C. MORALITY, ETHICS AND WISDOM

In this chapter, we will deal with some theoretical issues concerning wisdom and related fields. Reading the moralist writings, I often find in them a confusion of entirely different things that I want to call: “morality”, “ethics” and “wisdom”. The distinction between the first two—morality and ethics—is recently, quite widespread, but only among philosophers. Even among them, however, we have two schools that with a stubbornness, which is worthy of a better cause, insist on their identification. These are Neo-Thomism and Neo-Hegelianism schools. Members of the first because everything was created after the 13th century seems to them suspicious, Hegelists, because for them, everything that is different is identical. They call this a dialectic—they raised the confusion of concepts to the dignity of the philosophical principle.

However, only a few have noticed, it seems, the difference between morality and wisdom.

Against this confusion of ideas, I make the first statement:

c 1. What is usually called “ethics” consists of at least three different disciplines: morality, ethics, and wisdom.

I am writing “at least”, because one of the varieties of religious morality discussed below (chapter 5) is perhaps yet another area. I will try to explain what is the difference between them. For this purpose, I present certain proposals concerning the meanings of relevant names.

I. Morality

I will use the name “morality” here to mark certain orders, and not, as it is often made, of certain human attitudes. To find out what morality is in the meaning of this word, let us look at the following two orders (for simplicity I also call bans “orders”) which, if I am not mistaken, would all consider as moral imperatives:

a) Save the drowning child.
b) You will not cut the throat of your sleeping mother.

What the two orders have in common? A few features from which we will mention three: (1) They are firstly just orders, commandments. They do not say what is, but what has to be. In the language of logic, they are not sentences, but imperatives. (2) They have a categorical character. I want to say that they do not order under any condition, conditionally, but categorically, unconditionally. They do not receive rewards and are not punished. They are not related to any purpose. Question: For what purpose should I save my drowning child?”, it does not make sense. (3) They finally have, and probably it is the most important, character, that I express, ruthless, just the right one for them—in front of the moral order we have the impression of constraint, we feel that we cannot act differently than this order wants. This last feature is probably the most characteristic, we are not facing it anywhere else except morality.

We will use these three characteristics to define the meaning of the name “morality”. We will say that:

c 2. Morality is a set of categorical orders, absolutely binding.

Some deny this, indeed, that the moral orders are conditional to them, in particular, connected with the purpose. About these philosophers have been told with spite that they are demanding a tip they are not cutting the throat of their mothers. It is certain that the morality for fulfilling the obligation is not promising any reward. It says categorically: “Do this, and that”, nothing more. The commandments of morality are of such a nature, that even if keeping them would lead to punishment, they would not stop to be in force.

Our commandments have another common feature: they are obvious. A normal person does not need to prove them, he sees, that such a duty exists. However, this is not a feature of all the commandments of morality. They exist positions in which it is not immediately clear what obligation is required. In such cases, sometimes we can see what we should do by concluding from some other orders. For example, when it is an intention of abortion—people argue about its acceptability. Indeed, the ban on abortion is not obvious. Those who condemn them, get a ban: “You will not do abortion”, from a more general, obvious moral principle: “You will not kill an innocent man”. Let us also notice that the orders in our field from which we draw conclusion must be categorical and absolutely binding, that is, be moral imperatives. We can, therefore, make a further statement:

c 3. The orders of morality are obvious or result from obvious moral imperatives.

For the record, a few words about the relationship of morality to science. Science only deals with facts, with what is, and formulates only sentences. Morality contains no sentences, but orders, hence the statement:

c 4. Morality is not a science.

Against this statement, sometimes it is said, that moral obligation can be translated into sentences that science can deal with. More precisely, however, the orders cannot be translated into sentences. They can only be assigned to them. For example, to our order: “Save the drowning child” can be assigned the sentence: “Saving drowning child is a duty”. However, these are very special sentences that look like crypto-orders, because they contain the predicative “it is a duty” or similar. In addition, these sentences are not scientifically verifiable. Otherwise, it should be clear, that:

c 5. There is no scientific morality.

