What is Morality? Part III - Moral Relativity and Locality

In morality, context matters. Many of us would probably like to think that what is right is right and what is wrong is wrong. But it's not that simple. What is moral in one time and place may be immoral in another time and place. As I've stated before, I believe that the purpose of morality is to learn how to act in our actual self-interest (as opposed to selfishly). What is good for me is good for others.

However, the moral code that helped hunting-gathering tribes survive thousands of years ago would be vastly different from the moral code that leads a diversified modern nation like the United States to its best outcomes today. I believe a lot of this has to do with the differing danger levels and availability of resources. Back in the days when humans struggled on a day to day basis to survive, we would have to sacrifice a lot of individual freedom for the good of the group. For instance, if the death rate and birth rate of the group would lead to zero or negative population growth, the birth rate would have to be increased or the group would eventually die. This would pressure some people into reproducing when they might not really want to. We also had to, necessarily, treat those outside of our group as less important since we were in direct competition for the resources around us.

As our societies and technologies evolved, and our death rates plummeted and our resource production rose, our old moral codes became outdated. In a world where we are in no danger of running a negative birth rate and we have the capability to probably produce enough resources for everyone, our old moral views may do more harm than good. The insistence on reproduction has led to the unnecessary suffering of more than half our population and a world that is, if anything, over-populated. And our history of competition has led to a system of have and have-nots where entire groups of people are alienated and not nearly as productive as they could be. We deny them resources, and inevitably, when conflict erupts over what remaining resources there are, we somehow use that conflict to justify refusing them resources in the future.

Unfortunately, these old ideas cling on in some pockets of the population and progress is glacially slow. But it is important to remember that many of the conservative positions that progressives fight against were the very positions that only thousands of years ago (merely a drop in the bucket when considering evolutionary time-scales) allowed our species to survive at all. So I think it is understandable that many refuse to let go of these old ideas. And I think this understanding is critical to producing the empathy that is required whenever we have to change someone else's mind on an important issue.

The fight over morality is not a question of right or wrong. It's a question of rigidity or flexibility. We must remain open-minded because the answers to the questions change over time. Even if we can't convince someone to agree with us, if we can at least convince them to be open-minded, then there's at least the chance that someday the truth will find its way to them. Once again, that might be a lot slower than we'd like, but I believe all lasting progress is.