A theory of moral complementarity
What Hinduism can teach us about modern debates in ethics
I'm currently reading the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. What strikes me about the former is the extent to which even the protagonists engage in Machiavellian and seemingly amoral conduct. I view this as a tale in the pitfalls of strict deontological rules. In this sense, dharma pioneered (without explicitly defining or formalising the concept) utilitarian and consequentialist ethics. Unlike most other faiths, the inherent tradeoffs plaguing any moral decision are emphasised ex-ante. An alternative interpretation is that the main lesson is the inevitability of evil and suffering in life despite the best intentions of most, which grounds the tale firmly as a class in human nature.
If the Mahabharata, via myth and literary masterpiece, outlined our core moral theory, the Ramayana introduced the ingredient of virtue - the necessity of acting based on our morals even in the face of adversity. Hindus recognise the main flaw in utilitarianism: a vague consequentialist framework can easily be manipulated for self-serving, as opposed to ethical, purposes. It's very easy to argue that one's selfish decisions are motivated for the good of the overall community, if preferences are unknown to the individual [1].
Yet this introduces the question: how do we know if we're truly acting virtuously with courageous endeavour, rather than falsely believing such or rationalising ulterior malicious motives? If dharma is context-dependent and consequences unknown, haven't we just reintroduced the very moral relativism we sought to avoid? Surely we return to the very rigid deontological constraints that the Mahabharata subtly warned us about?
This is where the roles of myth, storytelling, and faith enter our human universals. Whilst lacking in epistemological or logical rigour, these heuristics provide a parsimonous framework on how to act: in our daily lives, for life's inevitable tragedies, and our most difficult decisions where we may otherwise be paralysed by our conscience. The lack of logical consistency, if we accept from Gödel the inherent tradeoff between consistency and parsimony, tends to avoid the costs of following deontological instructions to the expense of our welfare. Yet a broad set of heuristics, that can be broken in special cases (highlighted in the canon and the evolution of its interpretations through time), focuses on optimising utility on average as opposed to each and every case. Often the focus on imitating role models - the main prophets of the Abrahamic faiths, Aurelius for the stoics, and the übermensch of Nietzscheans - adds emotional relevance through empathising with our plights and inspiring us to be our best selves. By placing ourselves within their shoes and asking “what would they do?”, with the famous myths corresponding to a particular dilemma salient in our minds, the ethical decision becomes apparent. For dharma, we introduce Rama for this very purpose.
An underrated reason for the existence of role models that now occured to me, just as I write this sentence right now, is that they provide the motivation to act more altruistically and self-sacrificing on the margin. Effective altruists and the underlying philosophical inspiration from Singer's drowning child advocates for effectively ceding our utility functions to an empirical calculation of our spending and lifestyles to maximise our philanthropic impact regardless of our own desires. Yet this is obviously blank-slateist. Nonetheless, more self-sacrifice on the margin clearly can be Pareto efficient: this thesis is implicit from prisoner's dilemma games and the free-rider. Economics emphasises the role of institutions and mechanism design to induce less free-riding. Our moral guidance from the legendary classics and our heroes is another means, grounded in our primate emotions, that for the entirety of civilisation we achieve this.
One could also consider the Mahabharata as a positive theory of morality, and the Ramayana as a normative case for living a life of virtue. Utilitarianism emphases the former, and our intuitions grounded in human universals and our religious beliefs the latter. The former outlines the case, the latter grants it legitimacy via soliciting emotional acceptance. Ultimately, both actually can be considered as complementary, as opposed to competing ethical perspectives. If we accept this line of reasoning, then does modern philosophical discourse exaggerate the disagreements?
Does the objectivity of morality imply virtue ethics?
If this complementarity holds, then this lends credence to the notion of morality as objective. From a metaphysical idealist perspective, objective reality (the set of objects that can, in principle, be sensed by more than one independent observers) can consist of abstract as well as physical objects. Hence moral disagreements are concerned not with whether there exists a moral course of action, but rather what that action is. Rather than our debates revolving around the core ontology, they instead exist given the imperfect information that each moral actor holds, which thereby often prevents certainty in knowing what the moral decision is.
I think this objectivity and complementarity is demonstrated by the fact that almost all faiths, at all times and places they arose independently even when lacking contact with outside cultures, emphasise some concept of self-sacrifice or self-restraint for the moral good. Almost all have reproduced (Aristotelian) virtue ethics from first principles. What religion or moral ideal promotes the idea of being selfish and indulging oneself, even to the expense of your duties, self-maintenance, and your community? Although objectivists place little weight on the values of altruism, the intertemporal aspect of virtue is rewarded a central role. Restraint, delayed gratification, and the importance of duty, are all vital principles that objectivists live by. Even the Cyrenaics and the Epicureans valued some degree of virtue and altruistic behaviour, paradoxically as a means towards achieving individual hedonistic pleasure. Note that all of this is consistent with adopting a utilitarian and consequentialist approach to evaluating ethical tradeoffs, and that such does not imply relativism [2].
A reasonable conclusion to draw is that virtue ethics, the set of lifestyle philosophies emphasising low discounting and altruism, can be considered a human universal. I have at times throughout the past advocated vociferously against attempts to reduce (via social stigma) the relative status of hedonism, and still consider this paternalistic sentiment to render most individuals worse off overall. The particular avocations of vice we stigmatise, and the magnitude of this social penalty, is not exactly correlated with the social harms such indulgence yields anyhow. At the margin, we could clearly do with less judging, and more of “live and let live” approach to the habits of others. However, concerning the total effect, the optimal level of belief in virtue ethics is probably nonzero. If such a philosophy has been replicated independently across distinct times and places throughout human history, and remained prevalent since, then a Burkean view on institutions considers such as facilitating our social and cultural wellbeing, and therefore is culturally and biologically adaptive.
However, an alternative interpretation is that these philosophies instead aim to spin the ubiquity of suffering in a positive light. Tragedy is instead framed as heroic glory, and a courageous pursuit of a higher virtue. By raising the relative status of suffering, not only are individuals more likely to sacrifice themselves for the good of their polity (necessary when war was so commonplace to in effect be our default state), but the cardinal costs such suffering imposes are alleviated. To an extent, the Stoics and Buddhists are right that some proportion of our pain is influenced by our emotional perception of it. Whilst such appeals to virtue may have dulled the pain of the Malthusian poverty characterising most of human existence, in an era of unprecedented abundance, should we not rethink the valorisation of tragedy?
Hence the importance of institutions in incentivising prosocial behaviour and the revelation of ordinal and cardinal preferences: the focus of much of microecononic theory and mechanism design.
In fact, many of the most famous utilitarian philosophers, such as Peter Singer, argue that utilitarianism implies the opposite, that moralitu is objective.