Can the conflict between morality and amorality be resolved? [closed]

Question

Question inspired by another question: How can moral disagreements be resolved when the conflicting parties are guided by fundamentally different value systems?

In the spirit of the aforelinked question let me propose the following scenario:

• Person K believes that a moral system ought to guide people's actions. K may adhere to a moral system based on divine commandment, or a moral system based on consequentionalism (maximizing the sum of happiness of all conscious beings), or libertianism, or maybe even the (despicable) moral system rooted in Nazism, where the good to strive for is the supremacy of K's own race. L, however, believes in pragmatic egoism. L says that they care nothing for what is 'good' or 'right', they will only serve themselves and do strictly what they believe is good for them, regardless of anything else. In particular, they do not care about divine commandments, happiness of all conscious beings, anyone's freedom, nor the wellbeing of their own race. This does not immediately mean that L will always behave like an omnicidal maniac: L may even be cooperative and well-behaved as long as they believe it is in their best interest (eg they don't want to be thrown in jail). However, the second L no longer believes that cooperating is in their best interest, they will immediately stab their best friend in the back.

All conflicts stated in that question were conflicts between people adhering to some (though incompatible) ethical systems. But what about conflicts between the very idea that some ethics should be followed (whatever that ethics may be) and the utter lack of ethics, namely the belief that I should serve myself and myself only and care nothing for anything else than myself?

Can we objectively say that either of these propositions is better? sounder? more truthful? than the other one?

Answer 1

It depends which view of morality you subscribe to. I can't purport to be a definitive source on which view is correct (though I certainly have my views), but we can apply each view to this specific question. Each of the three broad categories of metaethical theories leads us to a different conclusion:

Moral objectivism is the view that all moral statements are objectively true or false, and usually can be deduced from a set of objectively true moral axioms. Under this view, L is objectively wrong in not believing in any moral imperatives, just as someone who believed in false moral imperatives (e.g., Nazi K) would be wrong.

Moral relativism is the view that moral statements are not universally true or false, but are only true or false relative to the moral framework of the society in which a person lives. From the premise of your question, it seems like you at least accept this much. In any society I am aware of (and perhaps necessarily any society?), L would be wrong, since his actions and beliefs would be wrong according to the moral framework of his society.

Moral nihilism is the view that moral statements have no objective truth-value. In this view, morality is a social construct that we can describe but not judge according to objective truths. Since there is no truth-value to any moral statements, there is also no truth-value to the idea that one should adhere to any moral system at all. Therefore, neither L nor K are either right or wrong in their moral judgements (or lack thereof).

Of course, there are many flavors of each of these theories, and theories that fall outside these categories. Since there's no consensus on which metaethical theory is correct, this questions is only answerable with respect to a specific metaethical theory. But I think that these are the correct conclusions from most theories within each respective category.

Answer 2

Can we objectively say that either of these propositions is better? sounder? more truthful?

Neither more truthful or sounder can be objectively claimed by humans, such claims are subjective (though they could still be true, but we cannot know).

However humanity has evolved over time from animalistic behavior and morality to modern civilized society in several stages. Thus it can be argued from history that some morality is better than others or none (at least given a certain environment). In each stage, the previous morality was replaced by a new one, and we can reasonably argue that each time this was done to achieve an improvement, albeit possibly with respect to a change of economical and political circumstances.

So societies as a whole have in history exchanged the moral frameworks adopted by the majority due to a majority deciding it was better than what came before. And at the start of this chain was something that could be described as non-morality. (though even mammals may have something like instincts guiding some social behaviors, we can go back further in time to ancestor species having no such instincts).

But full rejection of morality has likely been tried out many times small communities, but those as experiments did not succeed to persuade majorities (think proverbial by pirates, bands of rebels, spiritual fringe groups and so on. Though not all groups under that label had no morality, but we can assume many of those experimented with variations).

This however does not imply that for each individual, the optimal stance or behavior is to follow the morality of their society. Using the historic justification, morality serves the whole more than it does the individual, and so possibly there are individuals who can be better off personally by rejecting morality.

It also means societies may never stop evolving their morality, over time changes may always happen.

Also note this line of reasoning is not perfect, there can always be circumstances where a society moves to a worse morality due to other pressures and circumstances, though arguably those would tend to be exceptions.

Answer 3

This question suggests that moral rules are absolute (e.g. that moral rules are written in the sky, and all systems that don't comply with such absolute rule must change to fit with it).

Moral rules are not absolute. Moral rules are subjective. This means that some moral rules will always be in conflict with some others.

Think it this way: it is necessary for moral rules of wolves to conflict with moral rules of rabbits. Otherwise, either wolves or rabbits get extinct.

In the same way, it is inevitable for humans to be in conflict and to compete, and allow natural selection do to its job. It is inevitable for some to want the same woman, the same land, the same job, etc., and for that, moral rules must necessarily be conflicting.

In other words, each individual and each human group select its own moral rules in order to live better and survive, with all outcomes determined by natural selection. European countries have chosen moral rules based on stupid and trivial principles (no frontiers, excess of regulations, primacy of groups like LGBTs, goodism, communism, feminism, etc.); in consequence, the European culture is tending to disappear. Arab countries have different morals, which are showing better survival and genetic dissemination results in comparison to those of occidental countries. Arabs are showing us how stupid our moral rules have become. And for that, moral conflict was necessary. Hope Europe reacts.

So, the "conflict" between moral systems can be solved only if there's an absolute moral. Otherwise, "conflict" is necessary.