Most of us know at least one person who acts according to ethical principles that are not shared by most people. It may be someone who won’t buy anything made in countries with systemic inequality or persecution, or believes it’s wrong to eat meat, or will use only environmentally sustainable products. She may be liked and respected, even if her views are considered extreme and whether or not she has persuaded anyone of their truth or the efficacy of acting on those views. She probably makes an effort to avoid being too judgmental, because the most compelling moral argument will be received with little enthusiasm if it’s accompanied by scathing observations on other people’s failings. But even if she doesn’t pretend to superiority or point out other people’s flaws, implacable attachment to principle may earn her the reputation of being self-righteous and blind to real-world consequences. Even friends who tolerate her position with good humour may privately regard it as an expression of impotent personal purity. While there is a difference between good manners (refraining from making negative comments about others’ beliefs or conduct and expecting others to do likewise) and ethical relativism (the position that all beliefs about right and wrong are equally legitimate), in practice the boundary may not always be obvious.
Tolerance and relativism
You’ve probably seen some version of the following advice as a meme on social media:
The meme selects some issues that have generated not only debates about right and wrong but also legislative battles (particularly in the United States), and asserts that everyone should be able to do as they like without interference, since these are all matters of individual values or taste.
But most of the items in this list are not so easily shrugged off as personal predilection. Discomfort with same-sex relations is the only obvious exception. Dislike of religion might be considered a similarly trivial preference, but in some circumstances what looks like a petty peeve masks a genuine concern about the influence of specific religions on public life. Concerns about pornography are not grounded in aesthetic judgment but in its tendency to reinforce gender inequality and in the real-life exploitation and violence linked to its production. Drug addiction affects many more people than just the addict, as does a lack of restrictions on gun ownership whether or not individuals choose to participate in the gun culture. For that reason, debates about guns, drugs (and recently, porn) are debates about approaches to public health policy, not individual preferences. As for abortion, a significant number of people believe that ending the life of a foetus is a moral wrong that outweighs a woman’s autonomy, and while I think this view is mistaken, it still has to be argued against, not summarily dismissed.
One response to the meme has been to point out that when there is widespread agreement that an act or institution is wrong, it is regarded as too important to leave to personal choice. No one would say ‘Don’t like slavery? Don’t own slaves’ or ‘Don’t like child abuse? Don’t beat your kids.’ Most people agree that it’s wrong to tolerate or condone acts that cause significant harm or suffering. The list conflates acts and preferences that affect only the agent and practices that have wider social effects. Use of the word ‘like’ softens and disguises the fact that the meme is promoting relativism about ethics, not merely about lifestyle. And although there is no direct reference to laws, the choice of issues and the phrase ‘shouldn’t be able’ suggest a latent libertarianism (the view that freedom and individual judgment should be maximised and protected).
Moral beliefs as lifestyle choices
When attempts to persuade are unsuccessful, friends and acquaintances may agree to disagree. Those holding the dominant view may find a dissenter’s views exasperating or pointless. After all, what is to be accomplished by not eating or wearing things whose production involves cruelty, not buying the products of an environmentally destructive industry, or not owning shares in a company that exploits its workforce, if the vast majority of people continue to do those things? The person who maintains a position that’s not widely shared is often characterised as someone stubbornly attached to purity: powerless but taking comfort in his own virtue.
that was shorn shortly before slaughter
But the ‘pure’ are not always ignored. In consumer culture, they constitute a niche market, sometimes even a lucrative one. It doesn’t matter to corporations why some people seek out cosmetics that aren’t tested on animals or that don’t contain palm oil, except insofar as those reasons provide valuable information for advertising and marketing. Your choice of a veggie burger may be based on animal welfare, but if the restaurant also serves meat, it’s a good bet that the menu was created to maximise the options for a clientele with diverse dietary requirements and tastes. If you write to a retailer expressing dismay at the materials that an item is made from, you may get a reply explaining that the company offers both shearling and vegan-friendly slippers: something for everybody. Companies are well aware that not only their materials, production process and environmental footprint but also their choice of spokesperson and their public support for causes or political candidates can affect consumer behaviour. Everything is marketable, including ethics.
The conception of principles as preferences extends to ordinary life, although nothing is being sold. Everyone who knows Mary knows she likes jazz but not blues, is a Melbourne football fan, enjoys chocolate ice cream, believes it is inappropriate for private schools to receive government funding, and shops at the supermarket that makes customers pay for a plastic bag if they fail to bring their own shopping bags. Some of Mary’s friends have quite different opinions but that makes no difference to their relationship; each of her opinions is just something about Mary.
