Morality is not a simple belief in good or bad, but a belief in
being good — or else suffering punishment.
Absolutism is the doctrine that some acts are morally wrong:
no matter how good the results are
no matter how much harm is done if you refrain from them
In other words, acts are either bad or good — with no in-between. An act is either morally good or morally bad.
Absolutism says that acts are bad in themselves and that they are not to be condemned because of their bad consequences, but simply because they are bad. You condemn the acts and leave the consequences out of it — they are not the reason for the condemnation.
Absolutism, however, says the reason evil acts have bad results is because they are evil acts, and it denies that we should consider doing whatever has the best consequences.
Let us explore the doctrines of people in ivory towers who claim that morality is about actions that are always wrong — regardless of the evil this “morality” results in. Or those who hold that only some actions are always bad and forbidden.
Some say that what is unnatural must be absolutely forbidden.
Some say that duty matters, not consequences, so not doing your duty is to be absolutely forbidden.
Some say that if God forbids something, that settles it — it is to be absolutely forbidden.
Some say our intuition tells us what is absolutely forbidden, so we must follow it. Believing that vice like hate is good is not an excuse, however sincere. Religion agrees. (That view is repulsive to today's society, which urges people not to judge, as it wants permissiveness to prevail.)
These are essentially the four excuses for advocating absolutism. The underlying desire beneath all of that is for a morality that does not change. The absolutist wants fixed principles that can never be compromised — even if the way to apply them can.
However, that is, in fact, immoral. Morality should only be unchangeable if it is right — not just because people want it to be unchangeable.
Natural Law
If something being unnatural means that it is evil or forbidden, then absolutism is true. Then what is unnatural is always — or absolutely — wrong.
We should not condemn things just because we think they are unnatural. Only harmful things must be denounced. Nature makes many supposedly unnatural acts possible, enjoyable, and harmless — so they could be considered natural.
It is not always obvious what is natural or not. Not all that is natural is good. Nature puts sex organs on paedophiles and gives them a rampant sex drive — so what is natural is not necessarily good.
Kantian Ethics
Duty means doing good that you are bound to do. Duty is a debt of care — or whatever — towards others and yourself. If you fail in your duty, you are forced to pay your debt another way. For example, if you don’t carry out your duty to respect the property of others, you will have the duty to pay back the damage — by money or by prison enforced on you. So duty is inseparable from compulsion. A duty is your duty whether you understand it or not.
Immanuel Kant said that an action is wrong if everybody cannot do it. For example, if we all broke promises, life would be impossible — so it is always wrong. You cannot break a promise even to save lives.
His system is called Deontologism. Deontologism is an ethic about duty, and you know something is a duty if there would be disaster if everybody did it. But what is said about actions must be clarified. According to him, an action is good if it is done with a moral motive — so it is only the motive that counts. Everything else, including the consequences, is not as important. It says that what is moral is not moral because it is good, but because it was done because you believe you ought to do it.
The ethic assumes that when you do something, you have to approve of all others doing the same — to you and to others. That is incorrect.
Kantian philosophy says that we must treat people as ends and not as means. But if we care only about acting without feeling, and only out of a sense of duty, then it is the duty we really care about — not the person. Acting with feelings would be preferable to that; it would be nearer to what the person wants.
Despite itself, the ethic forbids compassionate actions. Do the hypothetical test to see this for yourself. You have to forget one of the following — so which one must it be?
Do good only because it is your duty.
Do good to end suffering.
The person is helped either way, so it has to be the first. The ethic, then, is a rigid, impersonal rule. It's a good recipe for hypocrisy. In fact, it is hypocrisy, for it does not admit its cold side.
Kant did not advocate altruism, which demands that you treat others as ends and yourself as a means to serve them. By extension, the teaching of Jesus — that you treat yourself and everybody else as a means with which to serve God, the only end — is rejected.
God the Absolute Ruler
God would be the only one with the right to make absolute rules, because he has full knowledge and wisdom.
Believers say he told us the rules — but every God-religion disagrees with the others about what those rules are. Some religions allow abortion; others forbid it absolutely.
To say there is a God is to say that absolutism in some form is correct. That does not mean we know what form is correct.
If absolutism is bad, then belief in God is bad.
Religious absolutism is inconsistent with the popular notion of a God who wants us to freely turn to him. Absolutism implies: obey — or else.
Some say that if you make moral laws absolute, you contradict the idea that only God is absolute. This is a trick with words to get people to think that no moral norm or rule is absolute. Yet they think that to make an absolute out of a moral norm makes it equal with God.
Believers sometimes deny that any moral norm should be made absolute. Yet they make it an absolute law that nobody should say abortion is never right! It follows that their God has a rival — namely, their absolute rule. You could substitute "abortion" with "blasphemy," "stealing," "adultery," "rape," or anything. There are loads of absolute rules that must be equal to God — or that can be honoured instead of him.
If God is absolute, he will have law. It follows that the law is that you must regard obedience to him and adoration of him as absolute. It is contradictory to say there are no absolute rules and then to say that this rule about God is absolute. The notion of God being absolute implies that you must have a total belief in him — thus you end up with another absolute rule. And you must obsess over promoting belief in him — another absolute. And it goes on and on.
Believers sometimes say that no moral law is absolute except the one to love God. Why say that instead of saying that hurting a baby for fun is an absolute prohibition? It would be callous to put a God — who does not even need anything from us — before a baby that does! And loving God would require further absolute rules, as we have seen.
Some say that God is love, so whoever loves has God, and that love is the only absolute law. That is confusing the word "love" with "God." Love need not be God. God is not just another word for love.
