Understanding Morality As a Part of The Social Environment

I am continuing a series of articles concerning the importance of one of the three Marco Environments; the Social Environment. In the last article, I addressed the issue of dependency on technological solutions to address conditions that put humanity at risk. My most basic premise is that technology doesn’t hold the long term answer to the problems that confront the human species. However, at the foundation of the Social Environment is the most abstract concepts, requiring a great deal of analysis and acceptance of vague suppositions. Nothing is more obscure than the nature of values, beliefs and morality, which provide the fundamental principles of social organization.

There’s a question that many of us, who engage in the study of various forms of philosophy especially social philosophy, continually confront; what is the nature and character of morality? When you ask the average person what is morality, most everyone seems to have a working definition, but few are able to give a comprehensive answer and very often morality is tied to some type of religious belief. At this point in the discussion, I will choose not to address the tie between moral structure and religious belief.

My definition of morality is composed of a system with closely held values, beliefs and a practical world view of reality, relative to social culture driven by the Macro Physical and Technical Environments. Morality is clearly a structure of rules and ideals of thought and behavior. It provides the super structure in which social organization is ordered, including the goals of social assimilation. The Physical Environment, as the primary driving force of the Social Environment’s development and evolution, would necessitate a variance based on physical and technological environmental conditions. Therefore, the moral structures that developed could be and predictably would be significantly different from one geographic location to another, creating a noticeable variance. The variance has been labeled moral relativity. However, even though there is the moral variance, the one thing that is consistent amongst all human groups, is a basic social organization containing the governing social and moral rules.

Morality, as one of the primary framing structures of social organization, exists to provide human survival rules, increasing the probability of individual and group survival. These rules have evolved over time and are based on very concrete and practical reasons; based on environmental forces. It has been my observation, that the most stable, in terms of unchanging social structures and organizations, are also the most morally regulated and a high social emphasis is placed on universal compliance and strong social forces supporting assimilation. Since the moral structure is a survival mechanism and strategy, then a certain superstitious adherence is placed on the elements and structure of the moral code. For example; in most Middle Eastern societies there is a prohibition to the eating of pork. This prohibition was originally probably adopted to protect the health and survival of humans living in the region where swine carried any number of diseases and parasites. Even after most of the harmful effects of the consumption of pork have been eliminated in developed societies, those societies which have the moral prohibition of eating pork, still retain the prohibition out of cultural tradition and a superstition of what would happen if pork were eaten. The non-consumption was placed within the moral structure out of a necessity, but after the risk is over it remains as a negative moral imperative.

From my observations, moral imperatives have three possible states of action. There are positive imperatives, negative imperatives and neutral imperatives.

The positive imperative is a command of action. An example of such would be; to always help someone who is without food, shelter or clothing. That constitutes a mandatory positive action of intervention. Another example is to help the traveler and stranger, providing respect, protection, shelter and food. All positive moral imperatives have foundational values that address survival attributes and a means to maintain organizational stability.

On the other hand, the negative imperative is a command of avoidance or restrictive action. It has evolved to prevent actions that will destabilize the social order or place one or the group at risk. For example; many cultures have moral imperatives restricting marriage outside of ones own Socio- Economic Class. Again, adherence to such is a means to regulate and control social status, along with wealth, position, power and privilege. This leads to a stable and ordered society, but a highly regulated and restricted society.

The neutral imperative is an imperative regarding the making of decisions. There may not be any forced action as in the positive imperative or prohibition of action as in the negative imperative, but action that is contextual in form and consideration, leaving the final action to the actor. For example; in the case of eating pork, cultures that normally disallow such, will in fact allow it on a contextual basis to save life by staving off starvation. This brings up the priority and order of importance of moral imperatives.

Most moral imperatives are weighted in traditional importance, relative to the impact of survival of the individual or group. The most critical imperatives are usually weighted higher in importance than the imperatives that are considered of lower moral value.

Just as all macro and micro environments are constantly under pressures to challenge the viability of action to contextual conditions, so does the social structure of moral imperatives. Although it will usually take an extended period to challenge and change moral imperatives; but, after the moral code is no longer proved sufficiently necessary and viable, still there will be a strong tradition to retain the waning imperative. This causes a period of chaos and instability until the majority of actors or agents recognize the need to adjust, reassign moral weight or dispose of a moral imperative. There are any number of good examples, but the question of establishing paternity is a good illustration. From the Technological Environment, a solution has been found through DNA identification and paternity can now be easily established.

