Is the moral choice always the right choice?
Edit: I just realised the title should have read “Is the moral decision always the right decision?”.
Those who are against national borders I assume believe there are no borders, that they are arbitrary constructs based on nationalist ideologies. They call for all borders to be abolished and freedom of movement available to all. This, their argument goes, is a moral position. There are people who feel threatened by politics, poverty, war, famine, crime, cultural practices and religion. They have the right to escape their situation and seek a secure life in another country. Naturally they move towards countries that offer freedom from these tyrannies.
The USA is one such country and the continent makes movement easy. If US borders were removed it would enable people to move freely between Mexico and Canada (if they also take part). Obviously it would also enable those from South American countries as well to move north for a better life. Open borders means no restriction on who moves about, politically, racially or culturally. It also means that people are not required to explain or justify their motives for moving.
It’s impossible to know what shape the migration of people might take. Nor whether people from further afield will find ways of migrating to the continent, nor the numbers in total. According to this moral position there can be no restrictions. There will be limited checks on health issues, or criminal records. The numbers will be overwhelming. And who’s to judge the conditions of crime from one country to another, who’s to judge?
This mass migration may have positive results. The contribution made by them is largely unknowable. They may drive the economy in directions unimaginable, but, let’s assume, in a positive way. They may reshape the continent in ways unimaginable.
But the movement of all these people will certainly have other effects, just for a start on the countries they leave. Those economies could falter or collapse, political upheaval could follow. They might open themselves up to new trade deals that take employment and production from other countries. And there would be a realignment of foreign interests and opportunities taken by outside interests in the resources those countries have but cannot access.
The changes internationally are impossible to forecast, good or bad.
My question is whether a decision based on a moral position can really be considered moral when the consequences on such a large scale are unknowable. Is that the best way, or the right way, to make these decisions. Is the moral choice always the right choice?
Comments (49)
I don't think a decision based on a moral position can really be considered moral when it forces those morals upon people who disagree with it.
I'm hungry.
I have other food.
Is it wasteful of animal life?
I'm going to eat it - am I making the wrong choice?
Yes.
Yes, the moral decision is always the right (orderly) decision. However, there are special cases, to further understand the wrong, se.
Think of 'moral' as, rolling information, plus good judgement.
1.0 + 1.0 (moral ratio) = 2.
But let's take a simpler situation. Lying is considered wrong. So let's say you're in a situation where lying will prevent an argument that will jeopardize getting something done that needs to be done. Let's say it's a work project and the truth will ruin team chemistry, the deadline won't be met, and the contract is lost, so people don't get paid.
So you lie for team cohesion.
What do you mean by contrasting “moral” and “right” in your question? Is “right” meant to mean “moral”? Or do you intend it to mean something more like practical towards a goal?
In other words, Id like to know if you are asking about competing morals or are you asking about how a moral should be weighed against a non-moral (or immoral) consideration?
People tend to take this for granted , but it's a very debatable question. Kant was one of the most ferocious partisan of this theory ( as it is one ), and you could expect some great arguments coming from this brillant mind but in reality they were scarcely convincing. He gave the exemple of having one of your friends knocking at your door and begging you to hide him in your house as for some you unknown reasons he was chased by the police ( you can replace him with jewwish boy and the police with the Nazis to make it more spicy). Then to the question should you lie to the police or no he answers a proud NO, one should never lie, and therefore argues that you should turn your friend down ( or the boy) as this is the moral thing to do and that one should always seek to act in a moral way. This famous episode was to me the evidence that there can't be such thing as moral as it's very easy to come up with those kind of situations that you can't resolve if you believe in moral .
Quoting Tzeentch
Well this might happen More often than you think. Governments often make many moral decisions on behalf of their constituency: gay marriage, voting rights for blacks, for instance. And the pressure applied to South African over apartheid was certainly moral.
If seems to me that if you live in a democratic system then you are also required morally to go along with the decision. Though it might be debatable in those circumstances that a moral is being forced upon someone, because in those circumstances they’re in agreement with the system that applies the moral.
Quoting DingoJones
In the demand for open borders I’m looking at in terms of being a moral position. So far I haven’t heard any particular objective coming from proponents of open borders except that it’s the right thing to do. (There may be objectives in some groups I’m unaware of). On that basis then it appears to be a purely moral decision, and a decision that will lead to wellbeing for all.
So yes, the question revolves around whether the moral choice is the right choice in terms of objectives. What exactly are the objectives in creating open borders.
Open borders across the Americas could be one of the great social experiments of all time. But what do we want from it: an end to poverty for some, security for all, total integration of all races, or broad multiculturalism, or a new “man”. Just saying something is morally right, that it’s without argument, will not lead necessarily to any one of those goals.
