Is Morality an Open and Closed Matter?

Is Morality an Open and Closed Matter?

I suspect most of us would agree that principles of morality can and do legitimately vary from one nation to another.

Within a nation would we also agree that principles of morality can and do legitimately vary from one political party to another? Would we also agree that such variation is legitimate from one state to another; or perhaps from one city to another or from one family to another?

Is there a universal morality that overrides all community boundaries?

In his essay Open and Closed Morality as published in the book of essays The Morality of Politics W. H. Walsh has written about the difficult and elusive concept of an ‘open and closed morality’.

“You have a right to remain silent.” I guess all Americans who have reached the age of seven have heard this expression many times on TV. I also expect that all adult Americans agree that our nation was founded on the principle that all citizens have rights. Human rights are written into our constitution.

‘Right’ and ‘good’ are important moral concepts. Those who believe that all humans have certain rights are convinced that these rights supersede any consideration of the good. In other words, it is believed by some that humans, qua human, have certain inalienable rights that cannot be denied even in the interest of the good. These rights are considered to be universal and thus applicable to all humans wither they are members of my community or not.

Those who hold the existence of such universal moral principles are considered to have an “open morality” while those who believe that such universal rights do not exist and only the good determines the moral are considered to have a “closed morality”.

Walsh contends that those with the conviction of a closed morality “For them morality is, first and foremost, an affair internal to a particular community rather than a phenomenon covering the whole of mankind…[this individual] wants to make his own society as good as he can, rather than to construct some finally valuable Utopia.” The individual with a closed morality insist that the virtues on which they “insist are in the first instance communal virtues, and the vices they seek to avoid are modes of conduct which would disrupt socials life as such”.

Those with an open morality hold that moral law “holds without distinction of persons…privilege and preferential treatment have no place in morality, which is a sphere of pure principle…that the moral law commands for its own sake and not for the sake of any good its observance produces or might be expected to produce, whether private or public…man’s only overriding loyalty is to the moral law itself.”

Those with a closed morality are convinced that there are no rights, there is only the good. Any act that is beneficial to the community, i.e. is a common good, can be judged as moral or immoral based upon the consequences of the action.

I consider myself to have an open morality; what do you consider yourself to be, are you open or closed?

I don't particularly like the categories, but I'd have to say closed.

I'm closed because I don't believe in a universal morality. In other words, I don't think there are any rights that exist somewhere in the world for us to discover that must be applied to all humans. Rights commonly found in the Western world are socially constructed. For example, the right to free speech is limited in America. It has also been restricted to certain races or genders at different times in our past. Additionally, looking at the new information about our use of torture during the past decade, you can see that morality is conditional.

However, it should be noted that the morality I hold is one that I do believe should be used universally. Obviously, because I believe in it, I think it's the best one available. Therefore, because of its good-ness, I'd like to see it applied to everyone. To this degree, I then become open, because I think that all humans deserve the rights I am talking about.

However, I never kid myself into thinking that my morality is some objective, overarching human morality. I recognize that the power oif my morality comes only from my belief that they exist and the chance that someone else might agree.

The present question regarding the nature and morality of torture offers us an excellent opportunity to advance the level of sophistication of our understanding of morality. We learn best when we are questioning a matter that is meaningful to us.

I was eleven years old when Germany and Japan surrendered and WWII was finally over. One searing memory of this war were the stories I read and the movies I watched during and after the war regarding the torture and general brutality that the German Gestapo inflicted upon the people they conquered. I do not know why this left such a strong impression on me but it certainly did.

Coincidentally I have been studying “Moral Imagination” by Mark Johnson. This is the same Johnson who coauthored the book “Philosophy in the Flesh” with George Lakoff. I have decided to apply the theories Johnson presents in his book as a means to illuminate this matter regarding the morality of water torture used by my country in our struggle with Islamic extremists.

Moral understanding is like any other kind of experience; when we examine a domain of experience that relates to human relationships we must focus our attention on human understanding it self. If we do so we discover that human understanding is fundamentally imaginative in character.

“Many of our most basic concepts have considerable internal structure that cannot be accounted for by the classical theory of concepts as defined by necessary and sufficient features…The primary forms of moral imagination are concepts with prototype structure, semantic frames, conceptual metaphors, and narratives.”