The problem with the ‘live and let live’ attitude is that framing moral beliefs as lifestyle choices removes what philosophers call their ‘normative force’. A person whose behaviour is motivated by ethical principles believes not only that he himself is obligated to act in ways that promote compassion or fairness, or refrain from consuming things whose production involves pain or injustice, but that everyone is similarly obligated. But one person’s preference for certain products over others doesn’t constitute a reason for others to do or refrain from doing anything. The clothing company will not stop selling shearling slippers because a few customers find the slaughter of lambs abhorrent. Frank’s friends, who know he’s a vegan, may change their menu (but only on the evening that he’s coming to dinner), make the soup with the usual chicken broth and not tell him, or cook something just for him and solicitously ask him whether he’ll be ‘offended’ by the meat on everyone else’s plate. His ethical choices are seen as relevant only to him.
None of these choices seems particularly onerous. The ‘pure’ person’s friends may have gone to some trouble to make him feel comfortable, and they don’t expect him to do anything apart from not hectoring them. In many social circles, controversial topics are avoided because strong feelings can impede people’s ability to put forward and assess arguments without rancour. Sometimes even cool-headed individuals who’ve been trained to think critically find it hard to treat an idea as rebuttable. Whether or not they care deeply about the idea itself, they may feel invested in it, and that their intellectual reputation is at stake. Others may have considered the arguments for someone’s moral stance and found that they disagree about the truth of his key starting points, or on what follows from those premises. Still others, if they’re honest, may know they have no good arguments for their position and must admit (at least to themselves) that they simply do not want to change their behaviour. Most of the time, no one’s mind is changed by a dinner party conversation.
We all value our friendships. We also place a high value on our ethical positions and the reasons that we hold them. To the extent that we regard those views as ethical views, not just preferences or tastes, we believe those reasons are reasons for everyone to act as we do. Although we can maintain friendships with people with whom we disagree – particularly if there is shared history, aesthetic tastes, hobbies or sports, mutual friends, or any of a number of things that both parties enjoy or value – beliefs about right and wrong are not like flavours of ice cream. They are not only beliefs about what kind of person each of us wants to be, but about what kind of society we want to be part of.
Some find this a troubling idea. Is tolerance nothing more than good manners, or does it entail that nobody has a right even to think that his moral views apply to others? One response is to suppose that insistence on the universally shared nature of moral obligations stems from a confusion between public rules of ethics that govern situations where everyone really does need to do the same things, and private moral beliefs. On this view, everyone should be expected to follow laws prohibiting murder, and a teacher is obligated not to give better marks to the student whose parents can get discounted tickets to football games – but I have no right to expect you not to shop at the store that discourages its employees from forming a union, or not to eat steak.
‘Moral’ vs ‘ethical’
In this essay and elsewhere, I use ‘moral’ and ‘ethical’ interchangeably, as is common in the field of philosophy. ‘Ethics’ comes from the ancient Greek ēthikós; ‘moral’ from moralis, coined by the Roman philosopher and politician Cicero as a translation of the term into Latin. While the words have taken on different connotations in popular usage, many of the attempts to draw a distinction contradict one another, and in some cases reflect confusion.
‘Ethics’ is the preferred term for professional or discipline-specific codes of conduct, for example rules of behaviour for health professionals, public servants, or lawyers. These are imposed on the members of that community by their governing authorities, and the members agree to be bound by the code when they gain the qualifications to be admitted. This usage is perfectly acceptable, and it’s clear from the context when ‘ethics’ refers to the rules for a specific role that someone occupies rather than principles for all areas of his or her life. But the meaning is not always so narrowly circumscribed. Like ‘morality’, ‘ethics’ also refers to the normative principles that guide an individual’s behavior or embody good character.
for doctors and nurses
Writers who have tried to contrast the two terms, however, often use ‘morality/moral’ to describe those principles (the personal values and obligations that determine what someone believes to be right and wrong) and ‘ethics/ethical’ only for externally imposed codes, or the body of theoretical knowledge with which the area of philosophy called ethics is concerned. Some have suggested that ‘ethical’ obligations are less binding than ‘moral’ ones because they are external rather than originating from introspective reflection or religious faith. Others argue that ‘moral’ obligations are less binding than ‘ethical’ ones because the consequences suffered if, for example, a doctor breaches her duty of care to a patient are more concrete and less easily evaded or rationalised than the consequences of her failing to keep a promise to a friend. Still other interpretations of ‘morality’ and ‘ethics’ relate the distinction to issues about objectivity. For example: ‘Ethics is objective because its conclusions are reached through impartial reasoning, while morality is entirely subjective’ or ‘Ethical codes of conduct are purpose-driven conventions that are relative to communities, while moral principles are eternal universal truths that are discovered, not constructed’. The large number of conflicting assertions based on idiomatic use or personal associations suggests that the utility of a distinction between ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’ is limited. Philosophical reasoning about right and wrong is no more and no less objective, impartial or abstract than any other area of philosophy, and any individual’s deliberations about right and wrong may be more or less akin to philosophical thinking. To consider it entirely subjective and a matter of temperament, habit or other causal factors – not consideration of evidence – feeds into the pernicious view that arguments for or against the permissibility of a type of action serve no constructive purpose.
