Thesis #1: Diversity is the primary good
Humans are social animals, and also capable of abstract, independent thought. The combination requires some form of social standards. Bees think with a single hive mind, and solitary animals do not encounter one another often enough to require a rigid system of morality and ethics. Without social norms, however, human society would break down. We have evolved in such societies, and require other humans to live. A single human, on his own, has little chance of survival.
Some rules are nearly universal, such as the injunction against murder. Society cannot long endure if everyone is murdering one another. Other taboos are less common; theft, for example, is generally found only in those societies where resources are limited in some regard. Rules of morality and ethics vary widely from culture to culture, adapted to given circumstances. Our ethics and morality are another means we have of adapting to new and different environments.
Basic rules of behavior are required for our survival, and conscience is an adaptation we have evolved to continue our existence. Such a conscience must at once be deeply felt, and culturally constructed. It must be adapted to those rules, taboos, and guidelines a given society requires in a given place and time, but be too deeply felt to be ignored. The human brain is incredibly malleable, made to be adapted to the cultural context it finds itself in. Enculturation is a powerful process which should never be underestimated. What you learn as a child can never be completely shaken; it becomes an inextricable part of who you are, as intrinsic to your being as your DNA.
As necessary as ethics may be, that does not make them correct. Nor does the depth of our conviction. I, like most Westerners, feel a very strong revulsion at the thought of pedophilia, for example. Yet, in the cultural context of the Etoro, the Marind-ani, and 10-20% of all Melanesian tribes, it is the only acceptable form of sex. While I cringe at the thought, I have no argument that it is “wrong” beyond my gut feeling of disgust–a result of my enculturation. As much as I prefer monogamous, heterosexual relationships, it was monogamous heterosexuals who committed the Holocaust. There is no similar act in Melanesian history.
The arbitrary nature of such ethical rules led many of our early ancestors to posit the final authority for such decrees with divine will. This is good and that is not because the gods said so, end of story. This made things nice, neat and easy. In the early days of polytheism, this worked nicely. Worshippers of Apollo and Ra alike could live in peace with one another. Most polytheists were willing to accept the gods of another as equally real as their own pantheon. Religious wars and intolerance were quite uncommon; after all, what’s one more god? Early religion was inextricably bound to politics, and so ancient states would enforce worship of the state gods–often including the emperor or king–alongside one’s own gods. Usually, this was not a problem; again, what’s one more god? Even monolatry–the worship of a single god, amidst the acknowledgement of many–was not much of a problem. Ra is my god and Apollo is yours, but we’re both worshipping the sun. I worship the ocean, and you worship the harvest, but both are equally real.
It was the emergence of monotheism that first posed a serious challenge. If only one god exists, then all other gods are false. If this is also combined with a charitable disposition towards the rest of mankind, crusades, missionaries, and other attempts to save the heathens from their error ensue. In a world where morality is determined by the will of the gods, such a conflict comes to a head.
If morality follows from divine will, are there no ethics for atheists? And what of the heathens? Yet, these individuals still have pangs of conscience as acute–and sometimes more–than their monotheistic cousins. This led to many philosophers trying to find some other basis for ethics, besides divine will. Such philosophies generally come in one of three types.
The first harks back to the old days of the divine will; deontological ethics focuses on duties we are required to either fulfill or refrain from. The seminal figure of this school is Immanuel Kant, who formulated the categorical imperative. Kant argued that an act is ethical if it could be done by everyone without breaking down society. This was later refined by Sir David Ross with his prima facie values–things that simply are good without question. Individual acts can then be judged by how well they comply to those values. The past fifty years have seen the re-emergence of “virtues,” as found in ancient philosophy. The four Stoic virtues of temperence, fortitude, justice and prudence work in a manner similar to Ross’s values–acts may be judged by how well they cling to these virtues.
Both of these systems share the same flaw as the ancient systems of ethics; they cannot exist apart from divine revelation. Even if there is such a god handing down such ethical systems, how can we ever be sure which of us has the “true” revelation? Every culture has different values, virtues, morals and ethics. Each believes that its way is the right way. Simply reiterating that position is not sufficient, and all claims to the superiority of one’s own scripture require one to first accept the superiority of one’s own scripture.
Unlike the foregoing systems, however, consequentialist ethics like John Stuart Mill’s theory of Utilitarianism do the best job of creating an ethical system independent of divine powers. Utilitarianism tries to maximize the utility–roughly, the “happiness”–of all parties involved. An action is “right” insofar as it makes everyone more satisfied, more happy, than they were before. This is not simple hedonism, as the welfare of all must be considered–your family, your friends, your society. Sitting at home tripping on acid is not an ethical action in Utilitarianism, for as much as it may raise your own utility, it carries with it a slight negative impact on everyone in the form of your support for a global network of drug dealers and smugglers connected to various forms of crime, oppression and terrorism.
Utilitarianism is often disparaged in philosophical circles, with counter-examples as the following. Take a thousand people, and some magical means of measuring utility numerically. One of them is extremely annoying. Killing him would drop his own utility from its current “100″ to zero, while raising everyone else’s from “100″ to “101.” That means that the overall effect of utility would be 999-100=899. Ergo, killing annoying people is a very good thing!
Obviously, Utilitarianism needs some other goal that mere “happiness,” but what? Once again, we run up against the wall of needing to decipher the divine will. Everyone has their own ideas, beliefs, dogmas and scriptures. How can we possibly know what the gods desire of us?
Perhaps one good start is to stop pouring over the texts they supposedly inspired, and instead look to the only thing we know for certain came from them (if they exist at all): the world around us. It turns out the universe has been screaming a single, consistent value at us from the beginning of time.
From a single, undifferentiated point of energy, the universe unfolded into hundreds of elements, millions of compounds, swirling galaxies and complexity beyond human comprehension. The universe has not simply become more complex; that is simply a side-effect of its drive towards greater diversity.
So, too, with evolution. We often speak of evolution couched in terms of progress and increasing complexity. There is, however, a baseline of simplicity. From there, diversity moves in all directions. If evolution inspired complexity, then all life would be multi-celled organisms of far greater complexity than us. Instead, most organisms are one-celled, simple bacteria–yet, staggeringly diverse. As organisms become more complex, they become less common. The graph is not a line moving upwards–it is a point expanding in all directions save one, where it is confined to a baseline of simplicity. From our perspective, we can mistake it for “progress” towards some complex goal, but this is an illusion. Evolution is about diversity.
Physics and biology speak in unison on this point; if there are gods, then the one thing they have always, consistently created is diversity. No two galaxies quite alike; no two stars in those galaxies quite alike; no two worlds orbiting those stars quite alike; no two species on those worlds quite alike; no two individuals in those species quite alike; no two cells in those individuals quite alike; no two molecules in those cells quite alike; no two atoms in those molecules quite alike. That is the pre-eminent truth of our world. That is the one bit of divine will that cannot be argued, because it is not mediated by any human author. It is all around us, etched in every living thing, every atom of our universe. The primacy of diversity is undeniable.
With that, we can suppose another form of consequentialist ethics, like Mill’s Utilitarianism, but with a different measure of “good.” It is not happiness, but diversity that should be our measure. Diversity of life, of thought, of action.
So, killing the annoying person becomes “bad”; as annoying as he is, he adds diversity to the group. Nor does this give license to everything under the cause of increasing diversity. Our own civilization is a unique data point, but its existence requires the expansion of its markets and influence. It gobbles up other cultures to create new customers. Though it is itself another point of diversity, it requires many other points to be sacrificed. Its overall effect, like sitting at home on acid, is profoundly negative.