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Matter of Opinion?
Morality is not just a matter of opinion, but opinions matter.
Is that 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. But how can he reach a solution? If there is no rational way to solve this, then Adam and Bob are left with only the means used by most wild animals: fight over it. If that's every day life, with repeated occurrences like that, not only is there risk of injury each time, but it would become impossible to gain the benefits of cooperative effort. There must be a better way!
Fortunately, there is a better way, that makes use of people's ability to think and communicate. Adam's assertion that "any opinion is as good as any other" has a flaw in it.
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.
Of course, this assumes that the group standard was established for the mutual well-being of those who participate in the standard. The process of setting standards involves fact-based judgements as well as considering how standard will affect people's well-being overall. The latter isn't always a clear-cut matter, as people experience their satisfactions and dissatisfactions in ways that are hard to measure. Therefore, this process may involve gathering opinions. An effective standard is one that is impartial, so that it can be applied anywhere. To set standards, people need to think not only of their current situation, but also how the standard would affect them or other people in various scenarios. A standard is not based on just one person's opinion, nor on the opinion of just one special-interest group who may be trying to skew the standard to suit them only.
Now, let's get back to Adam and Bob's original argument. The particular dispute was not stated, but most likely there is a relevant 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 rules and practices. 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. 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. It can be a slow process, but it works eventually.
Moral choices can also be impaired because of lack of caring. Most people have natural empathy, but it can be limited by lack of awareness, and it can be suppressed if people are raised in cruel conditions. But caring can also be reawakened when people receive kindness from others. So Bob will have more success with Adam if he shows that he seeks Adam's happiness as well as his own, and there is a history in which they do kind things for each other. The capability to have mutual happiness is something that gets built over time.
Caring is critical. 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.
With great power comes great responsibility, and today humans have great power as compared to our past and to all other animals. We must learn the skills necessary to cooperate effectively. If we instead we divide into groups, with each taking the attitude that "only our opinion matters" and "might makes right," the result is predictable: we will wipe ourselves out and those opinions will disappear at the same time. It is only a morality of caring that can have a future in any sufficiently advanced species.
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, eventually becoming widespread practice.
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.
Ethics is not just about rule-following, but it must also allow 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. Having a moral society depends on more than one person, but regardless, each person's opinions and actions matter. 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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