– Task 4: Higher Laws; Can there be universal moral ideals, while, at the same time, our individual consciences are authoritative arbiters of right and wrong?

We – the people of the western society of the 21^st century – live in a society of double moral standards. We pet our dogs and cats, while eating our giant portion of meat, made from brutally slaughtered animals. We spend money for charity purposes. Subsequently we buy cheap clothes in stores, which support child labour and poor payment in third-world countries – we are aware of it but we refuse to recognize and change this behaviour. Yet, we consider ourselves as highly ethical, even superior to other societies, cultures, people and their ideas and ideals of morality.

Henry David Thoreau and, likewise, Thomas Nagel discuss morality and the issue of whether it is possible to submit universal ideals of morality or whether morality is a question of individual consciences in their works “Walden” (Thoreau) and “You can’t learn about Morality from Brain Scans” (Nagel).

In the chapter “Higher Laws” Thoreau approaches the subject matter by explaining his believe in two instincts in men. (Thoreau 229) The first one is the instinct of the wild and savage life. It might be considered the “first stage of humankind”, and it might be closer to nature – approaching it in a more realistic way than the second stage of instinct, which is considered to be the more important stage. (Thoreau 229) It is defined by the instinct for the spiritual life. (Thoreau 229) That idea of the spiritual life is closely linked to the ideas of morality and ethical ideals, and thus a somewhat better stage for the human mind. Furthermore, Thoreau states that our mind should have the control over our body (Thoreau 239), and “nature [the instinct of the savage] is hard to be overcome, but she must be overcome.” (Thoreau 241) Taking the said in consideration, we should understand morality as something that lies within the human nature. But we constantly need to make ourselves conscious of this part of our nature (e.g. through the renunciation of meat (Thoreau 235)) and have to work to maintain this stage of our instinct – the instinct with which we act and judge morally. Thus, morality grows within the individual; only based on this individual possibility of ethical behaviour, all humankind can learn and grow into ethical beings. In that sense, universal moral ideals origin within the individual and can become general guide lines. However opposed to Thoreau’s concept, Nagel emphasizes the idea of a universal moral principle. Thereby the individual conscience is much more an obstacle, which distracts and keeps the individual from following the moral pathway of the universal moral.

Every society has its own concept of morality, thus we (talking about the people from the western first-world hemisphere) are opposed to eating our enemies or for that matter, even to eating cats and dogs. But while conceding the right of a moral standard to oneself and to the own society, we cannot bar the same right from other societies and cultures just because we do not like their ideas of morality. Much less we should force our way of thinking onto other people. Certainly, the world needs some kind of guide line of universal moral ideas. Other-wise the cooperation between different people would not be possible. There is a need for a basic principle which helps the human mind to understand the mere concepts of right and wrong, but it must origin from within the individual itself. But at the end of the day, and this might be the most important aspect to be considered, morality is always a matter of subjectivity. In many cases it is ours to decide what we think is right and what is wrong. This individual conscience of right and wrong is a great possibility with which great responsibility occurs. And we (each individual for him- or herself) need to learn and understand the responsibility of our own subjective moral ideas to be able to pass that kind of understanding and exposure to morality on to the subsequent generations.

Thomas Nagel, “You Can't Learn About Morality From Brain Scans,” The New Republic, 1 Nov. 2013, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115279/joshua-greenes-moral-tribes-reviewed-thomas-nagel/ (accessed 18 Dez. 2013).

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2006. Print.