Ethics

A sermon by the Rev. Daniel Charles Davis

For the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Winston- Salem

June 3, 2007

          Last weekend I took my family out for a drive.

          We were headed east on Highway 64. Since it was the Memorial weekend, I knew that there would be plenty of police monitoring traffic, so I set my cruise control at the speed limit, 55 miles per hour. I did not want to get a ticket.

          Soon there was a semi-trailer truck looming in my rear-view mirror. It was following too close. The road was hilly and curvy, and a double yellow line prohibited passing in either direction. The truck seemed threatening. But I thought, "Why should I risk getting a ticket because he is in a hurry?" After about ten minutes, there was an opening, and the truck was able to pass me. As he started to do so, I looked back and saw a string of six cars all pulling out to pass. That frustrated pack of drivers had been forced to drive the speed limit. Obeying the law had been such a hardship for them that they were blindly taking their chance to pass me. I could see there was oncoming traffic. Even though the law states that one should maintain a steady speed when being passed, I slowed down, wanting to make sure the people would make it past me.

          After they passed, my wife and child encouraged me to set the cruise control at 60. I did. I have chosen this example from my life to show that even the simplest moments are fraught with ethical dilemmas.

          Was I right to set the cruise control at the speed limit? It was lawful, but was it ethical? Ethics is the study of right and wrong behavior. Unitarian Universalism is said to be a religion of deeds, not creeds. How do we judge whether or not our deeds are good? At what point do we judge – by intention, by the act itself, or by the result? What was my intention in driving 55? Perhaps I wanted to obey the law. The democratically elected government of the state of North Carolina had established the speed limit at 55. Perhaps I was living by the high principles of democracy. However, if we had taken a vote between me and the seven drivers behind me, I think I would have lost the vote 7 to 1. In Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau wrote, "Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already."

          Perhaps I was motivated by fear of punishment: I did not want to get a ticket. Perhaps my motives were selfish: I just did not want to spend the money. Or was I a coward fearing to face authority, the long arm of the law? How can a deed be good if it is motivated by selfish cowardice? On the other hand, what if I did not care about paying tickets? I could drive as fast as I want. The law does not really prohibit speeding; it merely provides a system of paying tickets occasionally if I do speed. By paying my tickets I am in compliance with the law. Is that ethical? Perhaps I was motivated by safety: I truly believed that fifty-five miles per hour was the safest speed for the road conditions.

          Another way to judge an action is on its consequence. This is known as Consequentialism. Jeremy Bentham proposed a form of Consequentialism known as Utilitarianism. An act is ethical if it produces the most happiness for the most people. So each action is subject to calculation. By driving the speed limit I make a certain number of people unhappy, including myself, but that is offset by fewer people dying, which increases happiness.

          If I drive at half the speed limit, I become a traffic hazard and increase unhappiness. If I drive twice the speed limit I am likely to cause accidents, which decreases happiness. Utilitarianism breaks down when one considers the rights of minorities. For years, segregation made the majority of people in North Carolina happy. It fit the criteria of the most happiness for the most people. Yet it was wrong. The process of desegregation has been painful and it is still not complete. It may eventually lead to the most happiness for the most people. But in the meantime there is struggle. Christians praying at city council meetings will make the majority of people in this county happy. Does that make it right?

          Another problem with Utilitarianism is that it believes that justice can be achieved by unjust means. Is it possible to have a war to end all wars? Can Robin Hood solve economic injustice by stealing from the rich and giving to the poor? What is the precise income differential that makes stealing permissible?

          Yet another problem with Utilitarianism as an ethical standard is that it requires us to predict the consequences of our actions. We do not know whether our action is good until after it’s done. If you give a panhandler $5 and he buys food, then the act is good. But if he buys crack and dies, then the act is bad.

          A group of cars may be driving 10 miles over the speed limit because going with the flow feels safer. Most of the people feel happy; therefore, speeding is good. Then the first car hits a patch of ice. And there is a chain reaction. Then speeding becomes bad.

          For ethics to be useful we have to be able to know whether the deed is good while we are doing it. The law focuses on the deed itself. The law does not care why a person drives the speed limit. It is satisfied with both moral and immoral reasons for obeying the law. If a murdering rapist has two bodies in the trunk of his car, he may obey all traffic laws on the way to dumping the bodies. He will not get a ticket. Does that mean he is ethical? Would it be better if he felt guilty and drove recklessly so he would get caught and punished?

          The next time I get stuck behind some idiot driving the speed limit, I am going to suspect him of having bodies in the trunk.

          Is a good deed good in all situations? When weather conditions are bad, perhaps I should drive less than the speed limit. If driving the speed limit is causing a safety hazard, perhaps I should speed up. If my passenger is having a heart attack, I may risk breaking the law in order to save a life. Different situations call for different deeds. This is called situational ethics; it is also called relativism. It says that ethics change relative to the situation.