Many, if not most cultures have a prohibition against adultery. This was a very practical imperative given that the social structure, order and stability was based on kinship and a certain order of inheritance and control. When the assurance of paternity was the most important and key element to determine social organizational connection, the mating of members was closely monitored and regulated. For many cultures, violation of this code was considered a capital crime. With the introduction of technological determination of paternity, the moral imperative has been weighted to a lower level of importance resulting, that in the developed nations, capital punishment has been eliminated for violation of the adultery imperative. What has not been eliminated is the strong prohibition against adultery, since the basis for the moral imperative is also based on human physiology and the drive to pass on genetic material. This example illustrates that often moral imperatives are retained but can be easily changed in level of social importance.

Another widely held moral imperative is the prohibition of homicide. It is not a universal imperative and the definition of murder differs widely from one culture to another. In any case, the taking of another human’s life is highly disruptive to social stability and social organization. The loss of a family member or member of one’s group is also an economic loss, since the production is negatively affected. This is one imperative that has remained relatively consistent over time. What has changed is how society deals with the offender. Some cultures, our own included, retains capital punishment, while others settle on a lesser penalty, short of taking the life of the offender. I have observed that the more serious the infraction of the moral imperative, the more complex the rules are governing how the transgression is handled.

I put forward the following example: In the Middle East, when people were organized into clans, tribes and extended families, the family that experienced the loss of a family member through homicide, was responsible to carry out the normative justice. Most often the offender would be hunted down and his life would be forfeited in societal just retribution. Some cultures extended the retribution to other family members of the offender, especially if the offender was untouchable for some reason. This is one of the primary conditions that lead to ‘blood feud’s’ in the past in many communities. The Israelite imperative that limited retribution to not more than an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, etc; is an illustration of society establishing an imperative inhibiting the extent of justice and/or retribution.

The transfer of responsibility of justice and retribution from the family, tribe or class to the larger community has become the norm where larger and more organized social organizations are in place. This is in response to the disruptive nature that actions of personal and family retribution has on the overall society. Therefore, for the good of the individual and the community, personal transfer of responsibility is ceded to the larger society. An example that strikes closer to home was the infamous feud between the Hatfield extended family of West Virginia and the McCoy extended family of Kentucky, beginning shortly after the end of the American Civil War. It finally took the intervention of the larger society to eventually bring peace and stability to the region. At one time in the feud, the states of Kentucky and West Virginia were ready to take up arms against the other.

To be identified as a member of a larger group, it is necessary to adopt, for the most part, the moral structure of that group. However, this is only after meeting the other membership criteria of the group. This may include race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic history, Social Economic Status, etc. In many ways the morality advocated by the individual is a direct reflection of the larger group identity. In the United States; the moral structure was developed out of Northern European and English protestant moral imperatives. The characteristics of the larger group that made up the European settlers focused on religious beliefs and affiliations, ethnic affiliations, racial characteristics, property ownership, vocation and fraternal affiliations.

Societies that are largely homogeneous would be expected to have a consistent moral structure as compared to heterogeneous societies. Heterogeneous societies are particularly vulnerable to cultural discord and conflicts. That is precisely why in the United States, our system of government attempting to governing a population so heterogeneous remains fraught with difficulty. Homogeneous societies, such as found in Scandinavia, lends to the stability and low conflict societies. Since the introduction of immigrants, beginning in the 1960s to make up for a manpower shortages, several of the nations in Scandinavia have experienced more instability and social unrest. The ugly specter of Christian verse Muslim has risen as a point of conflict in the previous homogeneous groups.

Over time, it becomes obvious that morality is not the primary driving force of social adaptation and social survival, but morality provides a function as a mechanism of controlling social change. By their nature, moral imperatives provide the skeletal structure of relations between individuals in any given society. By regulating the actions and interactions, societies can more or less function on ‘automatic’ and without constant intervention and tweaking of the system. What strains any social system is when pressure begins to build, emanating from one of the other macro environments, requiring change to the system.

As the United States continues to be pressured to change from internal as well as external forces, it is expected that social unrest will continue. Taking the ‘deep view’ requires understanding that the moral values and imperatives will take time to adapt and change revealing a new moral structure eventually that better responds to the macro environments.

The final judgment about any moral imperative is not to judge as either good or bad, right or wrong; but as either functional or dysfunctional. For those who attribute morality to a divine supernatural force, will find themselves continually faced with the challenge of changing when change is required.