What is the source of morality?

Recently, when the US state of Georgia decided to execute Troy Davis, and the state of Texas decided to execute Lawrence Brewer, many bloggers wrote some heartfelt and moving articles arguing against the death penalty. I wrote one myself outlining what I think are the reasons for abolishing the death penalty.

Many of the Christian blog posts on the subject focussed on the commandments of God and/or Jesus as a basis for the ethical argument for abolishing the death penalty. The trouble is, there will be many Christians who think the opposite, and will probably find some Biblical text or other to justify their position.

I think you probably can make quite a good case that Jesus was against the death penalty, as in the story where he saves the woman taken in adultery from being stoned to death by saying "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone". On the other hand, he is also recorded as saying "I come not to bring peace, but a sword" and "if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off"; so in order to work out what Jesus' ethical stance was on anything in particular, we have to select the texts that support our argument. So wouldn't it be easier to work out whether something is right or wrong without reference to Jesus' views, or indeed God's commandments, which are similarly ambivalent ("Thou shalt not kill" as part of the Ten Commandments, but lots of injunctions to stone people to death for various infringements of the Law).

The death penalty is not wrong because Jesus was against it, or because it's against God's commands as handed down in the Bible. It's wrong for far more basic reasons than that; because you can never know to what extent the person was responsible for what they were doing when they committed murder, or to what extent they might change. They may well be innocent, as evidence is not 100% reliable. Killing is wrong because it cuts short someone's life and does them extreme harm.

The Golden Rule (attested to by every religion) says that we should do unto others as we would have them to do unto us - and being killed is pretty high on the list of things we would not like to have done to us. (The fact that a version of this rule has been worked out by every major religion suggests that it transcends cultural context and is based on universal human experience). God's commands (and Jesus' ethical stance) can be interpreted one way by one group of people, and another by a different group of people; so the Bible is not a reliable guide to ethics. It's got some rattling good stories in it, which when pondered can produce some interesting insights, but I would not use it as a guide to ethics.

So what is the source of morality? According to Richard Holloway, author of the excellent book Godless morality, morality is based on weighing two conflicting good things. So, in deciding whether abortion is ethical, one weighs the good of the life of the foetus against the good of the mother who may or may not bring it to term. In the case of the death penalty, it cannot benefit the victim of the crime to have the perpetrator killed. Society should be protected from the possibility that the perpetrator might repeat their crime, but the life of the perpetrator outweighs the cost of maintaining them in prison as opposed to killing them. There is also the very valid point that carrying out the sentence places a burden of distress on the people who carry it out.

The source of moraliy is not some absolute command handed down from on high (the very absolutism of which can often cause more distress than it alleviates) but the pragmatic considerations of the context in which the ethical decisions must be made: who benefits? who suffers? and to what extent?

Let's not lose the momentum

The death penalty is wrong no matter whether the victim of judicial murder is innocent or guilty.

Here's some reasons why it's wrong:

• The person being executed might be innocent. (Even if they're guilty, it's still wrong.)
• They may not have been entirely compos mentis when the crime was committed.
• People on Death Row frequently have learning difficulties or mental illness. If they weren't mentally ill to start with, the conditions on Death Row frequently send them over the edge.
• Executing them means they will never have a chance to make good.
• Killing is wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right.
• The judicial murder weighs on the consciences of those who carry it out.
• The process of killing the person is inhumane.
• The endless waiting on death row (20 years in the case of Troy Davis) is extremely stressful for the person waiting to be executed, and for their family.
• We don't have the right to decide to kill others.
• Quite often it is the poor and disadvantaged who get executed, while those who can afford a good lawyer get acquitted, or get their sentence commuted.
• How can any country that has the death penalty preach about human rights and democracy to the rest of the world?
• As Lindsay Beyerstein points out: "the same logic that drives the death penalty is also behind a large percentage of murders. The idea is that some transgressions are so bad that they can only be settled by blood. Encouraging people to think that their pain isn't honored and avenged unless the perpetrator is killed probably makes our society more violent on the whole, not less."

What you can do about it:

• Write to a prisoner on death row
• Support Amnesty and Reprieve - if you cannot give your money, give your time to raise funds and raise awareness.

UPDATE: Special Amnesty page with campaign resources about the death penalty, including a schools pack.

Solon's commandments

The Ten Commandments of Solon:
(Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 1.60):

1. Trust good character more than promises.
2. Do not speak falsely.
3. Do good things.
4. Do not be hasty in making friends, but do not abandon them once made.
5. Learn to obey before you command.
6. When giving advice, do not recommend what is most pleasing, but what is most useful.
7. Make reason your supreme commander.
8. Do not associate with people who do bad things.
9. Honor the gods.
10. Have regard for your parents.

Where do ethics come from?

The idea that religion is the only source of ethics is based on the idea that "God" (and I don't believe in him/her/it) dispenses laws or moral codes for humans to obey, and rewards those who obey and punishes those who disobey.

Anyone who does a good thing because they expect a reward for it from (or avoids a bad thing because they expect to be punished by) some cosmic lawgiver is clearly immoral. In Matthew 6, Yeshua is reported as talking about getting rewards in heaven for doing good on earth (or at least, that is the way that the passage is often interpreted). Eeeeeuuuuuwwwwwww!!!! Wrong wrong wrong.

I do what I believe to be right and good (the pursuit of justice and the comforting of the afflicted and oppressed, donating to charity, participating in campaigns for social & environmental justice) because I believe it to be right and good, and I hope that it will increase the sum of happiness, not because I expect a pat on the head from a non-existent person in the sky.

OK so I get satisfaction from seeing people looking & feeling better after I have helped them - but the amount of effort involved probably outweighs the reward. And OK so I also get satisfaction from doing what is good and right, cos it makes me feel as though I am making a difference, and it makes me feel better about myself, but I don't see why I shouldn't. Self-esteem is good, isn't it?

And anyway, empirical evidence in the form of numerous morally upright atheists (though not all atheists), and millions of bigoted religionists (though not all religionists), make it obvious that the sort of religions that have prescriptive moral codes are not a good place to get your ethics from. The sort of religion that is inclusive and tolerant and rational would be a better place to get your values from, but you should still check them against your own conscience, reason and experience.

There's an excellent book by Richard Holloway called Godless Morality which explains exactly why God being the source of moral commandments can't possibly work even if you actually believe in God (which Holloway doesn't, though he says he isn't exactly an atheist or an agnostic either). The reason is this: because we cannot be sure what "God" wants, or even if s/he exists, we cannot claim in our moral pronouncements to speak for God. If two people both claim to be doing what God wants, but do exactly the opposite, how do we decide between them? By using ordinary evidence, reason and compassion to decide.

I tend to use the word ethics to mean a set of best practices that have evolved or emerged from a group ethos (though that is not the etymology of ethics), and I use the word morals to mean a set of practices imposed by a moral code. In this sense, ethics are clearly more pragmatic and flexible and humane, whereas moral codes, because they are usually arbitrary and invented, are usually cruel and inhumane.

Ethics and altruism are clearly evolved characteristics — but that doesn't make them any less beautiful, especially as we usually have a choice about whether to do the ethical or altruistic thing. It's amazing and wonderful that both people and animals will help the injured and dying, often at considerable cost or risk to themselves — and people often help others who are clearly not genetically related to them, including other species.