Ethical Socialism

Ethical Socialism

I posed the problem of the indispensability of ethics, remarking that no ethical theory I know of has a solution to it.[1] It seems that we prize ethics above even prudence, logic, and sanity; we can’t live without it. This is puzzling—surely, you don’t have to be good to be happy! Acting ethically doesn’t always feel that great (see I. Kant, as in “I can’t help it”). I now think I have a solution to the puzzle, and it puts a particular twist on the basic rationale of ethics. I call it “ethical socialism”. The basic idea is simple and not unfamiliar: ethics is a precondition of society. Without ethics there is no such thing as society. By society I mean any social grouping: from towns and countries to families, friendships, and fleeting encounters. Any form of human association. For without ethics such collectives are impossible, since they need ethical rules in order to exist. You can’t treat someone without regard for right and wrong and expect to stay friends with them. You have to treat them right—no stealing, lying, promise-breaking, betraying, violence, and murder. Such things are not conducive to a functioning society (even of two people). This is self-evident and hardly needs arguing. What is less obvious is the alternative to a life lived with others in harmony: loneliness, isolation, misery, fear, self-sufficiency, humorlessness, poverty, early death. Nasty, brutish, short, and all alone. It sounds like hell—there is no social life in hell. The OED gives for “society”: “the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community” (I love that “more or less”). No community, no communing—no chatting, sharing, amusing, informing. No one to talk to, no one to see, no one to interact with. No friend, no spouse, no partner, no helper. This is brutal stuff—the stuff of nightmares. But that’s what you get if you spurn morality. This is why the professional criminal (wrong-doer) is never completely amoral or immoral: because if he is, he has nobody, nothing. His life is barren and empty. Thus, he treats his gang and family well. He isn’t a shit to everybody. So, on pain of total isolation, he maintains a local morality, perhaps even accentuates it. You begin to see why morality matters more than prudence, logic, and sanity—at least you have some company if you lack those qualities. Abandoning morality altogether is choosing to live alone, and human life is a very meagre thing under such conditions; really, not worth living. We are social creatures and our happiness is largely social, perhaps entirely when you take it to the logical extreme. Life without society would be unbearable; no one ever chooses it. We find it difficult to imagine how a totally solitary animal can ever be happy; it merely survives.  Not that any animal is ever truly alone, what with mates and family. Total isolation isn’t biological. Ethics is written into our souls because social existence is; it is as deeply ingrained as our social nature. We implicitly understand from a young age that morality is necessary for social bonds; it is the glue that holds individuals together. It is what makes living together possible. We might thus announce that what is good and right is what enables and preserves society (in the broadest sense). It even includes human-animal societies: these can exist only because we treat animals with a degree of moral respect—they would run away if we didn’t. Animal ethics stems from human-animal societies. You can’t even own a dog unless you stick to moral principles. The very concept of right and wrong is bound up with the need for society. In a sense, it is tribal (but not in the narrow sense). We would all die early and live horribly if society was not possible, and morality is what makes it possible.[2]

A good ethical theory should register the connection between morality and society—and not by supposing that morality is “socially constructed”. It isn’t. But its profound hold on us is bound up with its role in creating social groups. This conception is socialist not individualist: it is a group phenomenon not an individual one. At the level of the individual morality does not exist. If we deny the existence of society, we undermine morality; we rob it of its point. We rob it of its content. The atomistic individual cannot be a moral agent; he can at best be a member of an aggregate. Ethics and community go together, but not ethics and the isolated individual. Thus, we might label the theory under consideration “communist ethics” or “ethical communism”. It is the ethical basis of political socialism and communism (no matter how perverted such ideas have become historically). Ethics must be directed at communities not individuals (here there is only prudence). I think this is why there has always been some disquiet over utilitarian ethics: society is not visible in it. All we get is maximizing the happiness of the greatest number, whether or not this number comprises a society (people “living together”). The beneficiaries of the utilitarian calculation could be isolated individuals. There doesn’t seem to be anything essentially social in this ethical theory. By contrast, deontological theories explicitly record interpersonal relations—don’t lie, don’t break your promises, don’t steal, don’t be ungrateful, don’t kill, clean up after yourself. It is about one’s duties to others not just making everyone feel good. Where is the interpersonal element—the I and thou? Nor should we neglect the spiritual aspect: the meeting of minds, the empathy, the spiritual communing. All this is immensely valuable to us—and it goes beyond supplying goods and services and simply getting along with each other. Our greatest happiness lies here. So, morality exists in the human species because we have interpersonal spiritual needs. In short, we need love—to give it and receive it. We don’t just want to go about our business, lovelessly. We sense that without morality this good would be unavailable to us (we might just get stabbed in the back, betrayed, enslaved). There has to be trust, or else everyone suspects everyone and bonds are never formed. We would hardly exist as human beings unless we had a developed social life, and morality is what makes this possible. Ethics is existential. Human life has no meaning lived alone. Aloneness can lead to suicide in extreme cases. So, ethics is what gives life meaning, because it enables the social dimension. It prevents life being unpleasant, isolated, and brief (what with suicide and everything). Even street-gang life is preferable to that.

We should really divide philosophy into two parts: philosophy of the individual and philosophy of the group. In the first part we deal with such problems as the mind-body problem, the problem of free will, the classical problems of epistemology, etc. In the second part we deal with ethics, political philosophy, the analysis of social facts, and some of the philosophy of language. A theorem of this branch of philosophy might be that there can be no social facts without ethical facts: societies can’t exist without firm ethical foundations (ethical subjectivism won’t cut it). Ethical nihilism produces rampant individualism and the collapse of organized society (just roving gangs and lone assassins). We have the individual-community problem as we have the mind-body problem. Some philosophers specialize in individual philosophy and some specialize in group philosophy (same in psychology). Some suggest that what looks like an individual problem is really a group problem—as with community theories of meaning or mental content. Some maintain that the concept of freedom is individualistic (a matter of causal determination) while others argue that it is a social concept (not being coerced by others). I think this is a useful division, and I place ethics on the group side. It turns out that the reason we are so firmly committed to ethics is that we are essentially and unavoidably social—but not necessarily prudent or logical or sane. We can live without the latter three, but we can’t live without society. Other people may be hell, as Sartre suggested, but it is a hell we would prefer to the heaven of total aloneness.[3]

[1] See my “Ethical Life”. I posed the problem one day and arrived at the present view overnight. Perhaps the solution will help to see what the problem is.

[2] The function of the law is likewise to codify the rules of interpersonal engagement; to regulate societal interactions. This is why it is connected to ethics. We have laws because without them society would disintegrate into amoral individualism—or so it is believed at this stage of human history. If ethics is the social glue, the law is the social hammer (it knocks in the nails). This is the importance of the law, for what it’s worth. The law is what enables to sleep easy at night and speak freely. It is society’s enforcer. A large amount of human effort is devoted to keeping society together, because without it, life becomes meaningless and unbearable. Family law is particularly important.

[3] I can’t refrain from mentioning the song, by Celine Dion and others, entitled “Alone”. The theme is the isolated individual versus the connected lover. The hysterical chorus has the lyrics, “Till now I always got by on my own, I never really cared until I met you”, and the song ends with two long shrieks of “Alone!”. The importance of morality is its capacity to prevent such shrieks.