#70: What’s Morals? (PART 2)

【Moral Boundary】
Despite certain practice deemed a custom, the norm, or derived from a good reason, that in and of itself doesn’t make it morally correct. So then, what’s morals?
 
Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher who lived around 300 years ago, spent a significant portion of his life answering just that. According to Kant, Moral correctness is achieved when you Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.
 
I know, that’s a bit confusing, so let’s look at this through a sample question: Is slavery morally correct?
 
Slaves are people controlled by force and terror; deprived of freedom, dignity, and rights; subjected to forced labor and exploitation; and treated as property. Often, “people called slaves” are born into slavery, and they're shackled to bondage for life by brute force.
 
Slavery existed all across the globe, from as early as 5 thousand years ago in ancient Egypt to institutional enslavement that persists even today in the developing countries. In hopes of universally advancing human rights and world peace, the United Nations General Assembly explicitly banned slavery in 1948. Nevertheless, approximately 40 million people are still enslaved in our present-day society under various forms including human trafficking and child labor.
 
As slavery infests human society for such a long time, there surely must be a reason, and at least during some segments of our history, it must have been deemed a custom or the norm.
 
And that reason, in most cases, is cheap labor for unpleasant work.
 
Those work included, among others, heavy labor in mines and agriculture, human sacrifice to gods, domestic labor, and sex slaves. Despite the initial capital expenditure required up front, slaves secured long-term returns for their owner via cheap labor. What’s more, the slave owner also owned slaves’ newborn babies, in essence supplying a perpetual cycle of cheap labor or capital gains when the owner chose to sell them. This incentivized the slave owner to buy slaves rather than hire workers.
 
And for these reasons, slavery is continued. And when such practice was carried out and carried on by the majority, that practice became a custom or the norm.
 
So then, we return to the question: Is slavery morally correct?
 
If slavery is, indeed, morally correct, then we must be able to conclude that It would be perfectly acceptable for me, you, our loved ones, and everyone else to be enslaved. That’s essentially how Kant would explain of morals.
 
To be sure, no one in their right mind would willingly accept their own life to be controlled by brute force and terror. In all fairness, we all want our own freedom, dignity, and rights to be respected. And of course, no one wishes to be shackled to a life of forced labor and exploitation just because we’re born into slavery.
 
Consequently, despite it being a custom or the norm for thousands of years, slavery is unambiguously morally wrong. It’s because in our right mind and all fairness, we resolutely oppose to conclude that It would be perfectly acceptable for me, you, our loved ones, and everyone else to be enslaved.
 
As cited in the previous post, Cultural Relativism is a truly noble idea from a broad perspective of accepting the unfamiliar. It serves as a basic starting point in humbly admitting that any one custom cannot be construed as “correct” or “incorrect” just because they’re different from our own.
 
Nevertheless, in light of morality, one custom can be construed as “correct” and another “incorrect”. That is, for example, those that condemn slavery is morally correct, and those that condone slavery is morally wrong. To see that moral boundary, we must determine whether or not It would be perfectly acceptable for me, you, our loved ones, and everyone else to be treated the same way.
 
Morals hinge upon that.

Read Next: What’s Morals? (3)【Meat-Eating Custom】
Read Previous: What’s Morals? (1)【Custom & Norm?】
 
Complete Series: What’s Morals? (1)～(8)
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