The personal and the political
As noted above, to believe that an act is obligatory or impermissible is to believe that everyone is subject to the same ethical duties and prohibitions (or that some subset of ‘everyone’ has those obligations, namely everyone whose personal characteristics are relevant to the issue). An act can’t be wrong ‘for me’ but permissible ‘for you’ unless there are salient differences between our circumstances. If I’m a strong swimmer and you never learned to swim, I may be obligated to try to save a drowning person while you are not so obligated, because you can’t. Our different abilities with respect to swimming are, in this context, a salient difference that affects our moral obligations.
Residents of developed countries face an extensive and ever-increasing list of matters requiring decisions about how to live, particularly in their relationship with the global environment. Air travel and car travel, heating and cooling of buildings, the use and disposal of plastic, and the things we eat and wear are just a few. These personal choices and the ability to implement them are shaped not only by ethical commitments but also by wealth, class and culture. People with the material means to make such choices are like the strong swimmer with lifesaving skills; people living in poverty are not.
The good news is that some changes in social attitudes are shifting individuals towards more environmentally responsible behaviour. Plastic and unnecessary extra packaging have fallen out of favour; hybrid cars are popular and are used as taxis; solar panels are starting to be regarded as status symbols. The bad news is that for every place where one of these facts is true, there are many others where it’s not. Single-use plastic shopping bags (the thin, flimsy ones) have been almost completely phased out where I live in Australia. The same bags, however, are ubiquitous in many parts of south-eastern Ohio and the number of shoppers who bring their own bags are a minority. This isn’t because Australians are morally superior to Ohioans. It’s because the Australian states and territories and all three major political parties (not just the Greens!) responded to the concerns of environmental advocacy groups. Single-use bags were phased out, the stores now sell reusable ones, and although sturdier plastic bags are also offered, they’re not free. There has been disagreement about the extent to which the policies are sufficient and the environmental effects of the various alternatives, but it’s indisputable that it took the action of governments to eliminate single-use bags.
Voluntary changes to individual habits can make a few people feel virtuous, but for significant results, political change is needed, and political change is what moral agents really want. Mary, the person who doesn’t think tax money should go to private schools, sends her children to a state school, but not for the sake of principle alone. Fortunately, she has independent reasons for believing that’s the best option for them. She is well aware that one family’s decision is unlikely to move the government towards more egalitarian funding arrangements.
Sentiments and attitudes may precede or follow changes to laws and policies. These phenomena interact in a complex relationship rather than as straightforward cause and effect. Much of Australian society was comfortable with de facto relationships long before federal and state laws explicitly recognised them, and with same-sex couples before the legalisation of same-sex marriage. The pace of change has not been uniform in all locations or across demographic groups, though, and legal protections can feel hollow without social equality. For Black Americans, a crucial element of the struggle for equal rights has been legislation explicitly prohibiting discrimination, along with judicial rulings finding segregation unconstitutional. Yet it should be obvious to anyone watching current events in the US that laws and court decisions have not been a magic wand in a society where racism is chronic, pervasive, insidious, and denied by those who cannot or will not see it. I would have liked to tell a story of bright hope, starting perhaps in 1955 with Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a white man, followed by widespread civil disobedience and culminating in the passage of Acts to protect Black people’s voting rights, employment, and full and equal status. But the struggle is by no means over.
It’s not just personal
Is it a mistake to examine cultural practices such as food production, the use of resources and disposal of manufactured goods, or the ways in which education is paid for and distributed, in the same way that we approach issues of equal status and legal rights? Are Frank’s concerns about meat or Mary’s choice of supermarket and school trivial first-world problems?
