A Rational Take On Morality

Recently I had a discussion with a friend on the validity of moral choices in the light of secular thinking. In that discussion, I labeled morality merely as a placeholder of religion in the secular era for a definitive guide to "right" and "wrong." I argued that moral choices come with many cognitive blind-spots that put us astray from making objective choices. My first argument was that morality tends to appear like infallible commandments. They are like universal laws, applicable for all conditions at all times. However, this universality is far from reality. Same moral choices are often impossible to exercise in all situations. To cover that incoherence, we apply arbitrary rules that make the scope of the moral choice in question all the more arbitrary. My second argument was that morality often enforces action without rational qualification, as if all of our questionings should end before the domain of morality. My third argument was that morality often enforces a triage of actions that seem to enjoy a lack of skepticism. My fourth argument wax against the futility of moral discourses since it's beyond question and fallibility. And it's precisely due to this haven, free from skepticism, morality can give birth and harbor demagoguery and deplorable ideas of self-righteousness and masochism. Based on these criticisms, I suggested that while making choices, we should consider our reason without asking what is "morally right." Although it sounded convincing, I later felt that I've been quick to conclude these ideas without delving sufficiently in actually challenging the case for morality with sufficient examples.

The question that naturally follows is: what is a "rational choice" compared to a "moral choice"? No matter how we reason, we base it on some categorical imperative. Such as what is reasonable and how we define one choice as logically correct. For example, think of building a carbon-neutral economy to attain long-term environmental sustainability at the cost of the current growth trajectory. To consider this as a rational choice, we need first to agree that ecological sustainability is good. To decide whether long-term environmental sustainability is good, we need first to understand why it is good. Morality will tag these high grounds as a categorical imperative (a universal right thing that's beyond human questioning). But here reason comes to cut these red tapes of infallibility and pave the way to explore these moral high grounds. Hence instead of satisfying our quest with a ready-made answer that environmental sustainability is good beyond any doubt, we keep questioning these ideas. To understand if environmental sustainability is good, we need to first simulate two worlds as products of two different choices we can make, one evolving out of choosing sustainable actions and the other from doing nothing. Think of a world that is a product of our eco-friendly efforts. Here the future generations of our and other species live in relative harmony, gradually reducing the pain and sufferings so profoundly embedded with life since the prehistoric age. On the other hand, where will a world resulting from our non-sustainable action or doing nothing lead us? Our children would suffer war, famine, genocide, pandemic. Societies would collapse due to environmental collapse, pollution and resource depletion. Mass extinctions of species after species would threaten biodiversity. Life would reduce to only suffering as disease, lack of clean drinking water, burning forests, chaotic weather patterns, and pandemics would ravage the planet. To make a reasonable choice, we must first answer why we like one picture over the other? And our instant repulsion towards death and destruction should not satisfy us as a reason. We need to articulate why we spontaneously dislike suffering. Because to first disagree with the acceptance of suffering, we need to argue if suffering is undesirable. For someone who thinks that humans' utmost objective is to face suffering and bear that cross of pain, the increment of suffering is a reasonable objective.

As per the latest understanding of the evolution of human civilization and society, it has become clear that the sense of right and wrong is not static but dynamic. Human values have a direct correlation with human knowledge. The more we expand our knowledge, the more we are conscious about how everything in nature is interconnected. All our behavioral traits and biases are hard-wired by evolutionary processes for millions of years. Our identities, self-awareness, qualities, and position in society and this world do not deserve privileges as they are but a product of a dice roll we individually had no hand in influencing. This understanding of us being equal not by virtue of being humans but by the fact that none of us had any hand in choosing our birth condition makes us all the same. This idea crosses the limits and extends the rights of equality across the whole of our species and other species and different generations. If we consider suffering undesirable for individuals, we would want to mitigate suffering individually. Consequently, we would endorse a system that fosters the mitigation of collective sufferings. This idea of equality is rational because it does not hold any ground as sacred, as something aught to be done, but something that makes sense to the best of human knowledge.

Every individual is better off in a system that sets rules for the mitigation of collective suffering since the motto is not to reduce the misery of one individual at the cost of the other. When the system stops an individual from nourishing himself at the expense of others, the same protection also applies to that individual. In such scenarios, the rights and responsibilities of individuals and collectives are determined to the best of the existing body of human knowledge, which is failable and subject to constant revisions to best serve the changing conditions . A pluralistic society not governed by sacred moralist dogmas has two advantages: first, the values and principles of rational choices are constantly evolving based on the incremental scope of human knowledge, thus being an adaptive system resilient to changes. Secondly, by being dynamic, rational systems will ensure the mobility of ideas which is essential to counter the consolidation of power and resources.