Virtues and Morality

 Always a prickly subject due to it’s connotations with Christianity and puritanical piousness of giving to the poor, suppressing sexuality and putting other people before ourselves. But recently I had an opportunity to reflect on virtues and morality when a friend of mine at the NGO where I work recently found a wallet with 200 Euros in it. Dilemma.

The Greeks were the first to give us inquiry into morality and also the first to think about scientific inquiry, but in Western culture we have depended heavily on religious doctrine to mark our virtues, even René Descartes was happy to base his ethical system on the benevolence of God.

German philosopher Immanuel Kant was able to distinguish between our animal part and our rational, human part. He stated that as in nature, there is no morality in our animal part. The same as when a predator kills its prey there is only causality and not morality. On the other hand our rational part does have the capability to follow another type of law by living according to rules of conduct, which leaves people open to be judged on their morality depending on the extent that they follow these rules.

Problem with this is that for morality to be “scientific” it should be the same for everyone, the same as gravity is the same if you are English, Italian, a woman or a man. This creates problems, in that creating general rules of morality applicable to everyone is extremely complicated, and to a certain extent religious doctrine has failed due to its intent to impose generalised rules of morality. If killing is generally accepted as bad, then how would it be possible to sacrifice one life for the benefit of many? This would be morally unacceptable.

English philosopher Jeremy Bentham got over this by claiming that morality is utilitarian and that it should be at the service of the people, it should be based on its consequences in that the outcome must have the greatest benefit to all. This relativism allows breathing space and allows for a morality based on the present circumstances and not on carved in stone morality of religious doctrine.

Variables that influenced on my friends decision to return or not the wallet he found were based on. His present economic situation, who did the wallet belong to? Drug dealer or worker? And also his own belief structures related to honesty and morality. In the end he returned the wallet, it turned out that the person who lost the wallet was a Columbian immigrant who worked as a doorman in a block of flats and the 200 Euros was from the cooperative to buy cleaning materials. The consequences of my friends’ decision ended up being of benefit to them both. One person got back his wallet with money that didn’t belong to him and would have been difficult to explain and my friend has since then enjoyed being on the moral high ground.