In the absence of a belief in a God we need some other way
to define what constitutes “moral” behaviour since we cannot rely on an
omnipotent being to define it for us. Mary Warnock argues that any concept of
morality must start within us – “moral sensibility, the wish to do what is
right, or to avoid what is wrong must stem first from the individual in his
dealings with other individuals.” To the extent that a “moral thought”
originates with an individual then I suppose I agree. However we still need to establish
the measures to be used in assessing our dealings with other individuals. If we
cannot rely on a set of externally prescribed rules, where should we go?
My argument is that we should derive such standards not from
our relationship with others, but from the very fact of our humanity. This is
not the same as treating moral behaviour as only applicable to our dealings
with other humans. In my view any behaviour that diminishes us as
rational thinking beings would be covered. A common moral statement for example
is that we should refrain from any action that causes harm to other humans.
Defining harm generates a whole new set of questions of
course, especially where we are faced with choosing between courses of action,
all of which will lead to harm in some way. Take for example the case of a live
bomb in a building which if it detonates will kill tens, if noy hundreds of
people. The bomb is small enough to pick up and throw out of the window into
the car park, where one person would then die as a result.
Most of us would agree that if I am alone in the building, I
am not acting morally if I throw the bomb out thus killing another person in
order to save my own. The position is much more complex however where numerous
people are likely to be affected. Is it acceptable to cause the certain death
of one person, who would otherwise be unaffected, in order to save say two
other lives? 20? 200? Where should the threshold be? Can there be such a
threshold?
Although these examples are artificial, they capture in an
extreme way the judgements we make all the time. More importantly they
represent the political judgments made when considering military action – which
leads inevitably to Iraq.
The arguments of those in favour of the invasion were it
seems to me one or both of:
a. Saddam
was in possession of weapons capable of killing vast numbers of people and
military intervention was justified to prevent their use;
b. Saddam
was already killing thousands of Iraqis by his actions, again justifying
military intervention.
With hindsight we now know that a) was almost certainly
wrong and that in respect of b) (if the Lancet study is correct) the outcome of
the invasion was at least 8,000 more deaths than would otherwise have occurred
and perhaps as many as 100,000 such deaths. Responsibility for those ‘excess’
deaths is not in this case relevant, although if even a fraction of them are
attributable to the invading forces, it does shift the moral responsibility for
them towards the invading forces.
Had we known this before the decision to invade, would the
actions of the US and their allies have been morally acceptable? The risk of
WMD being out of the picture, is it acceptable to cause (directly or
indirectly) the deaths of up to 100,000 more people than would otherwise have
been the case?
If we knew that the deaths caused by Saddam to date were not
going to continue in the future, it seems to me that we would not be justified.
This was of course never going to be the case, so how far is it acceptable to
take into account deaths likely to result in the future? We can never be sure
of future outcomes of course, but if we consider that deaths in future will
accumulate to more than those resulting from military action perhaps we can
justify action. In practice however most of us feel uncomfortable about such
bald calculations that substitute the death of individuals who would otherwise
have been unaffected for the death of others who would have died as a
consequence of inaction on our parts.
These are not idle questions. They go to the root of how we
conduct ourselves as moral beings – not just in matters of war, but also in a
range of other areas from health policy to transport to housing.
Even more complex problems arise when we consider our
relationship with the non-human world. How for example do we balance the impact
on the environment against impact on humans? How can an ethical system based on
the relationship between a Supreme Being and a humanity created in Her/His own
image accommodate a non-human intelligence? Returning to my original
question, this is I think the point at which a humanist ethics can clearly be
seen to be superior to a religious one.
This post was originally drafted some time ago, but
a period of enforced immobility has enabled me to finish it. I am aware that there are many gaps, in particular I
haven’t addressed the concept of ‘Just War’ which some have raised in the context of
the Iraq war. This is partly because I have some difficulty with the elevation
to a high philosophical principle of an argument that wouldn’t be accepted by
magistrates after a Saturday night brawl – “they started it” - but I will nevertheless come back to this in a later post.
