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We have now finished talking about reasons and rationality and are now going to begin the discussion of morality. Some important points before I explain what is on the slide. Morality evolved among and for vulnerable, fallible, and biased beings.  If people could not suffer any harms there would be no need for morality. If people were always impartial and omniscient there would be no need for a moral system, they could simply do what would have the best consequences for all involved. (If there were agreement on what counted as the best consequences, which there is not.) But human beings are vulnerable, fallible, and biased so there is a need for a moral system that governs the way people behave toward one another.

Many philosophers, and even people who are not philosophers, tend to think of morality as the system they adopt to govern their own behavior toward others. This way of thinking about morality is unlikely to result in a common morality. However, if we think about morality as the system that people publicly put forward as a system to govern the behavior of all those with whom they interact, even if they do not plan to follow it themselves, then insofar as people are rational, they will all put forward a common morality. But not all people even plan act on the moral system they publicly put forward, which explains why hypocrisy seems to be so closely related to morality. All rational people will want this common morality taught in schools, their religions will endorse this morality, and their legal system will enforce it. Insofar as morality can be derived from evolution, this is the way it can happen. And if this happens then children will be taught what morality is and why they should follow it. So, it may even seem as if acting morally is built into human nature.

One result of this way of thinking about morality makes it clear why morality or the moral system is like grammar or the grammatical system of a language. Almost no one can explicitly state the rules of the grammatical system but all competent speakers of the language know the grammar in the sense that they use it when they speak and when they understand the speech of others. Similarly, almost no one can explicitly state all of the features of the moral system but all people that are held responsible for their behavior, i.e., all normal adults, know the moral system in the sense that they use it when they make moral decisions and judgments. Even those who act immorally know the moral system, i.e., know that they are acting immorally, but for them self-interest, or the interests of their family, friends, country, or religion provide stronger motives for acting than moral considerations.

Some people are confused about morality. The view, suggested by some of my remarks about rationality, is that self-interest is the enemy of morality. Thus, many rational persons think that if they are acting against their own self-interest, and for the interests of others, they must be acting morally. This is false. Far more harm is caused by altruistic immorality than by immorality due to self-interest. Think of the wars fought by people in support of their country, race or religion.  On a more personal level, some parents sometimes act immorally to benefit their children when they would never act in that way to benefit themselves.  Professionals of all kinds, doctors, lawyers, and scientists, sometimes act immorally to protect the immoral behavior of their colleagues when they would never act immorally for their own self-interest. Of course, some professionals, like other human beings, do act immorally for their own self-interest. The former are confused about morality, the latter are usually hypocrites. Hypocrisy, which some take as showing that morality is not universal, actually shows the opposite. Hypocrites have to know what morality prohibits, requires, and encourages, in order to make the correct moral judgments, but they don’t act in the way that they know that morality requires them to act.

  Games, such as poker, bridge, and football, are examples of public systems. All are systems that have a goal and rules that determine how one is allowed to achieve that goal. A public system is one that everyone to whom it applies, the players in the game, know what the system prohibits, requires, and encourages and it is not irrational for them to guide their behavior by it and to judge the behavior of others by it. Morality is such a public system. The difference between morality and games is that if one does not want to follow the rules, one can quit the game, but one can’t quit morality. People put forward morality to apply to all those who can understand it and guide their actions accordingly; they are not going to let anyone opt out.

A formal public system is one in which there are officials who interpret the rules and make the final decisions, such as referees or umpires in professional games. But sometimes people play pick-up games in the back yard where there are no referees or umpires and the players themselves must agree whether a rule has been broken, and no one has the final authority to make that decision. Such a back-yard game is an informal public system, when there is a disagreement the players make ad hoc decisions and continue to play or the game breaks up with each side accusing the other of bad behavior. But no one is willing for morality to be given up when there is disagreement.  So although morality is an informal public system, in all developed countries when there is a serious moral disagreement, then the practical issue of what to do is transferred to the political or legal system, even though the moral disagreement remains. That is what happened with abortion. The Supreme Court decided it was allowable to have an abortion in the first trimester with no restrictions but with some stringent restrictions in the third trimester. However, the moral issue was not settled at all, and many still hold that it is immoral to have an abortion at any time and some still hold that a woman should be allowed to have even a very late abortion if she wants one.