To become morally insightful we must become knowledgeable of these imaginative structures. First, we must give up our illusions about absolute moral codes and also our radical moral subjectivism. Second we must refine our “perception of character traits and situations and of developing empathetic imagination to take up the part of others.”

Empathy is a character trait that can be cultivated by habit and will. Sympathy is somewhat of an automatic response.

When we see a mother weeping over the death of her child caused by a suicide bomber we feel immediate sympathy. Often we will come to tears. But we do not feel anything like that for the mother who may be weeping over the death of her child who was the bomber.

To understand the bomber we must use empathy. We attempt through imagination and reason to create a situation that will allow us to understand why this was done. This is a rational means to understand someone who acts different than we would.

“Empathy is the idea that the vital properties which we experience in or attribute to any person or object outside ourselves are the projections of our own feelings and thoughts.”

The subject viewing an object of art experiences emotional attitudes leading to feelings that are attributes of qualities in the art object thus aesthetic pleasure may be considered as “objectified self-enjoyment in which the subject and object are fused.”

The social sciences adopt a similar concept called ‘empathic understanding’, which refers to the deliberate attempt to identify with another person and accounting for that persons actions by “our own immediate experience of our motivations and attitudes in similar circumstances as we remember or imagine them”. This idea refers to a personal resonance between two people.

“What is crucial is that our moral reasoning can be constrained by the metaphoric and other imaginative structures shared within our culture and moral tradition, yet it can also be creative in transforming our moral understanding, our identity, and the course of our lives. Without this kind of imaginative reasoning we would lead dreadfully impoverished lives. We would be reduced to repeating habitual actions, driven by forces and contingencies beyond our control.”

Can you imagine an individual who is a hard headed realist and very accomplished at empathy sanctioning the use of water torture on anyone, friend or enemy?

I think that if we know what is right and what is wrong we can certainly bear witness of pain to others if we know it is in their best interest in the end and the interest of others. Yes, I can see putting a friend through quite a bit if there was a necessary point to it and that the friend was in danger before and would be made better through it.

God loves us perfectly and sanctions some terrible things to happen for our own good sometimes. If we perfectly love people, we will be willing to take any kind of pain ourselves for their sakes and be understanding that sometimes very harsh measures are necessary to make us better and stronger people. How else can you sanction putting someone through chemo to rid them of cancer? Same thing.

Open morality, but it's not a black and white thing.
There are some things that should never be taken away from a human being, regardless of gender, race, religion, etc. Just because someone doesn't look/talk/believe like I do doesn't mean they shouldn't have the same rights that I do.
At the same time, I wouldn't feel bad water-boarding Joseph Mengele. There are things you can do to forfeit those rights, too.

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Is there a universal morality that overrides all community boundaries?

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Yes Coberst for sure . I think it is a big mistake to think of morality
as enclosed .
For instance people who live in the West say that in these countries they have the high morality of Islam although they are not Musilms and they don't know that . There ,there is Isalm ( as morality) without Muslims .

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Those with an open morality hold that moral law “holds without distinction of persons…privilege and preferential treatment have no place in morality, which is a sphere of pure principle…that the moral law commands for its own sake and not for the sake of any good its observance produces or might be expected to produce, whether private or public…man’s only overriding loyalty is to the moral law itself.”

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I think it makes us better human beings if we think of morality as a sphere of pure principle.:nod:

As a Moral Nihilist, I do not believe actions have preassigned moral values. Morality is a construct of the mind. What is considered 'Good' varies greatly between culture. What is 'Good' is decided by people and by creating the concept of 'Good' they define what is 'Not Good' or 'Evil'. Therefore 'Evil' is anything that society considers unfavourable. We do not judge a coyote who kills a deer to survive, nor do most people judge people for slaughtering cows to survive; they just obscure and hide that aspect of society. Yet, we judge a man who kills another man in self defense. Thus, what is often considered 'Evil' is what is necessary. Take for example, sex, has become something to be ashamed of. Before Monotheism, the human body was considered sacred and beautiful, but after the advent of christianity it became sinful.

I believe morals vary widely from one culture to another; depending on the stage of development of the culture and its socioeconomic situation, its proximity and dependecy on other cultures, etc...
There are so many variables in each of our situations; that I don't think anyone can judge whether another person is moral or what is in the best interest of another person. (of course, there are the glaring examples of evil here and there)
We also have to examine what is morally correct for an individual and whether the sacrafice of a moral belief for the "good of others" Example: it is wrong to torture another human being; but what if this person had the location of a bomb that was going off at a certain time and would kill thousands of people!

