Objective Morality: It's Just Like That
A fact that does care about your feelings!
There are a few things to get out of the way before laying out my approach to this subject.
Firstly, societal and religious conditioning make it essential to distinguish between the religious and the rational approach. I do not argue here that morality is decreed from on high. It is not for me to expound upon why things are as they are, and while I’m happy to consider morality as God-given Law, I’m aware that this carries baggage which many will find distasteful or repellent. So, instead, let’s prove that morality is objective with facts and logic, which is surprisingly easy to do.
Secondly, in the current age, the true understanding of right and wrong has been obfuscated and essentially abandoned and forgotten long ago, leaving only fragmentary, disjointed, incoherent and ungrounded feelings and teachings on the subject. This leaves a void, confusion and uncertainty around something which is in fact dead simple. I ask that all prior ideas be set aside for now.
Third, we are conditioned to think of laws as governing only the material realm, whereas morality differs in that it is a Law exclusively governing sentient experience.
These confusions result in vastly different ideas about right and wrong, resulting in inconsistent and contradictory behaviours. This sorry state of affairs is not an indication that morality itself is subjective, but that we are. We have preferences and ideals - or ideologies - and we struggle to make sense of them and to bring feeling, thought and action into alignment. Cognitive and behavioural dissonance is rife. For example, while I am clear about the absolute moral invalidity of the state, my actions in many ways do not align with this understanding. My actions are in direct opposition to my conscience. Principles are upheld only so far before comfort gently nudges them out of the picture - into shadowy and unexamined realms. And comfort itself - or preference - is in fact central to the understanding - and manifestation - of morality itself, as I will demonstrate.
In general, ideas around morality simply aren’t thought through with any effort or consistency, because it’s uncomfortable. A devil’s bargain is inherited: we refrain from seeking or even imagining the possibility of the just and truly comfortable world our holistic selves would prefer, for fear of losing what small comforts our ego is afforded in this broken world. This state has been disturbingly yet accurately described as the perfection of slavery.
While glaring instances of obvious wrongdoing are clearly perceived, the underlying societal bedrock of conditioned bad assumptions remains barely acknowledged or examined. Obvious yet ultimately less consequential violations draw attention and judgement, while the far larger and systematic ongoing collaborative violation is unnoticed, ignored or justified. Platitudes replace and dismiss the exercise of the conscience: “Everything’s fucked”; “It’s complicated”; ”Ours not to reason why”; “The world’s gone mad”; “It’s human nature”.
Such statements become ‘postures’ which amount to the complete abdication of moral response ability. As I’ve pointed out before, this is an enacted fallacy - there is no true abdication. Inaction is immoral. ‘Good men doing nothing’ are not good men: they are bad. Their ‘inaction’ is immoral action. It is solely through this feigned abdication that the corrupted world is maintained. So the prophecy is fulfilled: hopelessness renders the world morally hopeless; hopeless feeling leads hopeless thought towards hopeless action.
How can the conscientious respond?
Firstly, in order to perceive the problem and diagnose immorality accurately, we must understand basic, objective morality collectively. Until this is achieved, the mass of humanity will, in effect, enslave those who see more clearly. It’s a big job, which cannot be done without you. Some call it ‘The One Great Work’.
So… how is morality objective?
Morality derives from the objective assessment of universal sentient or subjective preference.
It is an objective fact that all sentient life prefers not to be coerced, assaulted, murdered, decieved, raped, trespassed upon or stolen from.
These are the true seven deadly sins - the more familiar ‘sins’ of pride, etc are authoritarian misdirection and obfuscation.
Since it is a universal fact that sentience prefers its self-determination to be absolute, therefore morality is objective. We understand that the seven sins named above carry this meaning inherently. That which is freely offered cannot be stolen. Action which is chosen cannot be coerced, etc.
And that’s it.
Morality is not objective in the sense that it exists ‘beyond the sentient realm’. Rather, it is an intrinsic and objective Law of the sentient realm, concerned only with sentient relations. Without sentience, morality means nothing - with conscience, it means everything: its understanding is the source of all true value. Without collective understanding of morality, sentient life comes to be treated as material resource and the world descends further into hell. With the collective understanding of morality there is the kingdom of heaven; true value manifested; a conscientious world; freedom upheld and defended by all; evolution.
Objective morality can be thought of as a Law of Preference:
Do unto sentient beings as you would prefer them to do unto you. Or:
Don’t do unto sentient beings as you would prefer they not do unto you. Or, higher yet:
Do unto self-conscious sentient beings as your and their most integrated form would prefer: Teach them morality. Raise them up. Be an evolutionary force.
A rational and self-aware consciousness possessing innate freedom and a conscience must conclude that the fact of its preference and free will is mirrored and thus limited by the fact of the preference and free will of the other.
To conclude otherwise is to enter into the realm of immorality.
A consciousness can argue that it is inherently superior to the other, and that therefore it is legitimate to extend its freedom to the extent that it denies or limits the inherent freedom of the other. The word for such a position is immoral.
This is my bare-bones explanation. Some will jump to edge cases in order to test it. Grabbing a toddler whose apple has fallen into traffic is not assault. Discarding the dirty apple is not theft. Once we have collectively started to actually digest that morality is real and apply it to the big things, we can discuss edge cases. Sadly, that luxury is still a way off.
Millennia of industrial-scale immorality have led us to a modern ‘civilised’ and ‘peaceful’ society in which deception, coercion, theft and trespass in particular have been refined, disguised and rebranded to such a degree that most are unable to perceive them as such, or, worse - just want ‘their’ side to take on the management of the perpetual violation.
This may shock you, and that’s a good thing: As I see it, for those with sentience, self-awareness and conscience, our ONE JOB is to understand, align with and teach morality… And to the exact extent that we collectively fail in this simple - not easy - task, we deserve to be coerced, assaulted, murdered, deceived, raped, trespassed upon and stolen from.
That is Natural, objective, Moral Law: You don’t deserve a freedom you won’t defend.
Good people get freedom. Lazy cowards get slavery - in ever more refined and ‘perfected’ forms.
As I’ve expressed previously, there is a lower realm and a higher realm of right or moral action. For those who comprehend what is written above - whose conscience lives - the primary moral, or right action is in what I call the higher realm: learning and teaching. The return of morality to the world cannot wait for your or my perfection. The widespread revelation of the long-obscured Natural Law of Morality is the pressing and essential action of the age.
Join us.
Thanks to Mark Passio of www.whatonearthishappening.com for boundless inspiration, instruction and encouragement on matters of fundamental import.
Livestream:
I’m going live tomorrow, Wed 27th May 7pm BST, to discuss these last two essays. Please drop in and let’s explore further together:
Upcoming Performances:
So excited for this: My first London performance in some years is to be a house concert in Stoke Newington on Saturday, 13th June. I have many new songs I’m so proud of which amplify and develop the themes I go into here. For those who don’t know, I was a songwriter long before I wrote prose, and it’s still my favoured form of transmission. I’ve been described as visceral, soulful, heartfelt, thought-provoking, intelligent, funky… Discussion and philosophical framing of the material will also be woven into the evening. You can read more and get tickets here, while a few remain: https://dandelion.events/e/liwl-stokey
I’ll also be at Teignmouth, Devon on Friday 26th June, great venue. Again, limited tickets remain: https://dandelion.events/e/liwl-tfps
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Peace
Mnemez