          In contrast there is absolute ethics, the belief that good deeds are good across all situations. People who subscribe to absolute ethics usually rely on an authority they believe is absolute. For example, the Bible says, "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20, King James Version). Ethical relativists make exceptions in the cases of war and the death penalty. An absolute pacifist would say that killing is wrong even in self-defense. Absolute ethics are preferred by some because of their apparent simplicity. You find a list of rules, and then you follow them. For instance: Do not kill. Defend your country. Tell the truth. Pray three times a day. Give money to the poor. Invest wisely.

          A list seems simple at first until one tries to live it. Sometimes the rules contradict each other. Can you defend your country without killing? Is giving money to the poor a wise investment? Perhaps you can but maybe not. Is telling the truth always the best thing? Should a CIA agent’s identity or other state secrets be revealed? If a co-worker says he hates your boss, are you obligated to tell the boss? Another problem with absolute morality is that there are too many lists to choose from.

          Every religion has its share of fundamentalists. Which ones are we to believe? Another problem with absolute ethics is that it relies on authority. One is told that the authority is always right. But if you find one exception to the rule, then the whole system comes into question. It is like a pin popping a balloon.

          If someone says the Bible is the final authority. then they have to accept slavery as an institution because the Bible says so (Exodus 21). They have to stone disobedient children. If one of these rules proves to be unethical, then the whole system crashes. If a person says, "I believe most of the Bible," then they are using a standard other than the Bible to judge the Bible. A moral relativist would say, "I follow the Bible on a case-by-case basis." The question then becomes, is there any such thing as absolute truth? An absolutist would say yes. A relativist would say no. An absolutist would say, "Do this, don’t do this."

          A relativist would say, "Anything goes. There is an exception to every rule." The debate between absolutist and relativist is a false dichotomy. It is binary logic. Things are black or white, yes or no, true or false.

          But that does not always account for the way of life.

          In his book The Science of Good and Evil, Michael Shermer offers a pathway between absolute morality and relative morality. He calls it provisional ethics. He bases it on the principle of evolutionary science.

          In science, truth is provisional. Knowledge is constantly evolving. Hypotheses are proved and disproved. A scientific experiment has a confidence level attached, for example, "significant to the 95% level," which means that there is a less than 5% chance that the result happened by accident. This avoids the problem of absolute morality. Science does not claim to be absolutely true. It simply posits what the evidence suggests at the time. It is provisional because new evidence can lead to a new level of truth. Exceptions to the rule do not pop the balloon; they are incorporated as new evidence. Provisional ethics avoids the problem of relative morality in that it creates a body of knowledge that transcends individual experience.

          We do not each create our own personal ethics; we are caught in a network of history and social context.

          "It cannot be over-emphasized that provisional ethics is not relative or situational ethics, nor is it an attempt to eschew moral responsibility or escape moral freedom. As an evolved mechanism of human psychology, the moral sense is transcendent of individuals and groups and belongs to the species. Moral principles derived from the moral sense are not absolute where they apply to all people in all cultures under all circumstances all of the time. Neither are moral principles relative, entirely determined by circumstances, culture, and history. Moral principles are provisionally true; they apply to most people in most cultures in most circumstances most of the time."¹ Shermer is a nontheist, and his theory is independent of God but not hostile to it.

          He writes, "Believers need not feel alienated, however, since if there is a God, it is acceptable to believe that He created and utilized the laws of nature, forces of culture, and contingencies with in human history to generate within humans a moral sense, and within human culture moral principles."² Absolutists tend to state that if there is not a God, then all morality is relative. There is no reason to be moral, and people will do anything they please. Some moral relativists confirm their suspicions by advocating absolute nihilism.

          Shermer responds by asking, "…what would you do if there was no God? Would you commit robbery, rape, and murder, or would you continue to be a good moral person? Either way the question is a debate stopper. If the answer is that you would turn to robbery, rape, or murder, then this is a moral indictment of your character…If the answer is that you would continue being good and moral, then apparently you can be good without God."³

          But we are still accountable for our actions. Shermer writes, "I may be free from God, but the god of nature holds me in her temple of judgment no less than her other creations. I stand before my maker and judge not in some distant and ethereal world, but in the reality of this world."

          So where does that leave us when we are driving east down highway 64? Absolute morality suggests that I drive the speed limit. The Bible does not specifically mention traffic laws, but the apostle Paul wrote, "Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good" (Titus 3:1). Absolute morality demands that we drive 55. Relative morality emphasizes individual freedom. Perhaps the speed limit is a cultural artifact of an agricultural patriarchy, an arbitrary infringement upon my freedom. Relative morality suggests that I will drive any speed I want to, so there. Provisional morality suggests that I have a responsibility to others as well as to myself. I will adjust my speed accordingly.

          There are many choices that we make in the course of our lives. We can learn from each other. Let us share with one another now how we decide what is the right way and wrong way to act.

1. Michael Shermer, The Science of Good and Evil. Henry Holt & Company, New York, 2004, p.179.
2. Shermer, p. 79.
3. Shermer, pp. 154-155.