The Moral Order: Four Options

This past week I happened to catch David Graeber, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Yale University, on the Charlie Rose Show on PBS. Professor Graeber as you may or may not know is a somewhat controversial academician known for his outspoken promotion of Anarchism.

Last year, the Yale anthropology department decided not to renew Graeber's contract prompting his supporters, including fellow anarchists to charge that his dismissal was politically motivated. Supporters of the administration argued that Graeber's dismissal was in keeping with Yale's policy of granting tenure to few junior faculty, and that he was widely known as a chronically late professor who often appeared unprepared for class.

However, what struck me about Professor Graeber was not the controversy surrounding his dismissal but rather his fervent advocacy of Anarchism. Anarchism, which was gaining popularity in the West prior to World War I, advocates the dissolution of all governing structures in society and instead opts for radical self-governance. I say "radical" self-governance in the sense that there are no universal or over-arching rules, at least none that are codified and enforced by government structures, merely that each individual is morally autonomous and free to do whatever he or she feels.

This raises an important question: How do we determine the moral order or more specifically what is the true basis of morality?

In answer to this question; there are only four possibilities and each are testable against reality and human experience. Those which conform to reality and human experience, in that they produce social harmony and community effectiveness, could be considered "true," while those moral systems which fail at this point could be considered false. This is the obvious and common test of truth.

Let's begin with Professor Graeber's Anarchism. Is this the legitimate and true basis for morality and ethics? In order for Anarchism to work even theoretically there must be a shared interest in "mutual cooperation" by every member of society. This notion itself presupposes a prior moral commitment to selflessness and the absence of selfishness. On this point alone Anarchism fails before it even begins. Reality and human experience overwhelmingly demonstrate that human beings are predisposed to selfishness and self-interest. There may be instances where mutual cooperation occurs but it is always limited to small groups of people joined by a common interest. Where this has served as the moral basis for an actual civilization; the "common interest" is usually survival and the "civilization" is inevitably small and remains primitive. Such a system cannot and never has produced the great advances in civilization that have yielded so many individual and societal benefits. Anarchy simply does not work!

Another basis would be that moral truth rests on the will of "the majority." This is commonly believed to be the basis for American democracy but in fact we live in a constitutional republic where the rights of the one are protected against the actions and even beliefs of the many. I will address that later. No, morality cannot rest on the will of the majority. What if the majority are racist, or murderers, or thieves? What if the majority simply doesn't like what you think or believe, or the way you raise your children? This basis of morality like Anarchism remains arbitrary and its authority derives from men, only in this case a majority of men rather than the individual.

A third basis would be to place the determination of moral truth into the hands of one ruler or king: a dictator, a monarch, or a ruling elite. In other words: totalitarianism. But here again individuals and society are subjected to the arbitrary beliefs and authority of the one or the few. This ruling class, in and of themselves, form the basis of moral truth and they are absolutely sovereign and answer to none. History is full of wicked kings and tyrants who always found it necessary to employ the power of the state to enforce subjugation and loyalty. Among those kings who were benevolent it was often only because they themselves acknowledged that they too were subject to a higher authority and that their reign was divinely ordained. In this sense they were not totalitarian but actually sought to rely on the fourth and final basis of moral truth: absolutes. The same absolutes revealed in Holy Scripture whether they acknowledged them or not.

The Bible prescribes a litany of absolute moral and ethical rules and boundaries that protect individuals, produce social harmony and create community effectiveness. These moral claims are absolute in the sense that their authority originates in God and not in men. They are not arbitrary but given by the Moral Law Giver whose authority is indeed absolute. It is on this point that biblical revelation stands alone as the only viable basis of moral truth. At every point, God's moral and ethical prescriptions conform to the reality of human desire and experience, produce social harmony and increase community effectiveness.

Arthur Leff, the noted atheist (yes, atheist) and Yale Law professor stressed this point quite well in 1979 when he wrote:

"If He [God] does not exist, there is no metaphoric equivalent. No person, no combination of people, no document however hallowed by time, no process, no premise, nothing as equivalent to an actual God in this central function as the unexaminable examiner of good and evil. The so-called death of God...seems to have effected the total elimination of any coherent, or convincing, ethical or legal system."
In America, as I pointed out earlier, the founding fathers established government as an institution dedicated to the preservation of moral rights and not as an institution that established moral rights. These "inalienable" rights were codified in the Constitution and were regarded as deriving from the biblical God and not from earthly man, the majority or the state.

Professor Graeber represents a renewed and growing interest in Anarchism in America that must be taken seriously. The fact is, these competing views of morality and ethics are vying for dominance in the Western world and the Church must rise to make its case in the marketplace of ideas if it is to have any hope of relevance in the modern world.

Copyright S. Michael Craven, 2006

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