I, like the good majority of humans, consider morality to be an extremely important character trait. I have given it much thought and read much about it throughout my life. Yet, until a few months ago, at the age of 57, I doubt that I had much of an idea where it comes from.

Then I came across a brief mention of the subject by George Lakoff, in his book “Whose Freedom – The Battle over America’s Most Important Ideal”. Just the mere mention of it created in me one of those rare moments in my life when a flash went off in my brain and a previously mysterious and confusing subject suddenly became almost crystal clear. Lakoff’s pertinent quote was “Progressive morality is centrally about empathy”.

As I thought about that I came to realize that, not just progressive morality, but all morality – that is, all morality that is worthy of being called morality – is centrally about empathy. Or, another way of putting it is that empathy is the source of all morality and that there could be no morality without empathy. At least, that’s the way I see it.

Empathy is the quality whereby we imagine ourselves in another’s shoes – what it is like to be that person (or animal) and experience what that person is experiencing. And it’s more than just imagining it, it’s actually feeling it – which is where the expression “I feel your pain” comes from. The reason that I believe morality is impossible without empathy is that I cannot imagine what possible value any morality could have if it is not ultimately based on empathy (though I’m open to reconsider that if someone would give me a single example to prove that opinion wrong).

To solidify the point, let’s consider some other things that have often been mentioned as, and which many people consider to be the source of morality:


Other things that are believed by many to be the source of morality

I can only think of four basic categories:

God
There are of course millions, or maybe even billions of people, of many different religions, who believe God (singular or plural) to be the source of morality.

I am not an irreligious person. I have at times believed in God (kind of) and even kind of still do, in some ways – at least partially. Several years ago, when I belonged to the Unitarian/Universalist church (which is to religion what the DU is to U.S. politics), I wrote an essay as part of a course called “Create your own God” (or something like that), in which I tried to explain how a moral God could allow such terrible things to happen in our world. But I digress.

Anyhow, the point I wanted to make is that my belief in God has not (in any way that I can think of) determined how I act, because as far as I’m concerned S/he hasn’t written down any rules for me to follow. As far as I’m concerned, God expects us to use the brains and hearts that S/he gave us to figure out for ourselves what is moral and what is not. The reason I believe that is that if S/he expected us to merely follow a set of rules written down in His/Her Bible, then we would be more like sheep or robots than humans.

As far as the Jewish and Christian (and all other) Bibles are concerned… Well, first of all, it seems that they’re interpreted in a gazillion different ways, often according to the ideology of the interpreter. And secondly, I’ve never seen any proof that God wrote any of them.

But seriously, I don’t mean to offend anyone by saying all that. I have heard many times from very intelligent people, including those who aren’t religious, that both the Old and the New Testament are filled with great literature and great ideas. I’ve heard that so many times that I believe it’s true. Seriously. But try as I might, I’ve tried to read them, or about them, several times, and I just don’t get it. So my opinion of those books really doesn’t count. But still, I can’t imagine that God wants us to follow a bunch of rules as if we were robots or sheep.

Society, parents, etc
Others say that we learn morality from our parents or from others in our wider society, such as teachers, various other authority figures, or even friends and acquaintances.

Actually, that’s what my dad, who was a psychologist when he was alive, used to tell me, always emphasizing the role of parents. It upset me a good deal when he said that, and we used to argue a lot about it.

I’m sure that we get a lot of ideas about morality from our parents and a lot of other people. But we don’t automatically accept those ideas. Or rather, if we do automatically accept them, without thinking much about them, just because we were told to accept them by an authority figure, then we’re acting more like a sheep or a robot than like a human. And since I don’t believe that sheep or robots have a sense of morality, I don’t believe that ideas acquired in that way really constitute morality. It’s simply a matter of acquiring a set of rules that we follow because we believe that we’re supposed to follow them.

Of course it is possible, and even undoubtedly extremely common, that after being given those ideas by our parents or others, after a period of time thinking about them, we eventually come to internalize them and actually adopt them as part of our moral code. In those cases it could be said that in some sense our understanding of morality comes from our parents (or whoever we get the ideas from).

But my point is that if we accept those ideas as part of our moral code, and if we accept them because we truly feel them as important moral principles, rather than simply because someone told us that we should, then we have internalized them as a human rather than as a robot. And when we do that, empathy is the ultimate quality that allows us to do it.

