Old Article of Mine - "Greed of Morality"

Greed of Morality

by Adam Shahid

©2003 Adam Shahid. All rights reserved.

Permission given by author to freely duplicate and distribute in unmodified form.

In my previous column, I wrote about how the intense desire to help others will often lead an individual to harm those they deem less needy. This desire, which I call “Greed of Compassion”, is most common in individuals who identify themselves with the political left. In this column I will write about something similar, though it is most common to those on the political right.

First, let me say that I believe that morality is foundationally important in a free society. I also believe that there are a wide range of moral systems, many of which seem to be good enough to maintain a culture for a long period of time. This isn’t to say that I believe in moral relativism. Quite the contrary, I believe there are core aspects of morality that transcend cultural boundaries. In most cultures that I can think of, it is taboo to murder, steal, defraud, etc. To me, anything that deprives a person of life, liberty, or property through force, theft, or fraud relates to a ‘core’ (or primary) moral issue. All other actions that a particular culture may find to be of moral concern are ‘peripheral’ (or secondary), such as gambling, intoxication, eating certain foods, etc. These secondary moral issues are what differentiate one moral system from another, and will be found in great variety within a free society. However, this diversity often leads to what I call “Greed of Morality”.

Most of us would love to see the world behave in a manner that fits our personal moral beliefs (be they based in religion and/or based in philosophy). In reality, though, we often see others live in ways different to how we would live our own lives. We may feel compelled to try to eliminate behaviors in others that are distasteful to our personal belief systems. When such behaviors involve primary morality, we are justified in using force, if necessary, to correct the problem since these behaviors are themselves an act of force. Defensive force is moral, aggressive force is immoral. If someone is trying to murder another person, we are justified in using deadly force to prevent that murder from happening. However, when the behavior of others violates only secondary morality, the use of force to correct others would itself be a violation of primary morality. If someone is gambling away their life savings, we are not justified in using deadly force to try to stop them (assuming we believe gambling is immoral). Doing so would mean that we would commit murder to prevent gambling…engaging in an act of primary immorality in order to stop a secondary one. No matter what your moral beliefs may be, two wrongs do not make a right. The better course of action is to find a way to persuade the gambler that they are harming their future. If the gambler voluntarily gives up his habit, then there is no moral violation, only the spreading of one aspect of secondary morality to another person.

Greed of Morality occurs when a person is willing to use force to make others act according to their secondary moral beliefs. In a religious context, they may deeply desire to ‘save’ others from the divine consequences of immoral behavior. In a non-religious context, they may believe that the less immorality there is in the world, the more prosperous the world becomes. Whatever the case may be, the person accepts that the end justifies the means, and that using force is an acceptable way of spreading one’s moral system. They want so desperately to spread their beliefs, and have others live by them, that they are willing to justify otherwise immoral acts in order to satisfy this desire. The most common form of this reasoning is manifest in various laws that regulate ‘moral’ behavior. The laws against adults engaging in activities that involve intoxicating drugs, prostitution, gambling, etc. are all examples of this. Are these activities unwise? I personally think they are, but that doesn’t mean they warrant the use of deadly force to stop.

When you pass a law against something, you are saying that deadly force is justified in order to stop those who break that law. How is this possible? If a person resists the law, then the law enforcers will engage in escalating levels of force, ultimately ending with deadly force if the resistance does not cease. If the law is against murder, then the law enforcers using deadly force is justified, since the murderer has already initiated hostilities. If the law is against gambling, no hostilities have been initiated by a person breaking that law, and the government becomes the initiator of hostilities. The government ends up engaging in an immoral act by enforcing such laws. If we support such a law, we support primary immorality in order to stop others from violating our personal beliefs about secondary immorality. The irony is that we’ve blinded ourselves to the fact that we are acting in an immoral way, just because we’re having the government do the act on our behalf.

Does this mean that we should just give up our efforts to spread our beliefs? No! It simply means that we can’t use the government (or any other type of force) to do so. If we want spread our secondary moral beliefs without violating our primary moral beliefs, we must use non-forceful means, such as persuasion. We must convince people that our way leads to a much healthier, fulfilling life. Besides, forcing others to act according to our moral beliefs doesn’t make them moral, it makes them resentful. Only when a person voluntarily accepts a system of morality will they truly believe in it, and perhaps persuade others to accept it as well.