Such morality would contain orders derived from scientifically-established sentences. Whoever wants to deduce the order from the sentence commits the so-called “naturalistic sophism”, because from this that there is something never a result this, that something supposed to be.

II. Ethics

“Ethics”, as I understand here this expression, means a field entirely different from morality, although closely related to it. These include questions like:

a) Why is it the duty to save a drowning child?
b) Why is it not allowed to cut the throat of own mother?
c) What does it mean “be a duty”?

and the answers to them. For example, to the first question:

a) it is the duty to save drowning child because it is necessary for the preservation of the species.

Let us first point out that these kinds of questions and answers do not play any role in the consciousness or conscious of the man who feels morally obliged to something. But then, if to the man who saves a child, someone says that he is doing it for the prevention of the species, the rescuer would probably shout with indignation that he is bothered by the nonsense. He does not save the child for the prevention of any species, nor for anything else, but just because he sees clearly that he is obliged to do so. On the level of human conscious, ethical questions and answers do not appear at all. They appear, however, when we begin to think about moral orders. Hence, what here is called “ethics” sometimes bears the name “meta-ethics”. “Ethics” is then called our morality. This name, however, is badly chosen, because in modern logic, “the meta-science of science N” is called the science of language of “science N”. For example, “metamathematics” is the science of the language of mathematics. Neither the orders themselves, nor the more the conscious, that this ethics (it means, our morality) are not dealing with expressions of language.

Coming back, however, to our ethical sentences. We can ask ourselves what they have in common. The answer is that they have two such characteristics:

(1) they are sentences.
(2) they relate to moral orders and issues related to their existence

These are not orders but sentences; they are not saying what is supposed to be, but what is, and they say about moral imperatives.

c 6. Ethics is a set of sentences, therefore not orders concerning morality.

It should be clear, then, that ethics is not morality or morality is not ethics. The confusion of these two fields must today be considered as a conceptual mess. How far they differ one from another is also due to the fact that:

c 7. Ethics is a science and a part of scientific philosophy.

While morality is not the science (c 4.). It is also not without meaning the fact that nobody needs ethics in life. We can live well and morally without having the slightest idea about it.

c 8. Ethics is important only for philosophy, to life is not necessary.

While it is impossible to live without morality.

Morality and ethics

The ethics is dealing with the origin of moral principles and their meaning. However, these are not the same concepts. Moral principles usually take the form of sentences that are ordering or prohibiting, less often indicative. An example of a moral principle is, for instance, the ban “do not kill”. Violating these rules usually causes the internal psychological conflict, called a feeling of guilt.

Ethical principles, in contrast to moral ones, are general, philosophical statements resulting from a given worldview—the adopted conceptual system (in some cases also religious). On their basis, we can create specific orders and moral prohibitions. It often happens that different ethical principles lead to the same moral principles.

For example, from four ethical principles:

Human life is holy because it is a gift of God. (Christianity, Islam)

Taking off human life it is giving the greatest suffering. (Buddhism)

Human life is a fundamental value because we are all equal members of the human community. (humanism)

Human life is a property of the individual and the basis of his freedom, and taking off his life is a deprivation of liberty in a definitive way. (liberalism, individualism, anarchism)

we can deduce the moral order “do not kill”, although the ideological bases of these principles are entirely different.

However, not all ethical systems always lead to the same set of moral principles.

Analyzing, however, sets of moral obligations that are in force in various cultures and epochs, we can distinguish a set of rules that apply in the vast majority of them, such as a general ban of committing a lie, murder or theft.

There are also some contradictions in the foundations of worldviews (coming mainly from extreme thinking). An example here is often underlined by philosophers of ethics conflict between the principle of freedom (“man is free”) and the principle of equality (“all people are equal”). Both these principles are deeply rooted in European culture, but in extreme interpretation, they are contradictory, because absolute freedom leads to social inequalities, and imposing absolute equality to totalitarianism, that is, to the opposition of freedom. Hence the need to organize the rules and give them different weight. This arrangement is called the hierarchy of values.