Morals Post.4 : where do Morals come from Pt. 2

Who says "this is right "or "that is wrong" ?

I ended the last post with the challenge: We all do say 'this is good behaviour' or 'this is bad behaviour' but how do we justify saying that? Are we just voicing our own feelings, or the common view of our group? Or is there some higher principle or standard we can appeal to?

Someone might say: “Well that is how I was brought up to behave!” Which is a good answer – but it stops (and is intended to stop) any further discussion about the rightness or wrongness of the behaviour in question.

If we want to actually discuss with someone else WHY why an action is good or bad we have at least got to agree how we are judging actions to be good or bad in the first place.

So, let me tell you a little parable I have invented. …

The Parable of the Cloth Merchant

Once upon a time in a remote frontier town of the legendary Wild West a cloth merchant set up his shop. He sold lots of pretty but durable cloths for the ladies, linen for sheets and strong canvas for men's work clothes. He priced all his cloth by the metre, and proudly flourished his metre long stick with which he measured off the length the customer asked for.

To any who point out the inconvenient truth that they used feet and inches in the Wild West I say : “This is my parable! And in my Wild West I can have them use metres if I want to!”

Coming back to the story, one day a stranger arrives in town. He is exquisitely dressed, has a neatly trimmed goatee beard, shiny shoes, a steely glint in his eyes, and for some inexplicable reason none of the townsfolk want to join him in a 'friendly' game of cards.

The day comes when the stranger visits the cloth merchant's shop. He picks out an expensive material and tells the merchant he wants 10 metres of it. The cloth merchant, after extolling the virtues of the cloth as all good merchants do, and explaining how he is really selling it below cost, as a certain sort of merchant does, flourished his metre stick and carefully measured off the required length of material. He cut the length and began to wrap it when all of a sudden the stranger ran to the door and began to shout at the top of his voice: “Thief!, Robber! Help, I am being robbed by this dishonest merchant!”

A crowd soon gathered in the shop. Demanding an explanation from someone for all this outcry. The stranger stood up on the counter, still angrily accusing the merchant. The stranger took up the length of cloth then from a breast pocket he extracted a natty little folding ruler and opened it out to its full length. By now everyone in the crowd was watching to see what would happen next. The stranger said in a silky purr of a voice: Ladies and gentlemen of Frontier, how lucky you are that I have come to your town. You have been robbed every time you bought this man's cloth.” There were gasps from the crowd. He continued: “Yes, and but for me and my sharp eye he would have continued to rob you!”

Then the merchant recovered enough from his surprise to shout: “Don't listen to him! Do you think I would rob any of you! You see how carefully I always measure out the cloth you purchase, it is this stranger who is the fraud!”

The stranger merely wags his ruler, and begins to measure the cloth he has just bought, counting off each metre. “…. Nine, Nine metres, you all can see there is only nine metres there but he charged me for ten! I call that robbery, don't you!”

The crowd began to murmur menacingly. None of them had metre sticks. Had they all been robbed too?

The merchant jumps up onto his own counter, his large round face red with anger. He shows his metre rule and snatching the cloth from the stranger measures it in front of the crowd. “Ten! You all see that! Ten full metres! This stranger is lying!

…...............................

Of course you can all see the problem. The merchant and the stranger both have rules that they say are a metre long. But they are different lengths. Who is right?

How could this parable end? Let me give you three possible endings...

ENDING 1

The stranger says; “my friends mine is a true metre, his is a fake! What do we do to robbers? String 'em up I say” … With more such sooth talk the stranger wins over the crowd. The 'fake' metre is snapped in pieces, the unfortunate merchant is dragged outside and lynched, and the stranger takes over the dead merchant's store. And the new metre rules!

ENDING 2

The merchant says: “hey look everyone I reckon this stranger is taking you all for mugs with his fancy clothes and fancy beard and fancy talk! And his so called metre is as fake as he is. You all know me – but who knows anything about him. Stick with the bloke you know I say! So the crowd lynches the stranger, snaps his metre stick and the old metre rules!

ENDING 3

Just at the crucial moment (just like in the movies!) a Federal Marshall rides into town. Striding into the shop at that moment he seizes the stranger and slaps a pair of handcuffs on him. “Well if it ain't Slippery Pete!” he drawls, “I guess I got a whole swag of arrest warrants for you!”

Then turning to the crowd he says “So what's all this commotion about?” He hears the story. The crowd are now ready to side with the merchant but the marshal takes up the two rival metres. “Well at least this one's easily solved” he laughs. Then taking out his own folding rule he checks it against both of them.

“Well what do you know!” Laughs the marshal, “Slippery Pete cheats at cards, but his metre rule is spot on”. The merchant, even more red faced splutters : “Well how do we know your rule is right!”

“That's a good question son” says the marshal, “see this here mark stamped on my rule. Yours doesn't have that does it! Well that mark shows that this rule is government certified to be the same as the standard metre rule kept in Capital City. And before you ask; that standard rule is certified to have been checked against the original metre kept in Paris France. And that one in Paris, well that's the standard of what a metre is!”

“Now folks” says the Marshall since they are starting to mutter things like 'robber, crook' at the merchant. “No one says you ain't got fair value, just that you ain't got a regular metre! So sonny boy you'd better take Pete's rule, he won’t need it where he's going And as to what you price your wares at for a proper metre, well that's your business!”

…...........................................

If morals are like a metre in that there is an absolute standard somewhere then we can have endings like Ending 3 because it is possible to settle the argument by appeal to the absolute standard.

If morals do not reflect some absolute standard then it is Ending 1 or 2. Whoever can win over the crowd (in a democracy) or whoever controls the army and police force in a tyranny, gets to make the rules. This is the way morals are becoming in the Western World. Our understanding of the 'standard' had plenty of faults, but one could at least argue moral questions by appeal to Christian values. That is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Now moral debate is a matter of winning over the crowd to your way of thinking.

And the 'lynching' in my endings is true in modern moral debate. Where there is no absolute standard to appeal to, winning over the crowd is everything, so dissenters must be silenced. Ruthlessly and mercilessly silenced. And that is what we are seeing emerge in our society.