The Source of Moral Authority

[Author's Note: Originally published September 15, 2009, this article remains appropriate.]

The question of the source of moral authority arises here. There is confusion in today’s society between ethics and morals. This has come about with the secularization of all public life. Today moral authority is extended to the alleged “wisdom” of temporal sages and wits.

Let’s examine the character of the object: morality.

Both morality and ethics are based on imperative statements such as “should” statements and “must” statements. The term imperative derives from imperare: to command, order as does the term imperial and necessarily involves the authority to enforce the statement with consequences. Imperatives are not derivable logically from any empirical investigation of nature. Imperatives are rules for guiding human behavior, not rules describing the behavior of natural phenomena. The behavior of natural phenomena is deterministic; human behavior is not (if it were, arguing the issue would be of no consequence). So human behavior is thought to be controllable through commands or rules.

Without the authority to enforce consequences for behaviors, imperatives are of no value. The entire weight of an imperative depends on (a) consequences whether positive or negative, (b) the desirability or revulsiveness of the nature of the consequences, and (c) the probability of actually incurring those consequences.

Ethics today are usually proclaimed by a theoretical philosopher or a professional bio-ethicist; his authority is himself. Ethics are derived pragmatically using logic, frequently to evaluate cost/benefit ratios of competing behaviors. The consequences for not observing the ethic could be as small as cost/benefit gains or losses, or as large as threatened global disaster scenarios predicted by the ethicist, with implied guilt for those who do not observe the ethic. When one hears statements declaring that “we MUST…” or “the nation(s) MUST…”, it is a human-derived ethical imperative statement [1].

Morals are considered passé by secularists because morals are derived not by human logic, they are rules pronounced on the authority of a supreme being that is declared non-existent. The traditional consequences for not observing these rules are declared to be too onerous for the value of the infraction. If such a being did exist, the moral authority of that being would be high, much higher than man-made authority, and the benefits and consequences would apply to all humans, universally.

Now for the question of the applicability of ethical authority. An example has been given of ethical behavior being driven by a political philosophy, in this case, Libertarianism. Assuming that the principles for Libertarianism are consistent across all Libertarians, what is the source of authority for declaring those principles to be unassailable, universal and valid ethics? The answer has to be the human mind, operating on principles thought to be logical.

So the human mind, or at least a subgroup of human minds, has declared an ethic. No matter how compelling the logic behind the ethic, what gives those rules or principles universal moral authority?

There are a couple of possible ways to achieve universal moral authority for human-derived principles. First is through the appeal to the collective conscience for voluntary righteous behavior vs. guilt for non-compliant behavior. This is not a likely source of universal authority for the machinations of human minds.

The second way to achieve universal moral authority for human-derived principles is through the use of force. And this is the way that is historically implemented.

It is easy to conclude that political philosophies are not actually imperatives without the injection of force into the equation. This realization is what drives Atheist/Materialists ever Leftward, regardless of their starting philosophy.

But the larger conclusion remains that personal absolutes are not the same as universal absolutes, and that principles that derive from personal absolutes are as likely to evaporate as any other personal opinion. As bedrock foundations for universal principles of behavior, personal absolutes or opinions won’t suffice.

Regardless of the Atheist and Materialist subpopulation that adheres to personal principles, the potential volatility of such principles suggests that they haven’t the persuasive force to be a source of universal voluntary submission or guide for universal conscientious righteous behavior. It is the weightless, empty nature of Atheism / Materialism itself that renders any adopted personal, man-derived principles to be of no weight in evaluating the character or potential behavior of the Atheist.

Certainly these arguments apply somewhat to Christians as well, and this statement always surfaces despite being a tu Quoque fallacy. With Christians, at least the principles are not volatile and can be found easily. And the same goes for Muslims. Whether or not a Christian or Muslim [2] behaves according to their universal principles does not remove the expectation that they would, and ordinarily do, and moreover the principles give a baseline for a metric of character evaluation that does not exist for Atheist / Materialists.

Interestingly a political philosophy such as Libertarianism does not allow the proponent to actually exercise those principles unless he is in power. Without the power to implement the political philosophy or authority to enforce its consequences, a Libertarian is just a philosopher, not a practitioner.

[1] Typically looking for enforcement power to help implement the ethic, and frequently expecting to gain from the implementation.

[2] Actually due to the internal contradictions in the Qu'ran, behavior rules are interpreted by local mullahs, rendering Islam to be a human-derived principle set as well.