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Originally Posted by soundofmusic

I believe morals vary widely from one culture to another; depending on the stage of development of the culture and its socioeconomic situation, its proximity and dependecy on other cultures, etc...
There are so many variables in each of our situations; that I don't think anyone can judge whether another person is moral or what is in the best interest of another person. (of course, there are the glaring examples of evil here and there)
We also have to examine what is morally correct for an individual and whether the sacrafice of a moral belief for the "good of others" Example: it is wrong to torture another human being; but what if this person had the location of a bomb that was going off at a certain time and would kill thousands of people!

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We badly need a science of morality that will provide us with the fundamental comprehension of the nature of this domain of knowledge. Lack of understanding here results in the terrible fix we are in.

Can our civilization survive much longer if our citizens fail to become more intellectually sophisticated? Presently it is apparent to me that few citizens have any idea of the problems that we face. If the citizens do not comprehend what is going on they certainly will be unwilling to make the sacrifices required. I see CT as fundamental to increasing our level of sophistication.

We were born smart enough but we weren’t born intellectually sophisticated enough to handle this high tech world we have invented.

What is the difference between “being smart” and “being sophisticated”? I would say that we can use the handyman and his tool box as a good analogy for comprehending this difference. The number and quality of the instruments in a handyman’s tool box is a measure of his smartness and his experience using those tools is a measure of his sophistication.

If a handyman has only a hammer then every job is a job that will get hammered on. If that handyman has a great tool box but has experience only with a hammer then that handyman will look for things that can be hammered into place

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Originally Posted by coberst

We badly need a science of morality that will provide us with the fundamental comprehension of the nature of this domain of knowledge. Lack of understanding here results in the terrible fix we are in.

Can our civilization survive much longer if our citizens fail to become more intellectually sophisticated? Presently it is apparent to me that few citizens have any idea of the problems that we face. If the citizens do not comprehend what is going on they certainly will be unwilling to make the sacrifices required. I see CT as fundamental to increasing our level of sophistication.

We were born smart enough but we weren’t born intellectually sophisticated enough to handle this high tech world we have invented.

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I think the difficulty is that our civilization concepts of morality are based on how we perceive our world: what little we see on the news, hear from our neighbors, are advised by our politicians. I always find it stunning to see how much people who serve the country age during their service; and how their concepts of the value of life and morality change after that time.
As I've noticed the progress of man over my lifetime, he seems, like an infant, to make vast leaps forward, fall, stay in one position, retard slightly and so forth. There is no doubt that our earth will most likely survive, the question is will we and in what state.

some people are writing their book here, it seems,......interesting, thought provoking stuff......plz continue.......so I can continue reading..... :-)

May I ask why 'islam' and 'extremists' always seem to be quoted together, (hand in hand).......I refer to the comment made by coberst above.........? Every faith has extremists, don't you think? Why is only Islam considered to have extremists? Curious to know....

Morality as a closed system can work, but it will always face incompleteness and inheriently indecisive ethical situations. Morality as an open system is a hopeful act, but will be just as futile as morality as a closed system. At least an open system guarentees tolerence and an aviodence of fundimentalism.

This indeciviness within any system of morality is caused by the constant fluxation of semantic formalities, which are consistently being re-defined. Take the aboriton debate; conservates and liberals both have there own opinions on where human life begins, but that is merely their conjecture, derived from a political bias. This is why the abortion debate will never be fully resolved; because we are expecting to find some sort of golden dictionary coming down from the skies and saying what it means to be human. Such hopes are quite naive in these post-Platonic realist days.

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May I ask why 'islam' and 'extremists' always seem to be quoted together, (hand in hand).......I refer to the comment made by coberst above.........? Every faith has extremists, don't you think? Why is only Islam considered to have extremists? Curious to know....

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Every faith does have extremists. Many of them are not nice people. It just seems that extremist Islam is wont to do things like fly planes into buildings, set off suicide bombs in front of cafes, and cut the heads off of journalists.

Just sayin'.

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Originally Posted by Hurricane

Every faith does have extremists. Many of them are not nice people. It just seems that extremist Islam is wont to do things like fly planes into buildings, set off suicide bombs in front of cafes, and cut the heads off of journalists.

