Multiple Moralities
by Joseph Rowlands

I have received criticism from some Objectivists about the approach I took in writing my book Morality Needs No God. There is a key decision that needs to made in approaching this subject. Do you take the view that there are many different kinds of moral systems, or do you claim that there is only one 'real' morality and it is the Objectivist version? I took the former view, expressing the idea that there are very different moral systems in existence. That decision has been criticized.

For me, this was a simple choice. One of the most significant obstacles to discussing morality in today's world is that almost everyone thinks of morality as if it were singular. Morality with an uppercase 'M'. If you bring up rational self-interest, they will respond by saying that that isn't really morality. They know what morality is, and it has specific and well-recognized content. Rational self-interest is not that morality, and saying it is seems to be trying to win by changing definitions.

What is this Morality (uppercase) that people all know and recognize? It is altruism. Morality is altruism, and that is they way you are supposed to act. A disagreement with that is not seen as a difference in opinion about the contents of morality, it is seen as a complete abandonment of morality.

It makes no sense to me to start off by asserting that morality is the opposite of altruism. A mere assertion seems to be nonsensical and a complete abandonment of the concept. It's like saying that life is really a kind of death, or that love is hate, and then telling you that you are a food for believing otherwise. It can't possibly work.

To take the mantel of 'morality', it first needs to be accepted that morality has a wider meaning than just altruism. Morality is not simply helping others. Morality is a guide to choosing actions in life. It is a code of values. It is a method of making decisions. It is a standard of value in which you can weigh alternatives.

Without this broader concept of morality, claiming that rational self-interest is morality can only come across as absurd and ridiculous. If morality is altruism, then saying it is rational egoism is just spitting out nonsense.

But the approach I took was for more than just this tactical approach to connecting self-interest with morality. I fundamentally disagree with the notion that there is only one 'real' morality, and that somehow altruism isn't a form of morality. Of course it is! So ar hedonism, egalitarianism, utilitarianism, and an infinite variety of other systems. They are forms of morality. They are decision-making processes. They are standards of evaluation. They are codes of values.

To suggest otherwise destroys the concept of morality. The problem with Morality (uppercase) is that it treats morality as an arbitrary set of rules, coming from somewhere magical, and demanding obedience. If we substituted rational self-interest in there, it would be just as arbitrary. It would be a set of rules, coming from nowhere, with no foundation, demanding obedience.

Instead, we are able to recognize that life requires values and requires some form of decision-making process. Life is action, and action requires choice. But that process of choosing is not automatic. We can choose in many different ways. There are many possible ways in which we can make our decisions. Some of the those ways are better than others. The only way to pick rationally is to recognize that there is a choice. And that is the fact that is invalidated by saying that these other systems are not "really" kinds of morality.   Without recognizing that there are alternatives, we can't validate our own process as correct and justified.

There are other reasons to take the approach I did. First of all, I wanted to point out how much variance there is in terms of moral beliefs anyway. The myth of a single Morality (uppercase) is that there is universal agreement about what it is. Bringing up rational self-interest as an alternative to a universally accepted and agreed upon morality would be an unnecessary challenge. In fact, people have wildly different ideas about what morality is, and I present many examples in the book including the different assumptions about morality that aren't even shared.

Again, pretending that there is a single morality would attempt to do a swap between the one accepted and the one being proposed. But there isn't just one that is accepted, and if I tried to claim that morality as a concept doesn't apply, I would have no way of showing how all of these different approaches to morality already exist and that agreement is far from reality.

A different reason for taking the multiple moralities view is that the difference between rational self-interest (or the secular morality, as I describe it in the book) and altruism is not just a difference in content. There are huge differences in form as well. The scope of morality is different. The method of judging ends and means is different. The positions of faith and reason are different. The nature of moral principles and moral judgment are different.

These are all massive differences, and if you already have an idea of what you think morality is, this self-interested view is not compatible in many different ways. How can you call it morality? Only by identifying morality in its generic sense, as a method of making choices. And you can't do that while claiming there is only one "morality".

Those criticizing my approach haven't offered a real alternative. Presumably they fear that if we acknowledge that there are different moral systems, it will appear as if we are endorsing moral relativism and claiming that all are equal with one another. That's not a claim I agree with, and my book not only discusses why moral relativism is wrong, but does a comparison of moralities at the end.

It might seem safer to not even grant altruism or religious beliefs the title of morality, so that you then don't have to try to show that yours is better than theirs. If you can somehow rule them out through definition, it would save a lot of effort and leave less to the judgment of the reader. But that's unrealistic. That may be soothing to those who already believe in rational self-interest, but what about the religious moralities or altruists? It is just one less opportunity to compare them and show the superiority of one over the other. Far from being a stronger case, it is much weaker.

Ultimately, it is clarity and understanding that will change the world. Substituting one moral standard for another is not enough. It has to be accompanied by a justification of why the new one is better than the old. Without that justification, it will appear and be taken as just as arbitrary.

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