I haven’t chosen these examples (meat, plastic bags, private schools) on the basis of their urgency or importance, but because they share the characteristic of being regarded as personal choice, unlike matters of human rights and social justice. Most people like meat and many will go to great lengths to justify its consumption. Right now, I think it’s safe to say that a government that sought to phase out or significantly reduce the output of the meat industries would face a tsunami of consumer outrage. There’s been a spate of efforts to rebut claims that meat production is environmentally harmful, with speculative comparisons of the impact of large-scale farming of plant foods. Others have claimed that the animals do not in fact suffer very much; a few have been honest enough to argue that their suffering simply doesn’t matter. You or I may find these arguments chilling, but the burden of proof in public debates tends to fall on those who are challenging the prevalent position. This is particularly true when the majority are being asked to give up something that is a central part of their culture, and it’s why so many prefer to think of the vegan’s position as a lifestyle choice applicable only to him.
Frank’s reasons for believing we should all eat less meat may be humane, environmental, or both. Frank may also believe that he and everyone else should tell the truth, not cheat on a spouse, return books to the library on time, learn first aid and be prepared to use it, and be kind. Although these are all moral duties that apply to everyone, not just Frank, no one else needs to do anything in order for Frank to fulfil them. It’s up to each person alone to tell the truth, keep promises, satisfy the terms of contracts, perform CPR if someone needs it, and not make jokes about short people. By contrast, moral obligations to other species, to humanity, or to the planet require action by large numbers of people in order to result in tangible change.
Changes to a habit can involve years of public information campaigns and may call for incentives, not just facts and appeals to common values. Efforts to combat the public health problem of smoking involved not only information, but also legal prohibitions on smoking in restaurants, bars, and train stations, within 10 metres of playgrounds, office buildings and food vendors, and entire university campuses. Smoking bans changed behaviour when knowledge of the hazards to health was not always effective.
Public health campaigns of this type enjoy an advantage over those undertaken by animal welfare advocates: they are trying to improve or protect only human well-being. Their scope is narrower and their aim is one that every human shares, or would be irrational not to share. But there is another reason that the vegan’s choice is political, with ramifications far beyond his personal commitment to animal welfare. The contribution of the meat and dairy industries to climate change includes not only the methane emissions from livestock but also deforestation for grazing and feed production, and animal agriculture is second only to fossil fuel consumption as the largest source of CO2 emissions. Climate change will affect every facet of human life, eventually even the lives of those who have the means to avoid it the longest, and it can be addressed only by concerted national and international action. For this reason, I don’t think it’s fanciful to suppose that the meat issue could move to a more visible position in debates about how to slow global warming.
Conclusion
My primary aim in this paper was not to argue for a position on the consumption of meat or any other moral issue, but to question the tendency to treat moral beliefs as symbolic gestures like a slogan on a t-shirt. It may be the case that on closer examination, the issue that preoccupies a minority of people is one that affects many – perhaps all inhabitants of the planet.
Nevertheless, people with eccentric ethical views are confronted with the following hard truths:
- Only political action can change the world.
- The arguments, actions and habits of individuals are usually inadequate to effect social change because even if the majority shared their values, they do not share their motivation, and because the people with economic power have contrary desires.
Knowing this, is it rational to persist with the individual acts and arguments?
Most of the examples considered here have involved abstention from something: a relatively easy action to take, especially if done gradually, step by step. The cost of acting according to one’s values may be greater if that requires positive action such as contributing time to an organisation that actively tries to influence government, businesses or the public, or using one’s own skills, talents or connections to that end.
Perhaps those whose values and principles extend to matters affecting wider society are morally obligated to be political activists to the best of their ability. Purity is not enough. But if their political activism starts with recognition of a moral wrong and a decision not to participate in that wrong, we owe it to them – particularly if they are friends, colleagues or family members – to consider the best arguments for the position with which we disagree, and not to dismiss it as personal preference.
Reference
IPCC, 2019: Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems [P.R. Shukla, J. Skea, E. Calvo Buendia, V. Masson-Delmotte, H.-O. Pörtner, D. C. Roberts, P. Zhai, R. Slade, S. Connors, R. van Diemen, M. Ferrat, E. Haughey, S. Luz, S. Neogi, M. Pathak, J. Petzold, J. Portugal Pereira, P. Vyas, E. Huntley, K. Kissick, M. Belkacemi, J. Malley (eds.)].
Photo credits
Dinner party photo by cottonbro from Pexels.com
Hospital photo by Jonathan Borba from Pexels.com
Black Lives Matter photo by James Eades on Unsplash
Photo of woman petting a cow by Lucas Bordignon from Pexels.com
Cradle Mountain, Tasmania by Dirk Baltzly
Citation
Please cite as: Miller, L. Elaine, ‘Making Purity Potent’, It Could Be Words (blog), 11 September 2020, https://it-could-be-words.com/making-purity-potent
