In a recent article published in The Atlantic by David Brooks which draws on the work of moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre to present a historical account of how we have arrived at a point where Trump’s lying, cheating, bullying, racism, greed, and general amorality are not just tolerated but accepted and even supported by millions of Americans.
According to Bloom, Alasdair MacIntyre located the start of the erosion of common morality in the Enlightenment when it “took away the primacy of the community and replaced it with the primacy of the autonomous individual”. To support autonomous individuals public systems of law, education, individual freedoms, and democracy were established.
With the rise of the individual what had been a widely accepted morality came into question eventually resulting in moral relativism. In this state of affairs who is to say how we should behave toward one another. People like Marx and Hitler had their own ideas about this but we know how those turned out. Others have come up with social systems they believed would either reinstate a common morality or work without one but all have been shown to be fatally flawed.
Bloom quotes Ted Clayton, a political scientist at Central Michigan University,“MacIntyre argues that today we live in a fragmented society made up of individuals who have no conception of the common good, no way to come together to pursue a common good, no way to persuade one another what the common good might be, and indeed most of us believe that the common good does not and cannot exist.”
It is this state of affairs that Trump has exploited. With no common morality to overcome he is at liberty to do whatever he wants. The legal system is no deterrent to him because he can afford to mount endless countersuits and appeals. People who have become disenchanted with living in this purposeless and pointless world want a way out or, better yet, a saviour. The old ways have failed them. They are trapped in meaningless lives. Donald Trump exemplifies to them a person who has conquered the very system that has beaten them down. They want what he has and the way to do that is to follow his example. Who best to lead them in that pursuit than the man himself?
But if you are not one of those who is betting on Trump to satisfy your every need what are you to do? We have seen that systems designed to compensate for the absence of a common code of morality have not worked. What might be a flaw that is common to these failed attempts? I believe the fatal flaw in them all, including the spectacular disasters of Marxism, Facism, and Naziism is that they were all based on some kind of faulty assumption. True they were different assumptions but they all had assumptions made by imperfect human minds. Since there are no perfect human beings we need to look elsewhere for a the basis of a common morality.
Fortunately, we need look no further than our own fundamental nature. The answer we seek is not something we need to devise, it is what we are and what we are part of. Like those who made mistaken assumptions in their attempts to formulate workable social systems we have been labouring under an erroneous assumption about the fundamental nature of our existence. And this is why we have failed to discover a common morality. We have been ignorant of our most fundamental commonality, a commonality that unites us the ocean joins its waves.
We have all been fooled by appearances into assuming that we are separate, autonomous individuals living in a world of separate, independently existing things. It is an easy mistake to have made. We can hardly be faulted for thinking ourselves and the things in the world exist separately when this is how things are presented to us by our senses.
Lately people have begun to notice seemingly separate things actually rely on other things to exist. This is particularly obvious when it comes to living things. Even simple single-cell organisms cannot exist in a vacuum. They need to acquire nutrients from the environment and energy from the sun in order to live. This dependence on other things for subsistence increases with the rise in complexity of organisms. In fact, it is now recognized that no living thing can exist independently. All living things, including ourselves, exist as interdependent phenomena.
This understanding has profound implications in the search for a basis for common morality. Because it is the foundation for our existence and not just someone’s assumption about human nature we can have complete trust in its moral implications. Questions about whether behaviours are good or bad can be decided by the degree to which they recognize and support our interdependent existence. The recognition of interdependence as an inescapable and necessary fact of existence gives rise to values that provide moral guidance such as sustainability, cooperation, compassion, appreciation of diversity, contribution, respect, etc.. Unlike the attempts to design moral systems by imperfect human beings that were based on faulty assumptions about the nature of things a moral system arising out of the observable nature of things, including our existence, is virtually indisputable. To dispute its ultimacy would require a denial of the sacredness of life itself which, in turn, would render the need for a common morality meaningless since nothing would ultimately matter.
The solution to the question of where to find a foundation for a common code of morality has been solved but it will require a widespread recognition of our essentially interdependent nature to make a difference in our day to day lives. It will require nothing less than a rethinking of our priorities as a species that is informed by a deep understanding of the principle of interdependent existence. An extensive overhaul of our institutions will be needed. An educational curriculum centred around conveying our interdependence with one another and the environment will be essential to instilling the morality of interdependence in future generations.
This is how we abolish the moral vacuum that Trump occupies and that compels people to pin their hopes on him.
It is a daunting undertaking. Recall that moral philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre, felt that we are living in a society that is so fragmented that most people believe a common good doesn’t and can’t exist. But with the knowledge of our interdependent existence and the values it includes we are no longer in the confused and seemingly hopeless state of moral relativism without no conceivable clue what to do about it. The sticking point has been resolved. A common morality based on the nature of reality exists. All that now remains is the surmountable task of spreading awareness of the good news. The rest will surely follow.