Science of Morality

So its been a while since I've even looked at this. I've not really picked up the ideas or anything but one thing I've really missed since finishing university is discussions on morality. I'm gonna re-read this and then pick back up on how we work out what is right or wrong and how to live the good (or bad) life.

The Moral Need for Sustainable-Research

One worrying thing to consider is that maybe there is no problem in the relationship between the economy and the ecosystem. Maybe the consequences of this relationship will be catastrophic as many scientists think but are acceptable. We currently live in a world with a moral system that allows so much suffering to go on it seems possible a global environmental disaster like climate change could be acceptable to the society we live in if it happened mainly to the right people who already bear the brunt of the hardships of the world. I feel even if this is not the case then society is still in need of a new alternative system of morality.

God is of no importance when it comes to morality and has certainly not been even since there ceased to be any evidence for his hand in creation. This is clear to see if you recognise these 2 points.

1. If we could see god's hand at work in this world giving some indication of what he wanted or did not want from this we could derive Aristotle’s Forth-Cause and build a system of morality around these conclusions. Dawkins and other similar authors have torn this argument apart however. The only place the hand of god can be seen is in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final and can no longer be a source of morality.

2. If god is simply a law giver then his laws are unimportant even if he gives punishment and reward for such things. Imagine if god clearly communicated to us that to wear red on a Tuesday was a sin and we would be sent to hell if we did not wear it and that to wear blue on a Friday was good and we would be sent to heaven if we did. This clearly does not make it wrong to wear red on a Tuesday or right to wear blue on a Friday. God saying something is right should not make it right, indeed a god who’s commands can not be shown to be right or wrong in this world but only in light of his reward or punishment is not worthy of worship or obedience. Even if god has clearly set out his commands in some text to us (which is highly questionable) this alone is not enough build a system of morality on.

So without the option of drawing morality from the natural world or a command giving god where can we find a system of morality? Ultimately like all things morality is a social construction as explained by Berger and Luckmann’s //The Social construction of reality: a treatise in the sociology of knowledge (1966) and thus relative to the parties that are involved. As such any attempt to find a universal system of morality is impossible especially for the individual who exists in a constantly changing world.

Sustainable research a way of determining morality and success?

However for the institution or formal-role it does not exist in a world that is as fluid as that of the individual. Indeed the world of the institution is much more concrete, and when it deals mainly or even solely with other institutions and individuals in formal-roles its world becomes comparatively much easier to understand than that of the individual.

For example while it is much easier to reach a conclusion to the moral conundrum of weather it is right for someone to intervene when someone is being mugged if that someone is in the formal-role of policeman at the time and not simply just the informal-role of emo music fan. Again it is much easier to decided if it is moral or not for an organisation to explain its funding if organisation is the formal-institution that is running for seats in parliament that year than an informal-institution like Katrina’s pub quiz team.

Already in our society we have set out what the most moral thing for many of our institutions is in the aims and objectives of our government bodies. For example the Policing Pledge (DirectGov 2010) and aims and objectives of the department for work and pensions (Department of work and pensions 2010) give us a clear idea of what we think it is moral for these organisations to do in given circumstances.

However simply because these are the aims and objectives of certain public bodies does not mean that they are the desired aims and objectives of the society within which they function. Often they may be out of step or misunderstood by wider society and shaped by the prejudices of the political elite. By conducting sustainable research in which the opinions of those effected by the policy shaped aims and objectives of such bodies we can see if these aims and objectives are considered moral within society and to what degree. This process can also measure the success of these bodies policies at meeting these objectives as an institution with aims and objectives that our considered sound and moral by the population but whose policies fail to achieve their goals is still not acting morally.