The notion that only love is absolute is nonsense. We are indifferent toward most people on earth. We do not love everybody the same. We love only a few relatively properly. If love is absolute, then we must be prepared to suffer a hundred years of crucifixion if some stranger needs us to.
Intuition
Many believers hold that the only justification for absolutist morality is intuition. That is, we feel that stealing is wrong even when it’s for a greater good, and that this has nothing to do with setting a bad example or threatening social order. Stealing is bad because it is bad — not because of what it does. They usually insist that bad consequences come from the act itself being bad. The consequences, however, don’t make the act bad.
But it’s not true that people have the same moral intuitions. A gay man may feel he is not doing wrong by engaging in gay sex.
Ignoring Consequences
Consequentialism is the denial of absolutism. It teaches that it's not just the badness of the act you must think about, but the consequences. Consequentialism would say that consequences are the main thing. For example, it would say you have to commit the bad act of abortion to save the mother’s life, so that she can look after her nine children.
If consequentialism in all its forms is wrong, then reason commands us never to take consequences into consideration. Absolutism must rule the day.
Let us look at philosophies that ignore consequences.
Some believe that morality is only about your rights and those of others — and that results must not even be thought of. It is about choosing the least unjust act.
Here is why:
An evil that is being done is worse than one that will be done — because it has happened. The latter does not have to happen and, indeed, might not. Therefore, doing evil to prevent a possible evil is wrong, for it is certainly doing damage to prevent what might never happen.
This theory explains why it might be considered right to refuse to give your son a higher grade — even though the one he deserves will destroy his nerves for life. Giving the earned grade is the lesser evil when only the present and the past — not the future — are taken into consideration.
In this theory, lies would always be wrong. When they do not correspond with reality, they are evil — and they are invariably told to avoid undesired consequences.
According to this ethic, even silent lies — saying nothing when it makes others think you agree with their misconceptions — must be avoided. You would have to tell the truth.
The only time you wouldn’t have to tell the truth is when telling it would be the greater sin of detraction. You would not be permitted to tell a wife that her husband is planning to kill her — for that would ruin his good name. If people give you the choice between dying or denying the truth, you would tell the truth and die.
This ethic would explain why it is right to let a doctor who could save the world burn to death in a house to save your dying father — if you can only save one — if you want to believe in the rightness of such an action.
This also explains why it is right for a woman to stay with an abusive husband who beats her and the children every day — again, if you want to believe that such an action is right.
You would be forbidden to torture an evil man to force him to tell where he planted a bomb that could kill hundreds. You can ask him to confess, but you cannot force it out of him.
If a man attacks you, and you defend yourself, you cannot try to knock him out — in case he grabs the knife. Not even if he tries to stab you — for you might survive, and he might relent. The only kind of self-defence allowed is to hold him away from you, firmly, but without hurting him. You can be sure that this kind of self-defence will only land you in your coffin.
Some might argue that restraining him is hurting him, since he wants to hurt you and you’re not letting him. But to let him hurt you would also be hurting him — for he should not be trying to hurt you.
You cannot attack someone like Saddam Hussein to rob him of atomic weapons and prevent global catastrophe.
Drinking would always be wrong. The only justification for artificially changing your feelings or dulling your intellect is the pleasure it brings. But if we are not to care about the future, and morality is about the now, then a clear head is required — so drinking is intrinsically wrong. Jesus would have been horrified to hear this — since he drank wine and provided it to drunk people at a wedding!
With this ethic, you cannot refuse to give all your money to those who need it more now, just because you think it will make you suffer in the future.
You cannot refuse to give all your time to helping others. If an ethic says things we don’t like, that’s not a reason to reject it or disbelieve it.
If disaster results, that is not the fault of the ethic — if the ethic is right. We accept that scientists and mathematicians who made discoveries that led to the nuclear bomb didn’t do wrong. To many, this suggests that good which leads to disaster shows that bad consequences alone cannot refute an ethic — unless the ethic claims to be the antidote to unhappiness, like Utilitarianism does.
Even an absolutist ethic sometimes changes depending on the situation. Many absolutists cannot be commended for consistency.
They sometimes say that no absolute rule can be given for every situation — simply because we cannot think of them all or learn them all. This does not undermine absolutism; it simply says you have to make your own decision, right or wrong. The only absolute, then, is forgetting about the consequences of your actions.
People who prefer the security and convenience of being told what to do — instead of thinking for themselves — will love absolutism. People often like rigid rules.
Absolutism tends to argue that we must think of others more than ourselves. Today altruists say you should think mostly of others but allows you to have "healthy" self-interest. Auguste Comte suggested that logically you can throw away self-interest completely for while you lose, another gains. Absolutism does not rule out such strong altruism. [Utilitarians may come close to suggesting you should be killed if it makes most people happier. Even if we are absolutists not Utilitarians, we surely hold - as absolutists - that it is better to be a Utilitarian rather than nothing. So there is no reason why absolutism cannot allow or even advocate the complete or radical rejection of self-interest for the sake of others!]. Surely ethical deliberation will firmly tell you that your future is a consideration? Harm will come if people start ignoring their future. We should think of the future consequences — more than anything. So absolutism has to be abandoned.
Conclusion
Absolutism is arbitrary. It belongs with religion — because religion likes to enforce rules that make no sense, and it refuses to change them.
For example, the Church says that the rule to love God above all things and to do all things solely for the love of Him comes first and must not be changed. So even if terrorists, the state, and psychologists are against it, it must stay the same.
The appeal of absolutism lies in the power it gives men — and religion. Atheists sometimes are absolutists too, but nobody can really think their absolutism is credible. If they do harm, it’s because people won’t admit the emperor has no clothes on.
Religion is a conduit of absolutism and has no appeal without it.