December 13, 1998.

Today's rant.

Article #492775 (492775 is last):
From: an747@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Rob F.)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: the change in human character
Date: Sun Dec 13 12:29:11 1998
 
 (ejwinsm@my-dejanews.com) writes:
 
> THE LAWYER MENTALITY I have witnessed that over the last few decades, there
> has been a major negative alteration in the character of humans as a species.
> It spans all cultures, but has been more rapidly accepted by some than
> others. I have written an essay on it, which is being published now. I call
> it the "lawyer mentality", not out of contempt for the profession (although
> usually the implementation of their "professional values" is anything but
> ethical), but because the requirements of their profession mandates that they 
> make this exchange. The exchange is this:
> 
> There is no such thing as "right or wrong", just what you can get away
> with.

First of all, I'd like to (in my own opinion) make the distinction between ambulance-chasing shaister-type lawyers glamorized (and fictionalized) by popular culture who profit out of pain and suffering or at least divorce and civil suits, and criminal lawyers (both the criminal defence bar and prosecutors, or as we call them in Canada "Crown Attorneys") who (in my ideal world) are far more concerned with right and wrong as they apply to the rights of the accused and the demands of the state. Criminal lawyers work within the framework provided by our judicial system both to enforce the laws of our society and ensure that the accused are protected with fair trials and juries and things. Now, we all argue about the gray areas, and criminals being released on technicalities, but the constraints of our legal system can't really be the fault of "lawyers" as some cabal of immoral/amoral business people out to make a buck and screw the system any way possible. Now, granted, these sorts of people exist. Here in Ontario we've had a great many problems with corrupt lawyers, and it has called into question the effectiveness of the internal policing granted to lawyers here. There are also bad doctors, bad ministers, bad construction workers, bad kitties, bad babies, and bad sandwiches.

I like stereotypes because they provide convincing analogies while remaining subjective and unfair and rather closed-minded.

> This exchange is nothing less than the complete loss of the very concept of
> morality in total! Regardless of the variety of belief systems, all require
> the concept of right and wrong to be, in fact, a belief system. I see the
> increase each year of young people who are completely amoral (which is worse
> than immoral). This is the result of subtle but significant fundamental
> mistakes made by previous people who rightly questioned the specifications of
> morality. However, it was, and is, a serious mistake still.

I would defy you to present compelling evidence for this sort of moral decay, presented in such a way to convince me that this is a growing problem endemic to the 1990s as opposed to every generation, every century, since humans learned to talk and pretend to be civilized. I mean, let's see this fancy essay. Now, given the matter of this newsgroup, and the sorts of people who post here, I'm assuming that the overall point of this post has to do with a growing lack of stock in the Holy Bible, and the teachings of Jesus, in particular. Church attendance goes down = carjacking goes up. That sort of thing.

Personally I'd like to point out that some of the gravest crimes have been committed either in the name of morality, or by supposed authorities of morality. I think anybody who has read this newsgroup for more than, say, a day, is familiar with the historical atrocities pointed out by the skilled debating teams here time and time again whenever a religious authority gets uppity on the subject of morality. Perhaps the point being made here is that morality is supposed to be some kind of higher set of values to which all humans can aspire purely as a fact of being human at all. I read an op-ed letter the other day about someone ranting about how once we question morality in any way, it begins to decay. His point was that morality is something higher and personal felt by each person (perhaps inspired by divinity), and his example was, "we all know that murder is wrong" (dealing with an article about abortion) and that this was a moral absolute. In contrast, he had much to say about so-called "ethics."

Well, here's his quote:

"The explanation was provided to me by a great scientist and humanist, Dr. Jerome Lejeune.
"A behaviour, Dr. Lejeune explained, is said to be moral when it conforms to certain superior and immutable principles, the best known of which is probably thou shalt not kill. On the other hand, a behaviour is said to be ethical when it conforms to principles which reflect the views of a majority of people at any given point in time.
"In short, for a moral person, the reality of right and wrong does not change over time; but for an ethical person, what was unthinkable a few decades ago can become an acceptable, or even desirable, present-day reality. The relatively recent decriminalization of of abortion and homosexuality [!] are two examples of the gradual transformation of something morally wrong into something viewed as acceptable by too many ethicists."

W. Andre Lafrance, MD. Ottawa.
The Ottawa Citizen, Friday, Dec. 4, 1998.

Thanks to exams I never did find the time to fire off my indignation, but this posting seems to be saying the exact same thing.

The problem of course, is that 'morality' as a concept is not an immutable principle but rather a highly subjective personal feeling based on cultural values at the time. To be described as being in any way absolute is laughable, given how plastic cultural values can be. Morality is not dealt with in the same way that ethics are in moral/ethical philosophy, because morality is of the two, a far more subjective and personal "feeling" about something based not on absolutes but conventions. The only defense to X "is right" in moral reasoning is extremely circular. "X is right because X is right." Or worse, appeals to religious authorities are made, either a god or a writing or a leader or a teacher.

Morality is also left to the beholder. Although "thou shalt not kill" is seen as something of an immutable absolute among the moral elect, history has shown that moral authorities are only too happy to provide exceptions, like "killing is immoral unless you're killing unsavable heathens or defending the holy land against Saladin's forces, who want to kill you for the exact same reason." "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," and so on.

Morality is the most subjective thing, because it can vary widely from person to person, and is defined only by our agreement as groups that something really is moral or not. When someone's values agree with our own, we applaud this and call it moral. When they differ from our own, we frown and call it "immoral." Or, (apparently) worse, "amoral."

There is often very little explanation for what makes a thing "moral" or not, because it's argued that it must be a primitive (like "truth") which simply exists [because God says so]. I think if anything, morality over time, across cultures, can be argued to be anything but absolute and cross-cultural. I mean, I don't like human sacrifice, but that didn't stop it from being a good and godly thing for a certain south-american indigenous people to practice until Conquistadors (on their own moral crusade) wiped them out. A friend at Concordia relayed to me an elegant argument made by one of her professors that the Ancient Greek culture may have started off as a sacrificial cult which over time was forgotten and suppressed under centuries of the artistic and social refinement we associate with them now. And heck, they liked buggering small boys. I bet you couldn't morally (or legally) get away with that now. In Greece or anywhere.

In contrast, in questioning morality we get a richer and more valuable framework, called ethics. Ethical principles are certainly always open for debate, but in this debate are wonderful, magical things called "facts". These "facts" are employed in convincing arguments which help governments and lawmakers and organizations make decisions on very tough issues, and in that sense, yes, ethics do evolve over time, and yet that's hardly an amoral reality. I think murder will always be illegal, but that's not to say that things which are viewed as "wrong" at one point in history should always, indelibly, be seen as such. Humans are animals, beasts, with passions and drives and irrational desires which can drive us to terrible deeds without much rational thought. I expect, however, that this has always been the case, and if at this point in history such deeds get a higher profile because of media involvement, well, I doubt the statistics for crime or other forms of immorality are really all that meaningfully different from those of the year 1398, or 4004BC, or the fantastic year eight billion.

I'd like to see some serious evidence to the contrary, since you seem to be arguing that you have it.

--
It will be, not as it should, but as we and those we surround ourselves with make it by accident.

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