Evolution
Some have suggested evolution as the source of morality. In other words, those advocates say that morality is a major force that has facilitated the survival of our species, and therefore, a moral action is any action that facilitates the survival of our species. I see some problems with that view, aside from the fact that many of our actions that facilitate survival of our species are performed unconsciously.

When we talk about “survival of our species”, what species exactly are we talking about? Our species has never been static, but rather it has continually evolved over a long time, so that “we” are a different species today than we were a long time ago.

A multitude of factors have contributed to the specific way in which we have evolved. To take one extreme example, genocide has on many occasions influenced the genetic composition of mankind and therefore our evolution. In other words, it has contributed to the specific genetic makeup that mankind has today, and therefore to the way in which we have evolved. Yet genocide is immoral rather than moral

Enough said about that idea.

“Because I say so”
This is the least persuasive reason of all as an argument for why something is immoral, and yet it may be one of the most commonly used. I don’t mean to say that people actually say “because I say so” as an argument. But when a person argues the point that such and such is immoral, with no argument other than the repeated assertion that “such and such is ALWAYS immoral”, then essentially their argument is “because I say so”. I find that type of argument everywhere, even, sadly to say, on DU.

I have two problems with that line of argument. One is that I believe that there is hardly anything that is ALWAYS immoral, regardless of the circumstance. I believe that there are very few things that are that absolute. But more important, when a person uses that line of argument, it cuts off all discussion.


Some examples

In order to explain why I see morality as based on empathy, and how that plays out with respect to various moral issues, I’ll give a few examples, starting with the most obvious and basic and then going on to some very controversial topics:

Murder for profit
Consider the simple act of killing someone for no other reason than to gain possession of what he has – like, for example, George Bush and Dick Cheney starting the Iraq War…. No, sorry, that’s a bad example because their motives are controversial in some quarters, and I said that I’d start with something non-controversial. Ok then, consider a man murdering an old and defenseless woman just to get her purse. I think we can all agree that that would be highly immoral.

How do I know that? I know it simply because I’m able to imagine myself as the victim of that crime and feel what it would be like for her. To the extent that I’m able to do that I can have empathy for the victim and therefore recognize the crime as immoral.

But what about someone who has no empathy – such as, perhaps, the perpetrator of the crime I just described? Would that crime be immoral for that person? Well, the crime would still be immoral, but the perpetrator wouldn’t be able to recognize it as such. How could he? I’m not saying that his lack of empathy and inability to (internally) recognize the crime as immoral in any way excuses it, in my opinion. But still, I don’t see how a person without any empathy could recognize anything as being immoral.

Adultery
Just as with murder, adultery is one of the Ten Commandments that God supposedly wants us to refrain from. But I see adultery as being much more complicated, with the morality of it depending entirely on the specific circumstances.

At one extreme, consider a man and woman who get married with the express understanding that adultery is not off-limits within the bounds of their marriage. One or both of the spouses commits adultery, and neither one feels hurt about it. Furthermore, there is no dishonesty involved in getting the third party to participate in the adultery, and the third party isn’t hurt either. The way I see it is, no victim, no immorality.

At the other extreme, the couple had a definite understanding when they married that adultery is not consistent with their marriage vows. One partner commits adultery for no good reason other than that he wants to, and the result is that his spouse goes into a depression and commits suicide. And, the adulterer had a very good idea of the pain he would cause when he did it. In my opinion it is the callousness of the act, which in turn derives largely from a lack of empathy, which accounts of the immorality of the act.

Of course, most cases of adultery fall somewhere in between those two extremes. My point is that the extent to which it is immoral depends fully on the circumstances of the specific situation, and not merely on the fact that adultery has technically been committed.

Abortion
As we all know, abortion is a very controversial topic, the perceived morality of which differs greatly, as a general rule, between liberals and conservatives.

My personal view is very similar to the Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision, which says that a woman has the right to an abortion under almost all circumstances.

My main reason for seeing it that way is that I empathize with women who don’t want to carry their fetus to full term, either because they don’t feel equipped to take care of a child or because they don’t want to go through the pain of child birth, or even because they would be terribly embarrassed to have their parents or other people find out that they’re pregnant. And I have even more empathy for women who, for any of the above reasons, would choose to obtain a dangerous and illegal abortion if it wasn’t legal.

