Morality, Rocks and Hard Places
Moral Justifications
Cognitive linguist and author George Lakoff has observed that all politics are moral. Moral reasons are always available after the fact. Decisions are made with a different rubric — profit, power, control, comfort — and then moral arguments are developed to justify said decisions. Indeed, some of the most blatant violations against humanity have had moral arguments made for them:
- The two American original sins — native genocide and slavery — were explained away because the more enlightened, civilized people were simply liberating the savages from their animalistic ways. Ostensibly, the animals welcomed and cherished the blessings of their superiors. Who can speak against God’s work? That it was beneficial for the oppressors was simply a coincidence.
- George Fitzhugh, social theorist from the American South, advocated for slavery in the mid-1800s. He argued that it is the slave-owner who preserves the well-being of the slave, unlike the northern industrialist who simply abuses his wage-slaves. It was the slave-owner who was benevolent, taking care of his subjects and having human relationships with them. Anachronistically, slaves appeared under assets on a balance sheet, while employees appear under liabilities. That it was beneficial for the oppressors was simply a coincidence.
- The recently implemented pandemic stimulus program is a badly disguised corporate giveaway and wealth consolidation project. It too required moral scaffolding, without which it wouldn’t have passed. So it grudgingly provides some respite to small businesses, low-income workers and the unemployed. Incidentally, it is the corporate giveaway that hums along with extreme precision and platinum service from the Federal Reserve, while the SBA loan program and one-time $1,200 checks, controlled by the banks, are an embarrassing display of American governance. That it is beneficial for the oppressors is simply a coincidence.
- Joe Biden’s rejection of a Medicare for All system that would eliminate private health insurance profiteering in exchange for a less expensive, universal healthcare system is wrapped in moral arguments. He only means well and wishes to get healthcare to people quicker than the speed of Medicare for All. That his program neglects 10 to 15 million people does not enter the calculus. That it is beneficial for the oppressors is simply a coincidence.
On the surface, this may appear as a case for moral relativism. In fact, it is an abject rejection of such post-modernist escapism. Why is it that those committing these actions feel the need to justify themselves at all? Is it simply to sell the ideas to the victims? Or reconcile it with oneself to achieve inner peace? Or is there a deeper instinct at work?
We know this from personal experience as well. When my niece pushes her little brother off his favorite chair and then is asked to explain herself, she instinctively conjures up all sorts of justifications. “I was there first…I am doing him a favor since the chair is bad for him…it’s actually my chair so he is the wrong one,” and so on. She never just says, “Yeah I am wrong, it’s a bad thing to do, I want the chair, so?”
Innate Moral Capacities
In his book Moral Minds, evolutionary biologist Marc Hauser combines the latest research in neuroscience, linguistics, cognitive psychology, evolutionary biology, economics and anthropology to develop a theory of an innate human moral system. That is, humans are endowed with a universal moral instinct which operates from certain biological principles but can take a limited range of forms based on external inputs such as upbringing, education, culture, prevalent economic doctrine, etc. This yields various moral systems we observe amongst peoples and societies around the world — with different prescriptions of what is morally permissible, forbidden or obligatory.
Hauser draws a strong parallel with Chomskian linguistics, which shows that humans are biologically endowed with a universal grammar, a capacity to formulate language. Based on external stimuli, various languages develop around the world.
Needless to say, in the case of linguistics the external stimuli are neutral. In the case of our moral system, existing power systems, circumstances and experiences exert their influence on the development of our moral sensibilities — all the while unable to twist the innate moral grammar, hence creating conflicts, ambivalence and moral confusion.
Fundamentally, it is because of this conflict that we see justifications to oneself (agent) and the ones affected by the agent’s (victims) various deeds and decisions (action).
As with all matters of human affairs, this is not a rule. Of course, cynical actors utilize such moral proclamations to claim legitimacy; but such proclamations have a tendency to evolve beyond just hot air — they are internalized, soothingly providing justifications to the agent for their odious actions, as discussed in some examples above.
Further, as with all matters of science, our understanding of the cognitive science and biology of morals is ever-expanding. Yet, we have compelling evidence of our innate moral reasoning capacities that under ordinary circumstances should expand from a greedy neonate to a morally conscious adult able to form sound, moral judgments. External factors such as imbalances of power (like my niece and her little brother), or wealth, influence entire cultures that generate conflicting moral systems. Meanwhile, our biological, innate capacity remains.
States and Religions
Even the fascists think they are moral. No Nazi ever says, “Yeah we know our ideology is morally abhorrent, but…yeah, we’re awful, is there a problem with that?” No, instead the ideology is covered with glorious declarations about saving society from impure beings, protecting the state from violations of nature and so on. We are the moral ones who undertake these courageous but unpopular acts to save our civilization.
Trump must also provide justifications for actions that violate every sense of fairness and justice. Lavish gifts to the wealthy and corporations, criminal border policies, expanding destructive military action worldwide, economic sanctions, dissolving environmental protection rules and other safeguards are explained away because the state is simply prioritizing the wealth, economic growth and well-being of Americans. Since these policies primarily only benefit the 1%, that is a strange definition of ‘Americans.’ Meanwhile, the impact of American foreign policy on other nations is so remote from consideration that it might as well be discussed in a dead language.
Even such flimsy justifications are only offered if the state feels compelled to offer them at all, which it often doesn’t. As anarchist Rudolph Rocker wrote in Nationalism and Culture,
“For the perfect power politics every crime done in the service of the state is a meritorious deed if it is successful. The state stands beyond good and evil; it is the earthly Providence whose decisions are in their profundity as inexplicable to the ordinary subject as is the fate ordained for the believer by the power of God. Just as, according to the doctrines of theologians and pundits, God in his unfathomable wisdom often uses the most cruel and frightful means to effect his plans, so also the state, according to the doctrines of political theology, is not bound by the rules of ordinary human morality when its rulers are determined to achieve definite ends by a cold-blooded gamble with the lives and fortunes of millions.”
Organized religion, beyond the scope of the discussion here, offers some of this moral scaffolding as well. Indeed, Trump’s loyal supporters include the evangelical and fundamentalist sections of the population. As Rocker wrote,
“Napoleon I, who as a young artillery officer had called theology a “cesspool of every superstition and confusion” and had maintained that the “people should be given a handbook of geometry instead of a catechism” radically changed his view after he had made himself Emperor of the French. Not only that; according to his own confession, he for a long time flirted with the idea of achieving world rulership with the aid of the pope; he even raised the question whether a state could maintain itself without religion. And he himself gave the answer: “Society cannot exist without inequality of property and the inequality not without religion. A man who is dying of hunger, next to one who has too much, could not possibly reconcile himself to it were not for a power which says to him: ‘It is the will of God that here on Earth there must be rich and poor, but yonder, in eternity, it will be different.”
More than organized religion, secular religions that Rocker called “political theology” are more compelling to study. This is especially true in the age of modernity. In the US, secular religions include American exceptionalism, humanitarian foreign policy, the free-market fraud, meritocracy that justifies epochal wealth inequality, and so on. Armed with these fictions, a state manager need not even produce convoluted moral justifications for obviously heinous and kleptocratic actions against the domestic enemy — the population. It is axiomatic.
Incidentally, few have internalized the aforementioned secular religions with more regimented discipline than liberals. I’ve discussed liberal centrism’s moral and policy failures in the US today.
To Biden Or Not To Biden?
This brings us to a current raging political debate. After Bernie Sanders dropped out of the Democratic primaries, many on the left find themselves unable to support Joe Biden. His awful, right-wing legislative record and empty promises are in line with the failures and emptiness of contemporary American liberalism. Meanwhile, without Bernie Sanders, the liberals claim moral superiority just by their vote against Trump.
Socialism and fascism are eternal enemies. Neoliberalism is a dying doctrine, a historical blip of 40 to 50 years. I would rather fight the neoliberal than elevate my eternal enemy. Harm reduction and organized popular opposition against a weaker enemy are all arguments that have been made in favor of voting for Biden — which I happen to agree with if combined with popular activism to shift agendas and build alternative institutions.
On the other hand, moral arguments are also being offered for not voting for Biden. These include accelerationism, and ignore the prospects of a $15 national minimum wage, rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, as insufficient and ceremonial as it is, among other possible advancements given a coalition of organized movements, which is Sanders’ most impactful work. Further ignored is the global ascension of a coordinated proto-fascism as neoliberal regimes collapse worldwide. The debates continue with every side certain of their moral finesse. No matter which note you are holding in this cacophony, beware: all politics are moral.
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