The Divide

          It seems that there is a greater divide in our society these days, particularly on moral issues.  I’m not totally sure that perception is reality – there was certainly a big divide during the 60’s – the 1960’s.  And, of course, the divide in the 1860’s has to be considered the worst.  That latter divide was only “resolved” by a civil war.  The current divide is not likely to be solved by a physical war, but I don’t see how the divide can stop progressing, becoming worse and worse.  I don’t know what the end result will be, but it does not seem good.

          I’d like to illustrate what I see as the fundamental problem and then offer a suggestion that could at least start the process for finding a solution.

          One big divide is on issues related to homosexuality.  People on both sides of the fence have views that are in direct opposition to one another.  Fundamentally, there are plenty of people on each side of that issue who cannot even imagine how someone could hold the opposite view to theirs.  That’s a big divide.  But focusing on that issue doesn’t get at the more foundational problem, and therefore arguing about such issues goes nowhere. 

          Instead, I think it is more instructive to look at issues that essentially everyone agrees on, and dig a bit deeper.  I’m going to pick one to serve as an example:  child molestation.  I think everyone would agree that child molestation is wrong.

          We have to then ask ourselves:  why do we consider child molestation to be wrong?  There are some, particularly Christians, who generally use the Bible as their basis for deciding truth.  They might choose a Bible verse to justify the view that such a thing is wrong.  If they do take this approach, their basis for considering child molestation to be wrong could also cause them to have the view that any sex outside of marriage is wrong.  They would have many “absolutes” like this that are based on Biblical teaching.  The same could be said for other religions that rely on a written set of absolutes.  Some people would not use a Bible verse to support their views but essentially hold the same view as those who do.  They may believe there are moral absolutes, but they couldn’t necessarily be able to articulate them succinctly.  For those individuals, a written moral code, such as the Bible, is an implied basis for making moral decisions, but they wouldn’t necessarily go back to the source. 

          However, the divide that we really have is that many people would generally reject the idea of a moral absolute.  They would say that everything is relative.  But, in general, they would still contend that child molestation is just plain wrong.  In that case, they need some other means of establishing that child molestation is wrong.  Here is where we can begin to explore the real foundations of our current divide.

          A first common means of establishing a moral “semi-absolute” would be that since “everyone” agrees that child molestation is wrong, then it is obviously wrong.  This implies a belief that moral issues can be decided by a kind of “majority rule.”  I think a lot of people probably implicitly have this view, although it is almost never stated explicitly.  That’s probably because it is a very slippery slope full of pitfalls.  For example, how big does the “everyone” in “everyone thinks it is wrong” have to be?  How big of a majority?  A 100% majority is impossible to achieve.  Is a mere 51% majority sufficient?  Who knows?  And who gets surveyed to make this decision?  There are plenty of practical issues like that, but a deeper problem with the “morals by majority” approach is that it often breaks down and becomes pretty immoral.  If a majority of people in the US South in the 1850’s thought that slavery was right, does that mean it was right?  Some might argue about the means of selecting and determining such a majority vote, but the basic problem is that there are moral issues that are clearly wrong (or right) regardless of what a majority of people might think at any given point in time or location.  I don’t think we can totally throw out the idea of a majority rule for moral issues, but it just doesn’t make a very good foundation.

          I know there are a variety of strategies through which views on moral issues are decided without relying on absolutes, but I just want to focus on what, I think, would be the second most common response, at least with respect to child molestation.  That would be:  “anything that hurts another person is wrong.”  This statement itself is actually a moral absolute, but let’s ignore that for the moment.  Christianity is not the only place where such a sentiment is found.  One could say that “everyone” agrees with this idea (although I’m not totally sure that it is true).  It doesn’t really matter at this point.  The point is, basing moral decisions on the principle that if it hurts someone else, then it is wrong, is a pretty good principle that works a lot of the time.

          We have to go further to find the real divide.  I’m going to add a scenario that, although it is currently science fiction, is not really that far out from reality.  Specifically, consider the situation where we can immerse the child molester into a virtual reality situation that is so real that, as far as the child molester can know, the virtual reality world is the real world.  Now, let us allow the child molester to carry out his immoral acts in this virtual world.  He believes it is real.  But no actual, real child is hurt.

          Would that make child molestation in that case ok?  Or, at least, would it make the virtual act be ok (not calling it “child molestation”, since that has a moral meaning, but maybe calling it just a “virtual role-play”)? 

          I believe there are some at least, maybe more than a few, who would say that in the case of the virtual situation, that is ok.  No one is hurt.  Maybe we have to incarcerate child molesters so they don’t go out in the real world, but this type of virtual act is not morally wrong.  Actually, at the present time (2017) I would say that this view is more likely to come out in a different way:  people would defend the right of the virtual reality game-makers to include child molestation in the games they develop.  They would say that the developers have a right to create whatever game they want and there should be no moral absolutes applied to it.  But creating the game is not that far from playing it.  Thus, even if very few people would defend the “virtual” child molester today, I expect that, within the time frame it will take to create such a game, people’s views will have progressed to the point of saying that playing such a game is ok as well.

          And then, of course, there are those who would be sickened by the whole concept.  To them, whether someone is hurt or not, child molestation is wrong.  It is a moral absolute.  The idea isn’t up for discussion – it is just plain wrong.

          That is a really big divide.

          And we have to live together in the same country somehow.

          In the next entry I’m going to propose a solution.  Neither side will like it!