On the other hand, I have little or no empathy for the aborted fetus. I’m not proud of that. It’s just a fact. I could spend some time trying to defend why I have little or no empathy for the aborted fetus, but I won’t, since it’s not highly relevant to this post.

I recognize, of course, that there are many millions of people in this country who believe that abortion should be illegal, that women should go to prison for having one, and/or that doctors should go to prison for performing them. I’m not sure why so many people feel that way. For those who feel that way simply because they believe that God says abortion is immoral, I don’t have much sympathy. For those who feel that way simply because they want vengeance against women who get abortions, I have even less sympathy.

But what about those who believe abortion should be illegal because of empathy they feel for the aborted fetus? I’ve been flamed on DU for saying this, but though I don’t agree with the conclusions of the “pro-life” people (that abortion should be illegal), if they believe abortion should be illegal because of empathy they have for the fetus, then I respect their beliefs on this issue. I believe that there are such people – and I’ve gotten flamed on DU for saying that too. What percent of “pro-lifers” fall into that category? I wouldn’t even want to hazard a guess. For all I know, I may be wrong, and there are no “pro-lifers” who actually feel empathy for the fetus, because it’s not humanly possible (other than for the mother, father, or other close relative) to do so.

Torture
The reason why empathy would lead many of us to believe torture to be immoral should be obvious, so I won’t belabor the point.

Of all the many crimes of the Bush administration, this may be the one that bothers me the most. I’ve posted more than 20 long OPs on this subject on DU over the past three years or so, and you can find most of them in my journal. I’ve also discussed the issue in many other posts where it wasn’t the main topic, such as when I castigated Tim Russert (See the section called “Mischaracterizing the torture issue) for slyly advocating torture (under some circumstances) at a Democratic primary debate, and at the same time putting the Democratic candidates in a very difficult and unfair situation. I’ve never been so proud of Hillary Clinton as when she told Russert where he could go with his torture mongering, after being repeatedly badgered by him on the subject:


Whereas the reason why empathy leads many of us to believe torture to be immoral is obvious, it should also be obvious why some Americans believe that torture should be legal and not considered immoral under some circumstances. Fear of course is one reason.

Another reason is that many Americans mistakenly believe that torture is often useful in preventing the perpetration of terror and death on American civilians. An abundance of evidence shows that when torture is legal (or even when it’s not, but when a nation’s leader doesn’t consider himself subject to his nation’s laws), far more innocent (and guilty) people get tortured than anything good that comes from it (I discuss that in this post, among others).

Nevertheless, I believe that many (perhaps millions) Americans are largely or totally ignorant of the fact that torture is almost always useless. For those people, their empathy for the people whose lives and health they believe are being saved through torture may outweigh their empathy for those who are tortured, and that probably accounts for why many of them believe torture not to be immoral. Whereas I strongly disagree with their conclusion (that torture should be legal and is usually not immoral as practiced in this country), at least I can understand the logic of their thinking and don’t disagree with that logic. It is just that they are terribly misinformed (Of course, I also recognize that a certain unknown number of Americans don’t consider George Bush’s torture program to be immoral mainly because they have little or no empathy for those who are tortured).


Understanding consequences

In writing this post I do not mean to give the impression that empathy is the only characteristic that is involved in moral issues. Morality is a complex issue, and there are probably characteristics other than empathy that are involved in it – though I can’t quite put my finger on what they are.

One thing that is certain though, is that an understanding of the consequences of actions is essential in determining their morality. Several of the examples that I gave above make that point.

For example, I’m sure that many who believe that abortion is immoral and should be illegal never stopped to consider or are almost totally ignorant of the many terrible deaths that so many women suffered prior to the Roe v. Wade decision, as a result of the fact that they couldn’t get a legal abortion. Similarly, many millions of Americans are ignorant of the real motives for the Iraq War or of the suffering and deaths incurred by millions of innocent Iraqis as the result of that war. That being the case, it is no wonder that there is not more outrage than there is in this country over the immorality of that war.


Conservative “morality”

I hope it’s clear from what I’ve written here that I generally have a fair amount of tolerance for other peoples’ views. However, when it comes to certain ideas that the conservative right espouses about morality – which itself indicates a profound lack of tolerance – my tolerance level is not very high. I’ll end this post with some eloquent examples cited by Lakoff in his book, of conservative “morality”, which in my opinion is not really morality at all:

With regard to the conservative “Culture of life”:


And with regard to the conservative idea of “freedom”: