Philosophers are often found reflecting on extreme examples of moral good or evil. When political philosophers talk about justice, they refer to utopian ideals that have no realistic chance of being realised. When we discuss evil and suffering in the context of ‘The Problem of Evil’, we talk about the Holocaust and other mass genocides, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the worst forms of child abuse. These are extreme examples that hardly any of us face in real life (thankfully). Often they are outright fictional, as is seen when we discuss classic examples from literature and film.
To many non-philosophers, this might seem like a waste of time and talent. After all, when it comes to the evils of something like the Holocaust, nothing is to be done about now, and it’s not like there’s any ambiguity about whether it was a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ thing for the Nazis to do. What is to be achieved from more talk about these things? Shouldn’t we turn our attention to more practical matters?
But there’s a good reason for this talk; or at least there can be, if it is done with the right purpose in mind.
If you look at extreme examples of moral good or evil, you can find your idea of goodness or evil crystallised and distilled to its essence. This clarifies things. Finding these moral limits, these cornerstones and hinges, helps to firm up your understanding of your own moral understanding. They act as reference points: archetypes, paradigms, guiding stars. It’s easy to dismiss thinking about them as having no practical day-to-day value, but they can be helpful for imaginative philosophical reflection.
In the end, the lessons that you can learn from that philosophical reflection might prove to be more important than any practical day-to-day activity.
An Example
Consider an example of extreme moral evil: Jimmy Savile’s child abuse. Among the many morally-relevant features that we can identify in this example is the idea that Jimmy cannot justify or ‘pay off’ his bad behaviour by the good of his charity work. His good works don’t excuse his bad deeds. It might have been different if he’d been guilty of some financial misdemeanours, but not child abuse. Ethics doesn’t work that way: not everything can be weighed in the moral balance; not everything is up for sale.
This, in turn, reinforces something important about the nature of ethics, at least for me: that it is a judge of our purposes and not a servant of them. We can’t ‘play it’, like a game, looking for loopholes and technicalities. It’s not about gross profit. It’s not something that can be put to use; it’s something that holds us to account. I have heard this cliché and broadly accepted it, but it takes a philosophical working out and concrete examples to make it clear. We can’t bypass our moral duty to serve our purposes, even if they are worthy purposes.
And yet, in ordinary day-to-day life, sometimes we can and do accept a moral compromise and a certain amount of ‘paying off’. If I crash into your car, by carelessness, I can apologise and give you some money to pay for the damage and walk away with a clean conscience because I’ve done all I can to make amends. But if I crash into your child, by carelessness, it is not the same thing. I can’t just give you some money and walk away clean.
The ordinary day-to-day example doesn’t teach me anything very interesting, but the extreme example is different. In this case, it teaches me an important moral distinction between what I would term the morally ‘possible’ and the morally ‘impossible’. Sometimes we can bypass some moral duties if it’s in a good cause, or otherwise excuse them or justify them or ‘pay them off’, but other times we can’t.
I might lie to my children if it serves a good purpose, but I wouldn’t sell them into slavery for any purpose. One ‘wrong’ act is morally possible in a way that the other isn’t. This seems to me to be an obvious difference and it’s what philosophers capture with terms like ‘categorical’ or ‘absolute’ or ‘perfect’ duties. They are duties that admit no exception; they are things that you should never do.
It’s important for you to learn which duties fall into this category, lest you fall into doing them inadvertently. Because by that point, it will be too late.
I accept that people will see things differently and will disagree, but I am content to have a clearer picture of my moral world. My ethical life is my responsibility, after all, and only mine, and their ethical life is theirs and only theirs. It’s not my job to make their moral decisions for them, only to make my own. To make those decisions (in any way other than unthinkingly) I need a clear picture of my moral world. Imaginative philosophical reflection can help to serve that purpose.
A Practical Application
A clear picture of your moral world can help you live your life in a way that is consistent with yourself. In simple terms, it can help you avoid doing things that you will regret. I don’t expect ever to be put in the position of choosing whether or not to establish a utopia, or drop an atomic bomb, or ‘do a Jimmy Savile’, but what about something closer to home?
What about hitting a child, for the purpose of discipline?
The UK government in Westminster recently debated laws about banning the ‘smacking’ of children in any form. Currently this is the case in Wales and Scotland, so the question was whether England would align with these laws. They decided against aligning with the ban. As it stands in England, ‘smacking’ a child is legal so long as it doesn’t leave a visible mark. It’s a debatable issue and people have their views. Is the physical disciplining of a child always, sometimes, or never justifiable? Like a good student of Socrates, I ask myself where I stand.
Under what circumstances would I think it is right to hit a child? Not for personal enjoyment or satisfaction, obviously. Nor either for the entertainment of others. I cast these into the realm of the morally impossible. To do such things would show yourself to lack any contact with moral reality.
For discipline, then? As a punishment? I hit the child because it deserves it? But I know a child has limited moral accountability. I’m not quite clear where the line is drawn, and at what ages and stages moral accountability progresses with the child, but I know that a child isn’t as morally culpable as an adult.
Would I hit an adult, as punishment? Presumably not. Why not? Because I am afraid they would hit me back? What if I were significantly stronger than them, would that make it right? If the world heavyweight boxing champion (or perhaps an actor who played one) went around smacking people in the face because they’d stepped out of line, would we celebrate them? I think not. Would you think it right to hit your adult spouse if they stepped out of line? All clearly absurd. But if I wouldn’t think it right to hit an adult, who is fully morally culpable, then why would I think it right to hit a child, who is less?
For education, then? I have a duty to raise the child right, to teach it lessons, and so I hit the child because it’s the only way they will learn. They are not sufficiently cognitively advanced to understand my reasoning, so I must resort to the only language they understand: physical threat.
But is the language of physical threat the only language a child understands? Surely not: they learn all sorts of things without me hitting them about it. Is there really no other way they will learn, no alternative to violence? Asked like this, I think it’s clear that there is always going to be an alternative to physical threat, isn’t there?
I think most people who hit their children do so because they get irritated and angry. They lose patience. For whatever reason, they have given themselves permission to stop looking for alternatives to physical violence. Hitting their children is within the realm of the morally possible: it’s an option, and so sometimes they take that option. I think they justify it to themselves because they were hit as children (‘it did me no harm’) or otherwise see it as normal. They do this so much that they stop calling it violence and hide its reality under other euphemisms. ‘Are you violent to your children?’ Surely not! ‘Do you discipline them?’ Spare the rod, spoil the child…
It’s remarkable how often people defend their attitude to the physical punishment of children by parroting the cliches and platitudes of their parents (and grandparents), sometimes in a way that is strikingly out of character. I have seen otherwise bleeding-heart liberals defend the physical punishment of children on the basis that ‘otherwise you just make a rod for your own back’; but that’s not them talking. I should hit my child because it makes my life easier in the long run?! What a reason!
I suspect if we lived for two generations without any physical punishment of children it would swiftly become unthinkable to do so.
Considered from the perspective of the child, the situation becomes clearer, I think. A child can’t always understand what is going on: that is an essential part of the question. All they see is a giant, on whose good opinion their life depends, angrily displaying physical dominance. ‘I could kill you if I wanted’, the child hears, ‘so you’d better comply’.
Perhaps it does teach them a lesson, but is it a lesson we want them to learn? Are we glad to think of our children being so mortally afraid of us? Are we glad to be an object of fear, for them?
I think it’s a parent’s job to do what they can to protect the child from violence and the cruelty of the world, not be the source of it. Can’t we earn their respect in any other way? And isn’t it basically shameful to resort to violence against something you stand in such unequal physical and mental and emotional power towards? Can’t you be better than that? Wouldn’t you want to be better than that?
You can decide where you stand, but these reflections make my thinking clearer. I’d like for my children to not be afraid of me. I’d like for them not to carry that fear out into the world, where they will soon enough find enough things to fear. I’d like for them to feel like I have their back, no matter what. I’d like to be a source of safety and security for them, not fear and threat. I’d like to find a way to teach them lessons in ways other than violent ways, not least because I understand that moral understanding is something you have to come to see for yourself: you can be led to see something morally important but you can’t be made to see something morally important; you can’t be beaten into anything other than submission. Perhaps I am hopelessly naive. Perhaps I’ll learn as much in time.
Nevertheless, I come to my decision: I categorically ought not use violence against my child. For me, it is a moral impossibility. There can be no sufficient justification for it. I could not do it without incurring guilt and shame. I understand this because I probe my moral limits. And I probe those limits because there are limits, established by the cornerstones or hinges of what is inexcusable or unjustifiable. Jimmy Savile’s behaviour, for example, is inexcusable and unjustifiable. Beating a child for fun would fall into the same category. I investigate the ‘justified’ instances of violence towards children and see if they too fit into that category. I can only do this because there is such a category. If I couldn’t bring myself to say that Jimmy Savile’s behaviour was inexcusable, how on earth would I make sense of the question about whether it was right or wrong to hit my child?
It’s extreme examples of good and evil that teach us about these moral limits. Sometimes life is kind or cruel enough to show you these examples in your lived experience, and some ways of life are more likely to face those than others. Most of us have to rely on imaginative philosophical reflection. It’s no replacement for experience but it can still be a powerful tool. You should learn to use it well, before it’s too late.
Read more: The Problem of Evil as an Ethical Problem
Read more: Think Well, Live Well: A Free Introduction to Philosophy
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