFiveStar

In his criticism of Huntington's book, William McNeill, the eminent historian emeritus from the University of Chicago, agrees with Huntington on the increasing importance of world cultures in international relations, but argues that this will result in greater tolerance of diversity as it generates increasing amounts of cultural sophistication. His critical essay may be found at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1997/jan/09/decline-of-the-west/?pagination=false. A very powerful argument for the necessity and reality of diversity by Edward Said can be found at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6705627964658699201#.

Another solution to this dilemma, promoted especially by liberal religionists, has been to identify the elements of the world's value systems and therefrom create a value system for mankind. Eclecticism in religion-founded value systems has never gotten very far perhaps because these common values, few though they be, are seldom as important to a religion and its cultural aura as are the specific practices of a religion.

Many people seem to think that Huntington's thesis and those of his critics like McNeill exhaust the possible responses to this critical dilemma for mankind. However, Sam Harris in his above referenced new book seeks a new moral value ethos. It would find its roots in the human condition as science reveals it. Why the human condition?, because it is that which is most common to all humanity. Why science?, because it has the disciplinary universality that a moral system for mankind requires and it is rooted in the only human enterprise based on reality as assessed by scrupulous and testable honesty. Harris is prepared to take on issues long avoided by both scientists and philosophers when he argues that there are moral facts just as there are natural facts. Sam, as a kind of preface to his book, offers answers to 12 major questions he expects to be lodged against his thesis. These may be found on the Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/the-moral-landscape-q-a-w_b_694305.html.

Thinking about how the world may organize (disorganize?) itself in the not too distant future can help articulate a progressive posture. This is much needed if we are to avoid the disaster attendant upon a nation motivated by conservative patriotic hoopla and the militarism which can so easily subvert American democracy. Here are three scenarios for the future, i.e. 1) cultural warfare, 2) increasing cultural diversity and mutual accommodation continually vulnerable to those who would exacerbate and exploit the sublimated differences, to wit Yugoslavia, 3) creation of a new value system based on science and human happiness; an example of which could be the increasing global environmental movement.

The ideological differences of the Cold War, in which there were only two primary protagonists, killed millions, maimed millions more and consumed enormous amounts of the world's resources. The enormity of a conflict between many cultures, (Huntington thinks primary conflicts will be between Western culture and the Confucian culture of China and between Western culture and Islam), makes World War II pale by comparison. Whatever the operating motif is, people will pour every difference into them. Civilizations are much bigger funnels than nations and we can expect every difference people have, e.g. resource competition, population growth, to be poured into these funnels of arbitrary cultural values with absolutely disastrous consequences for mankind. Huntington's thesis is being avidly adopted by the political right and used to galvanize resistance to everything foreign from Muslims to immigrants to the rising economic power of South America led by socialist governments. The opportunity to confuse, mislead and manipulate people in this mix of values, resources and power is enormous. Progressives can provide a nexus for keeping the public eye on the ball, namely the influence of corporations and the wealthy, and also provide the context for organizing citizen resistance to the process. Barbara Tuchman in her book The Guns of August points out that European socialists tried to stop World War I by calling a general strike in the opposing nations. It fell apart as party members followed their nationalist allegiances rather than their political allegiance. Hopefully we can make the tyranny, insidiousness and sheer power of corporate wealth clear so that people will finally see their commonality as a species in time to prevent the disaster which shall surely eventuate from the conservative Huntington scenario.

Bob Newhard