Morality and Perspective

By Richard Miller  

     I was asked by my most avid supporter, Leanne, to write some of my thoughts on the issue of situational morality and whether it is changing or unchanging.  Situational Morality, also known as Situational Ethics, is the issue choosing what you consider to be a lesser evil. You are given a couple options and both of them are bad, but one may be more positive than the other. Perhaps you are giving someone advice on a hard decision they have to make. In any case you are weighing things like life and virtue and the cost of sacrificing either one for the greater good.

    When one is faced with such a dilemma, it is natural to reach out to something outside of you and ask for guidance. When asking for guidance you will probably reach out to someone you believe is an authority on morality. This is probably someone you believe is a soundly moral person. This could be a respected friend, a parent or relative, or even God Himself. In any case you are seeking a moral standard to assist you in your decision. You do this to alleviate the burden that has been placed on you to make such a decision. When we are asked whether morality is changing, we are really asking if the standards of morality are changing.

    Here is an example of a dilemma involving Situational Morality also known as Situational Ethics. I’m going to use a military reference because it is familiar to me.

    The Situation: You are the commander of a company of troops and you are ordered to overtake an enemy stronghold. You have 200 men. You are told that you will most likely lose 30 men in your attempt to capture the stronghold. However, if you send 10 men to their imminent death in a diversion, the remaining 190 men can take advantage of the diversion and capture the stronghold unchecked. On one hand you stand to lose a lot of troops. On the other hand you are guaranteed minimal troop loss, but must knowingly sacrifice those 10 men to die. You are the commander, what do you do.

     If you are the commander you might be seeking advice on this situation. You might even be praying about it. Or maybe you don’t care at all. As long as you get the job done, then you are a success and the number of men you lose is irrelevant to you.

    The choice you make in this situation is going to depend on the one thing that has created an enormous amount of diversity throughout history. This thing is called Perspective. Perspective is always changing when you go from person to person, or from culture to culture. Take for example a piece of art, such as a picture or statue. When several people look at this piece of art, they may all have different interpretations of it. One person may think a painting has a sad and dark message, while another may interpret the painting as having happy and hopeful attributes. It’s still the same painting regardless of who looks at it. But it’s interpreted in a wide variety of ways by different people and cultures.

    Morality is viewed the same way as art in this sense with different cultures, different views, and all of them changing with time and place. It is in this sense that morality does, in fact, change. For example, back in the days of the Israelites, it was considered normal for a man to have more than one wife. This was accepted in the culture of that time and even accepted by God. Today the views on this issue are much different in America. Polygamy is looked down on and considered immoral. Those that partake of it are considered on the extreme ends of society. Our American society has dictated the morality of this idea as opposed to the ancient Israelites. Is one wrong and not the other? Are both societies wrong? It all depends on your Perspective.

    So at this point I have declared that morality is constantly changing with the different Perspectives of people and cultures of mankind. As societies come and go, so do the moral guidelines. As the values of life and virtue change, so do the answers to the problems of Situational Ethics.

    However, some people will object to this say that there is, in fact, an unchanging moral standard of which to base all of morality. These people are also correct. There is indeed a perfect and unchanging moral standard, but this standard cannot not be created by mankind.

    An unchanging moral standard can only be created by God. By definition God is perfect, eternal, unchanging, and thus his moral standard is also perfect and unchanging. So naturally, God’s authority and Perspective will survive the test of time and thus create a perfect unchanging moral standard.  If you want to achieve God’s moral standard, then you must achieve God’s Perspective. This is a hard thing to do. Perhaps it is impossible.

   In conclusion, the task of achieving God’s Perspective is often rejected or simply ignored because of what it implies. In order to see unchanging morality, we must see God’s Perspective, in order to see God’s Perspective we must become Godly, in order to become Godly we must turn from any and all sin. The idea of giving up any and all sin gives the vast amount of people reason enough to reject the pursuit of unchanging morality and settle for a slightly more comfortable standard made by the hand of man. Because of this, morality will be forever changing as mankind’s Perspective sways from one place to another.