The Alleged Fogginess of Moral Judgement

There are two types of onslaughts, broadly speaking, on the notion of 'morality' that are currently all the rage. The first comes from some aspects of political theory which say that the relationship between nation-states revolves not around issues of morality but the question of national self-interest. That is, each country tries to procure the maximum amount of goods by paying the minimum levels of resources in return, so that all interactions in the international sphere are centred around the power wielded by heads of state or interest-groups and not the language of rights, obligations, or needs. Some time spent observing the world scenario, however, reveals that political leaders do not in fact behave as if morality plays no role in these matters : indeed, they routinely pass (quasi-)moral judgement on various categories of classes, blocs, and nations. Though they may try hard to stick to a 'neutral' vocabulary of exports and imports, balance of payment and the like, time and again their 'foreign affairs' departments claim to be standing on high moral ground and issue condemnations of other nation-states (the evil empire of Soviet Russia may be dead now, but there are more such evil empires around).

A somewhat different kind of a salvo is fired against morality by people who like to believe that it is all a question of what you wish to believe. To capture this attack with an expression, 'Anything can be moral if you think it is moral for you'. In other words, morality is not any more 'objective' than your personal liking for butterscotch ice-cream with rich, thick chocolate sauce on top of it. There is no sense, so runs the argument, in talking about moral statements as 'true' or 'false' : they are merely convenient summaries of your subjective wishes and desires. Once again, though, I am not quite sure that people who talk this away about the nature of moral judgement really mean what they are trying to say. Consider these five examples. (a) About 3,000 people were killed in America on September 11, 2001 and (b) this was followed by more killings and maimings of civilians in Afghanistan. (c) More than 6 million Jews were slaughtered during the Nazi Holocaust; (d) as a consequence of the formation of the state of Israel and Israel's America-aided war on the Palestinians, one third of the Palestinians in the occupied territories now live in refugee camps; and (e) this in turn has led to the rise of the intifada which is claiming Israeli lives. I have deliberately juxtaposed the views from the opposing sides of the same fence : the savagery of September 11 followed by brutalities in Afganistan, the barbarism of the Nazis leading to the state-terrorism of Israel and the violent reprisals of the Palestinians.

We are of course all going to 'take sides' in these matters, and it is indeed not easy to attempt the difficult task of 'truth and reconciliation' among people torn apart by the paroxysms of hatred. But that is precisely the point : whatever we may say in the cosy comfort of our living-rooms, we do take morality seriously, and we do realise how morality can be twisted into one's favour and used as a weapon to beat one's opponents. Once we start thinking carefully, we are urgently faced with the need to discuss issues of moral principles, moral judgements, and moral responsibilities. And these issues are not 'merely subjective' wishes of individuals, these are in fact as real as the deaths of people whose very lives depend on this reality.