So it seems to me that the moral decision needs to be attached to a pragmatic decision, that the pragmatic decision guides the moral decision.
Quoting Jean-baptiste
My OP is based on those who support open borders and hold a moral position on the subject. So the debate is not over whether morals exist, an interesting and endless argument though they are, but on whether they are the basis for the best decision?
Quoting Marchesk
That seems to be more a matter of ethics to me.
Or is this just idealism driving morality?
Im finding it difficult to parse your point here...
It seems like you want to know if the justification they use is valid or not, weighing it against a practical consideration about immigration and border controls. You are mixing metrics though, this is an example of morality vs practicality (including finding a balance between the two) and if you want to say that ignoring the practical consideration is immoral that is different than saying the practical outweighs the moral.
I think you need to make a strong distinction there to focus on what youre after. Thats my take in it so far.
Quoting DingoJones
Ignoring the possible consequences seems immoral. That’s why I wonder if it’s an idealistic position that cloaks itself in morality. Idealism rushes forward blindly, conscious only of the ideal objective. But what is it here?
I definitely wonder if their moral position is justified, especially when there doesn’t seem to be a position, or a clear position, on what they’re morally against. The moral position against South Africa was towards a specific, clear cut goal.
I’m not suggesting that the practical outweighs the moral, only that without a real objective the moral action can lead to chaos.
You can say it's a bad time, or time's are bad. You are judging the time. If you judge the time good, you make profitable decisions. The time may be good or bad for you.
How one could argue otherwise baffles me.
Just me having a whack at it really...
Quoting Qwex
I can’t make sense of that. Nor am I trying to define morality. What I’m trying to work out is whether open borders should be determined by a moral position, that it’s the right thing to do. But maybe it’s not a moral decision those for open borders are actually are standing on, only that it appears that way?
It’s a pretty obscure idea as it stands.
Quoting Jean-baptiste
I was thinking about how issues like the vote for women, black votes and gay marriage had been debated for some time before it happened, even if we may have been unconscious that a debate was happening.
Churchill was trying to win the war. He may have faced a moral dilemma, but that doesn’t make it a moral decision, does it? Were his decisions moral or just pragmatic?
I really trying to decide if the open borders really is a moral position held by those who are for it, and if there’s another similar example I can apply the OP question? Are all real moral decisions made on the basis of a specific objective, not some ideal that may or may not eventuate, or based on hope?
It is not based on hope only. Based on 'rolling information', what is the most intelligent thought. considering all in this thought-process shows similar objectives, what makes things intelligent for the species is the world that extends that we survive.
Next up, I'd like to ask what you mean by "the right choice"? Because again, "right" and "wrong" are just descriptions of ways to achieve a desired end. And they are non-binary as well most of the time. For instance, if I want to maximize profits for my business, action _X_ may be the "right" course of action if it gets us more money. On the other hand, _Y_ would be the "wrong" decision if it loses us money, and also has no redeeming value (for instance, losing money in the short term to achieve some greater goal in the long term). Or you may have two options that both gain money, but one is "better" than the other.
The bottom line is that in each case, you have to define your goal before you can speak of decisions being "moral" and "right". (Often when we talk about humans, morality and "rightness" become the same thing, but not always)
With “the right decision” I’m meaning the decision that leads to best outcomes. Is a moral position the best way to make a decision on, for example, open borders, that leads to the best outcome.? Which is the position of open borders advocates; that’s it’s the right thing to do, that it’s a moral issue.
Quoting tomatohorse
Best outcomes for South Africa was an end to apartheid. Best outcomes for women was getting the vote. Best outcomes for gays was legal marriage. Very clear objectives that can be measured when you get there.
So Alice is about to kill someone when Bob stops her because Bob thinks killings like that are immoral. Bob is therefore immoral, for forcing his morals upon Alice?
In any case in response to the OP, yes, the moral decision is necessarily the right decision. What's at question in your example case is whether open borders really is the correct moral position, or if instead there are counterpoints that suggest it might actually be immoral instead to have open borders. If proponents are just asserting that it is moral, without argument as to why, then they're just asserting that it's the right thing to do, without arguing why it's the right thing to do. Opponents can present reasons why it's the wrong thing to do and then they can argue about who's got better reasons, and whoever does, their position is more moral and the better decision.
I meant specifically with regard to your question. For example, letting anyone who wants to come in might be good for those immigrants, for the short-term. But it might be bad for the people in border towns who get overrun with an influx of immigrants. Perhaps in the long run it causes a net negative to the country as a whole. Who knows? This is just a hypothetical example.
