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Matter of Opinion?
Morality is not just a matter of opinion, but opinions matter.
It seems like a contradiction. How can this be?
Imagine two people in an argument, Adam and Bob. Adam has offended Bob, who objects to Adam's behavior. In his defense, Adam says that his behavior is fine, because morality is just a matter of opinion. Further, he asserts that Bob's opinion is no better than Adam's opinion.
Adam and Bob - Image from Freepik.com
Bob is not satisfied with that claim. He thinks there should be some way to settle the matter peacefully. Fortunately for Bob, there is a flaw in Adam's argument.
To explain this, let's consider a more specific scenario. Suppose Adam is driving a vehicle down a highway in a nation where it is standard practice to keep to the right side of the road. However, Adam points out that the selection of the right or left side for the standard is totally arbitrary. Further, he asserts that his opinion is as good as anyone else's, so he drives on the right or left at random, according to a whim. The result is a high risk of damage to his vehicle or other vehicles, as well as potential injury to himself or others.
Adam has failed to consider how his behavior interacts with the choices of others. If he considered that, his own opinion would change, because he prefers not to have damage, injury, nor the risk of those things. He would adopt the standard.
As demonstrated in the rules of the road simulation, standards arise naturally in populations. Sometimes there is more than one way to achieve the same result. In the case of selecting a side of the road to drive on, either side could be chosen as a standard. Once the standard is established, there is generally an advantage for newcomers to adopt the standard.
Some situations are more complex than a binary choice of left and right. Sometimes there is a value judgement to be made among an infinite number of choices, and the best choice is uncertain. In such cases, often people will agree on an approximation. This is explained in detail in the "Setting of a speed limit" example. That method produces a result that most people will prefer, as compared to a choice made by randomly selecting one person's preference.
So we might assert that if morality is a matter of opinion, it is not just a matter of individual opinion. One might say it is a group opinion. However, that's not quite an adequate explanation either.
Opinions may disregard facts, but facts matter. Consider the popularity of smoking in the 1960s. The majority of adults in many nations smoked, to the point where smoking was considered a right. But as people realized that it caused damage that shortened their lives, the majority in favor of smoking began to regret their decision. If they had known the facts, they would have decided differently.
Caring also matters. When people care about each other, care about their children and future generations, care about their pets and dependent farm animals, and care about the ecology, this produces different results than when that caring is lacking. A society without caring will farm their crops to depletion, pollute, engage in wars of conquest when they think they can win, etc. They bring eventual destruction upon themselves across generations. This puts them at an evolutionary disadvantage compared to societies filled with caring people.
In general, standards are preferred that produce mutual happiness, and that continue to do that across unlimited space and time. Across generations, moral standards tend to be discarded when they produce misery for those who adopt them, or when they create conflicts between groups that bring destruction upon each other. Better standards are invented and there is progress in the wellbeing of societies.
So, let's get back to Adam and Bob's original argument. The particular dispute was not stated, but most likely there is a standard of behavior that would decide the matter, that they can rely on. Or there is some non-violent process available for deciding it. It doesn't have to be a deadlock of one opinion vs another.
So, the first step of resolve the dispute is to rely on established moral standards. Often that is sufficient to settle it.
This is not a guaranty that they will agree. Perhaps Adam is both selfish and irrational. There are no words that can convince him. But even in that case, if Bob is behaving according to the moral standards of his society, Bob will be more likely than Adam to get the support of his society.
An alternative possibility is that Adam disagrees because he determines that the moral standard of his society is flawed. As in the example of smoking, drawing upon evidence can convince people of the benefit of change. In this case, a second step for resolving the dispute is to draw on evidence. Either of them could recommend to the other to make the decision based on a proposed new standard, presenting available evidence about the likely outcomes of the proposed standard and why people will prefer those outcomes.
Morality goes beyond simple boundaries of what behavior is acceptable. There is not just good, but also very good. Typically a society will set a minimally acceptable standard of behavior as the legal standard, leaving people free to adopt other standards beyond that voluntarily. This enables them to put themselves into a "very good" category, or to conduct some experiments aimed at making things better.
If that turns out well for them, these ideas may also be adopted by friends and relatives who observe those results. It can become a seed that spreads, like the gradual transition mentioned above from "smoking as a social obligation" to "indoor smoking in public is prohibited."
This is where "one person's opinion" can matter! It can matter when that one person has discovered useful information that others have missed, which may remain uncertain at first. It can matter when that person has desires and motives that are similar to what other people want, so they can learn from his (or her) experiences that produce joy or misery for him.
We must also remember that each person is unique. A person may have similar desires to other people, for such things as food, shelter, learning, friendship, etc., but with differing emphasis on how important each of those things is to them. Further, people may have differences in interests and talents. That is actually fortunate, because it enables people to fill a variety of different roles in a society.
There are certain things that a person can know about himself, that nobody else can know. He knows if he is suffering from pain. He knows if he has anguish or anxiety. If he expresses those things to others, they might describe that as "his opinion," because it is something that is unique to him that is not observable by them. Perhaps in many cases they can observe some visible signs of injury or some threat to the person's wellbeing, by which they can infer how me feels. But sometimes those things are not apparent, and there is currently no way for them to read his mind, to know for sure.
This is why ethics is not just about rule-following, but it also allows for liberty. Within the boundaries of ethical choices (delimited by specific prohibitions and obligations), the individual is free to make his own choices. That enables him to best satisfy his desires, suitable to his unique personality and situation.
Each person is a free agent, to make decisions for himself (or herself). So inevitably he will make decisions for himself. But he would be wise to consider how his individual choices interact with the choices of others, to create the kind of world we live in. The mistake of "thinking that only my own opinion matters" can definitely make things worse for one's self! That's because every action a person takes has a voting effect. This principle is illustrated very well by the story of the devious politician.
So, a wise individual will ask himself, "what kind of world do I want to live in?" Is it a world where everyone has enough food to eat, where children all get an education, where people can be healthy and prosperous, where the ecology is sustained across generations? Or is it some other kind of world? If it is rational for a person to vote for what they want, then likewise his actions should function as votes for the kind of world he wants.
Morality is not just one person's opinion vs another, nor even one group's opinion vs another, but one in which people strive to find solutions that produce mutual wellbeing, as broadly as possible. It is an incremental, gradual process that begins in homes and communities, and expands to nations, and ultimately evolves toward universal ethics.
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