Just sayin'.

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Yeah, and that happens to accuont for 1% of the Muslim population.

Every religion has its people who are wont to kill hundreds of people, but they are probably just as likely to kill hundreds of people whether they were religious or not. It's not religion that makes people do evil things, it just gives them an excuse to manipulate a population.

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Every religion has its people who are wont to kill hundreds of people, but they are probably just as likely to kill hundreds of people whether they were religious or not. It's not religion that makes people do evil things, it just gives them an excuse to manipulate a population.

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I'm not saying it is the religion of Islam. Extremist Muslims who do horrible things account for a tiny percentage of the population. But they're a lot more vocal/active about it on a world scale than, say, extremist Christians so therefore when people think of an example of extremist religious violence, they probably think of extremist Islam. That was kind of what I was getting at, and I think we're in agreement in that every religion has a number of unsavory characters.

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Originally Posted by Hurricane

I'm not saying it is the religion of Islam. Extremist Muslims who do horrible things account for a tiny percentage of the population. But they're a lot more vocal/active about it on a world scale than, say, extremist Christians so therefore when people think of an example of extremist religious violence, they probably think of extremist Islam. That was kind of what I was getting at, and I think we're in agreement in that every religion has a number of unsavory characters.

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Yeah I understand, and I didn't think that you were going against Islam by the way.

Yes it is true that when we think of vocal religious extremism within the context of our time, we do think of Islam. Christianity already had its day (the Crusades, etc.), tommorow it will be some other group of religious extremists wishing to enforce their views upon the world.

(Here I am not reffering to the average religious induvidual, only those who believe that they must enforce their religion to the extent of killing people)

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Originally Posted by Hurricane

I'm not saying it is the religion of Islam. Extremist Muslims who do horrible things account for a tiny percentage of the population. But they're a lot more vocal/active about it on a world scale than, say, extremist Christians so therefore when people think of an example of extremist religious violence, they probably think of extremist Islam. That was kind of what I was getting at, and I think we're in agreement in that every religion has a number of unsavory characters.

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I do not agree at all. You are absolutely wrong. You forgot Hitler? At times Christian extremists are worse.

One thing about extremist Christians is they are so much engaged in converting people of other religions. In Nepal for example they have opened so many missionaries, schools, hospitals and engage in social and charitable activities. But at the back of their minds all they want is spread their faiths.

They throw money and the poor and the downtrodden get some support from them and follow their religion. For a while they can help them financially but in the long run they disrupt the age old civilization and culture. They disorient and acculturate the indigenous people with their philosophies or ideals which they spread with their dollars and pounds and Euros.

I am not speaking against ordinary Christians but about those who take money as their tools for converting the highly vulnerable. Their ideas totally disrupt the harmony that remained intact for centuries.

Great point about the missionaries, blaze.

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I am not speaking against ordinary Christians but about those who take money as their tools for converting the highly vulnerable. Their ideas totally disrupt the harmony that remained intact for centuries.

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...And I'm not speaking against ordinary Muslims. I'm speaking against those that use violence and terror to spread influence. Killing people disrupts harmony, too.

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I do not agree at all. You are absolutely wrong. You forgot Hitler? At times Christian extremists are worse.

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Calling Hitler a "Christian extremist" is a little shaky. His religious beliefs are very much in debate, and are generally agreed to be much more complicated than just saying that he was a Christian. There are plenty of good examples of bad Christians besides Hitler. (David Koresh, Jim Jones, etc.)

The missionaries thing is a good point. I really dislike that a lot of missionaries use aid as a sort of carrot to get people in need to believe in Christianity. It's dishonest and doesn't have the best interests of the people they're trying to help in mind.

Extremists always come up in these discussions. So perhaps we should examine the norms: What is considered moral to the average Muslim, or Christian, Judaism, and all other religions?

It's been a long time since I've posted here. Just got bored and thought I'd post back.


Anyways here's my take.

Things that are artificial are also by default open ended because humans could have made them however they wanted to. Differences in morality is no different from differences in metric and the english system.

On the other hand, if morality is derived from human nature: say humans are naturally (through evolution) selfish though inclined to help others as long as it does not harm theirself, then all people would agree that it is moral to help others. This is an example of closed morality.