Or maybe you get a bunch of illegal drugs crossing the border, which is good (I guess) for the drug dealers, but leads to more addicts in your country's population and erodes local communities. I would call that a net negative, on moral considerations.
It's a complex calculation, with many actors and moving parts. At the end of the day, you have to decide where your loyalties lie, and what your primary moral considerations are. Those give you a compass by which to evaluate all these smaller points.
Quoting tomatohorse
Well I think you need to first decide what your primary objective might be. Then you decide how to reach it. Opening borders based on a moral position about it being the right thing to do leaves every step after that open. How do you measure progress, how do you know if you’re getting closer to your goal? Is it even possible to realise that goal?
When one is in agreement with the morals being applied, I would not consider it 'forcing'. But yes, a lot of what governments do could be considered immoral according to the view I shared. When it is doing so in order to stop a 'greater evil' from occurring, I consider it a necessary evil at best.
Quoting Pfhorrest
I don't think murder is a very good example to be used in this context. A person, or someone on their behalf, has a right to protect themselves when they are physically threatened. That can't be considered as "forcing one's morals upon another".
That is a moral claim itself. If someone disagrees with that moral claim and tries to stop someone from stopping someone from attacking themselves or others, is it morally okay to stop them from stopping them from stopping them?
You see where this is going? I of course agree completely that people have a right to stop people from harming others, but that is precisely forcing the morals that determine those actions to be "harmful" upon those people being stopped. And of course I agree that murdering someone is harmful to the murdered. But we have that right to stop someone from murdering if and only if murder is actually harmful, which is itself a moral question. So basically, it's right to force the right morals on others, in the right ways, and wrong to force the wrong morals on others, or in the wrong ways. Forcing people to do things that are morally obligatory (like not murdering) is good. Forcing people to do things that are not morally obligatory (like, I'd say, wearing the "right" clothes or listening to the "right" music, or whatever) is bad. Which doesn't tell us much: it just pushes the question back to "what actually is moral or not?"
I don't think intervening when someone is about to be harmed is a means to "force morals upon someone", but rather stopping a person from doing so. Of course, there are many ways one could intervene, and certainly there are immoral ways to intervene.
Ultimately, nobody knows what morality is, or can define it in a fool-proof way.
Consequently I think all moral decisions are stupid. From a philosophical point of view.
From a philosophical point of view the best model of morality, as I have seen it over and over, is "doing good". But that's not morality; that's merely doing good.
Morality is a buzz-word that everyone takes ownership of and does good or bad things, under the auspices of being moral.
Some moral questions, and the true answers to them with a clear conscience:
Was it moral to decimate their population and rob the land from the American natives? Yes and no.
Was it moral to force Christianity over the heathen population of Europe in the beginning of the middle ages? Yes and no.
Is it okay to lie? Yes and no.
Is it okay to steal bread to feed your starving children? Yes and no.
Is it okay to rape and pillage Muslim countries by force as done by the USA? Yes and no.
Was it okay to blow up the two towers in 9/11? Yes and no.
You see, all moral questions, be they big or small, can be answered either way. And there is justification, both ways. Even under the same "rules" of morality.
I spit on those who evoke morality in their arguments. Morality has no place in philosophical arguments.
The moral reasons they have is not “immigration policy”. Immigration policy is political, its not a strictly moral consideration. I think “they” would consider it a strictly moral issue, ergo when you judge them for not having the same practical mix that you do, you do so with a different standard...the point ive been trying to make is that you need to parse out that distinction for your judgement to be valid. Are you judging them by a strictly moral standard, which is how they are thinking about it, or do you want to measure their strictly moral position by the metric of Whats good for the country? (Whats good for the country may not be moral at all)
Once you parse that then your question answers itself, they obviously pass a moral standard with the former, and obviously fail at the practical consideration needed for an immigration policy.
Can you explain your definitions of "morality" and "good"? It's strange that you dichotomize them like this.
I think that morals are decided upon by the collective consciousness of the human mind. So to then decide what is "right" is judged upon by those who own the moral high ground(Maybe Obi-Wan Kenobi). If a larger mass of people consider it to be morally and just to allow open borders then that is the right way to go. Just as the victors of a war write the narrative upon what happened.
A moral high ground can be ever-changing and take different shapes depending on the current state of thinking of the greater mass of people which is affected by the variables of the comfort and current state of the world in which we live. So basically the majority of the people who thinks in a certain way have the power to decide what is right and the others will be seen as derivatives.
Only a person who can look upon actions(allowing open borders) and see their definitive consequences(the impact of the decision on for example economical, social structures and individual life) in a future timeline could have the proper depth to make an correct analysis based on our current moral values about what is right and wrong. But even our moral values do change, so nothing is really constant.
If I sense the world, there is the sense data which is judgable.
I can make a wrong decision, but a lot of the time the best decision is the right one.
How I make this decision is by first judging sense data. Morality is the nature of judging sense data - morality is objective.
What is a measure of reality? What tool do you use? If mind, then a beneficent measure is what's moral.
I just said, in my post, that morality is undefinable. My definition is as good as yours and Maria Theresia's and the pope's and Hitlers. There is no definition of morality other than wholly subjective.
I did not dichotomize them... I showed that a lot of people use the same definition for morality as they use for doing good. Their definition does not delineate between the two. I did not dichotomize; I showed they are equivalent in some people's definitions.
How do you judge? On what basis?
What is a good decision and a bad decision? How do you rank decisions from bad to good to better to best?
"A lot of the time... (implies but not always)" so in other times the best decision is not the right one. And the right decision is not the best one.
How do your statements support your original claim, that morality is not entirely subjective? There I see no reason or explanation of your claim.
So this is regional. You attach moral right to moral majority. This is a purely personal, subjective criteria of what constitues morality. So far so good, I have no problem with that, because you did state that it's your idea, and you are not trying ot force it on others as "the ultimate morality".
If one is to accept your definition, however, then the issue becomes contradictory. The larger portion of the population of the USA, say, morally condenms the mass immigration, or trans migration. But the world, most of the people in the world, morally support trans migration and mass immigration into the USA.
What then?
I judge based on the morality of the matter.
So you say "Quoting Qwex But what is morality of the matter? You speak of it as if it is an independent judging measurement, against which you can measure how well things stand up to being moral. So what is your "stick"? how do you define the measure of morality?
That's the moral line. It symbolizes, when judging sense data, this is what's beneficent.
This does not address the issue. At all.
It's like saying
"Imagine a black knight on a white horse riding toward the mountains. The mountains represent you, and the horse, the moral judgment, and rider, a moral guide." or something similar.
You have to do better that that. Or else there is a chance, however slight or diminutive, that the MODs will yank you out of here.
I draw on a blackboard, a green, rising line, to aid explaning morality.
The green, rising line on the blackboard, symbolizes what's beneficent given sense data, of which, there is also a red, falling line; there always is a beneficent or maleficent alignment.
You can substitute the line for highlighting the beneficent parts of your sense data.
You can judge sense data, and act morally or immorally.
What's moral is not entirely subjective - it's both objective and subjective simultaneously.
I would assume you might be thinking of something like, "morality is our beliefs about what good is, while 'good' is a descriptor of certain actions." Just clarifying.
Then perhaps America will be seen as the derivatives by those who believe that they have the moral majority. Problem is that there are so many different majorities so they form their own morality tribes.
Take china that has atleast 1 billion inhabitants, they probably think they are morally justified of not taking in immigrants or putting Uigurs in concentration camps because they share an protective ideology.
So yes maybe in a hypothetical scenario in which humans all around the world share the same societal structures my theory could be more Applicable to the whole collective human consciousness but for now it has to be restricted to a regional level since we are all so divided in our values.
“Moral” and “right” are synonymous. The right thing to do is always the moral thing to do. The reason for the confusion that leads to this question being asked at all, is that for some “morality” is equated with preconceived principles or rules that are detached from real life circumstances. That is not so.
A strict follower of rule ethics, or deontology, would think that a moral rule should always be obeyed regardless of consequences. The principles are always moral and always right. If you find that unreasonable, as your introduction indicates, it’s probably because you prefer a consequentialist ethics. Consequentialists, or utilitarians, believe that the moral action is the one that has the best consequences and that would also be how to measure morality in your example.
Now, if you are correct that it is impossible to predict the consequences of free migration, we will have no way of knowing what would be the right decision, and we also can have no idea about the moral decision. In that case there can be no moral position.
A utilitarian can only make a claim about the moral and right decision when he thinks there is a reasonable possibility to predict.
Thanks for the clarification.
I am glad you raised this point. In my opinion there is no definition of morality. I think of morality and of doing good as two different things, because they have two different names in the English language. "Table" and "chair" are two different things. Therefore they have two different names. Morality and doing good have two different names, therefore one ought to assume they are two different things.
But they are not different, yet people treat them as different. That is what I am objecting. If you do good, that's not moral. To do good is to do good. But what is to do moral? I don't know. Nobody knows. It is a phantasm created by the human mind, and it serves a purpose, but it is flawed as a philosophical entity.
I agree.
Either because a person prefers a consequentialist ethic, or because the deontological ethics finds itself in self-contradictory quagmire very soon into its short-lived existence.
Is it okay to lie?
Is it okay to cause death?
There are many scenarios in which these two qestions throw the deontologist into a wicked web of indecision and undecideability.