Is There a Moral Yardstick?
Second in a series on the foundations of Christian ethics
Rod Frohman Third
Presbyterian Church August 8, 2004
Exodus 20: 1-17, Romans 2:12-16 Matthew
22:34-40
In the City of Paris, lying in a vault opened just once each
year, in the custody of the International Bureau of Weights
and Measures, is a metal bar made of platinum and iridium. On
this bar are etched two fine lines, which at O degrees Centigrade
are precisely one meter apart. Traditionally, this meter-bar
was defined as one ten millionth of a line running from the
Equator to the North Pole. This meter bar used to define how
the whole world measured distance. Now, since 1960, the meter
is measured by how far a wave of krypton 86 radiation travels
in 1/300 millionth of a second in a vacuum. (Actually it is
1/299 792 458 of a second. Source: http://www.bipm.fr/en/home/)
Is there a moral meter bar, a moral yardstick? Is there a
universal standard to measure moral behavior? How long does
it take for a person to decide to steal or kill?
When Viktor Frankl was imprisoned by Hitler in World War II
in concentration camps he found that life was at its worst.
But he also found that he still had the inner sense to measure
his attitude and outlook on life. Does everyone have this quality?
And if so, why would Stacy DeBeer, of Ontario County (NY) admit
leaving two infants to die after giving birth to them alone
and at home in 1998 and 2003 and then, with the aid her husband,
hide the bodies of her children by burying them in pails of
cement. Where was her and his moral yardstick just when they
needed it most?
St. Paul says in Romans: When Gentiles (that would be us) who
do not possess the law, (that is, the Ten Commandments) and
do instinctively what the law requires; these, though not having
the law are a law to themselves. They show what the Law requires
is written on their hearts to which their conscience also bears
witness. (Romans 2:14-15a)
This internal moral law or yardstick is commonly known as
a conscience. Do we really have one? The A&E TV channel
recently had a series on the madmen of the 20th century, Hitler,
Mussolini, and Stalin. What happened to the conscience of these
and their followers? Or, to put the shoe on the other foot,
this weekend is the 59th anniversary of the atomic bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, again the occasion for debate about
the morality of that action. Some WW I veterans have told me
that they “Thank God” for the bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. To use less extreme examples, why would we cheat
on our income taxes, or sideswipe a parked car and not leave
a note for the owner? What is a conscience?
There are four common understandings of what conscience is.
(Fletcher, Joseph, Situation Ethics, Westminster, 1966, p. 53).
Some have said that it is an innate, radar like, built-in
faculty akin to intuition, a type of ethical intuition. That
is, people know the right thing to do like a mother intuitionally
knows how to nurse a baby.
Others, like the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth, have thought
the conscience to be a inspiration from the outside of the person,
a Word from beyond the decision-maker, (Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Ethics, Seabury Press, c. 1981 p. 477) a kind of moral satellite-guided
global positioning system. The reigning popular theory of conscience
today is "introjection" -- the idea that conscience
is the internalized value system of the culture and society
in which one happens to live. The conscience is thus not universal
in all humans but its shape is dictated by specific cultures
and environments. We are, as it were, a blank bar of platinum
on which is etched the dimensions of a moral code by our environment.
Thus, for example, this would suggest that a repeatedly abused
child will tend to grow up and abuse his or her children.
The fourth way to look at conscience is that it is reason
that makes moral judgments or value choices. This idea assumes
an ability to reason is found in everyone and that a conscience
can be developed with right reason. This is the classical system
developed by St. Thomas Aquinas.
The problem with these four understandings of conscience (ethical
intuition, satellite guidance system, introjected values, and
reasonable choice) is that they treat conscience as a noun rather
than a verb. That is, conscience is seen as a yardstick (a noun)
used to measure things, rather than (a verb) an act of measuring
life as it moves along.
If we understand conscience as a noun, something we have,
a moral internal organ, a bag of reliable rules and principles,
then we would have to say with Huckleberry Finn, as he wrestled
with whether or not to be a friend to the runaway slave Jim:
" If I had a yallar dog that didn't know more than a person's
conscience does, I would poison him. It takes up more room than
all the rest of a persons' insides and yet ain't no good, nohow."
(Ibid.)
Of course Huck (and Mark Twain) is wrestling with the racist
mores of his early 19th century mid-western culture versus the
instinct of friendship that has already begun with a runaway
slave. Huck wants to eliminate that part of his conscience that
goes against the rules of his society.
What I would like to submit is the verb idea; conscience,
is not something we have but something we do. And for Huckleberry
Finn, and all of us, there is a different and harder, not easier,
way to resolve moral dilemmas. Rather than beginning with a
moral yardstick to measure all situations, we need to begin
with each situation. This is called "situation ethics"
and was made famous by Joseph Fletcher.
The situational approach is the one advocated by Jesus in
the Gospel lesson today when he is asked a trick question by
a Pharisee, "Which is the greatest commandment?" Notice
that Jesus doesn't even quote the 10 Commandments but "The
Shema”, an interpretation of the 10 Commandments in Deuteronomy
6:5. He responds:
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul and with all your mind." Then Jesus
goes on to say, "This, the greatest and first commandment.
And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these hang all the Law and the prophets." (Matt 22:37-40)
Jesus was a situational ethicist. The Pharisee was looking
for a universal moral yardstick by which to measure all situations.
Jesus, "The situationalist, enters into every decision
making situation fully armed with the ethical maxims of his
community and heritage [the 10 Commandments]. The situationalist
treats these ethical maxims with respect as illuminators of
the problem at hand. But just the same, the situationalist is
prepared to compromise them, or set them aside when the situation
of love [of God and neighbor] seems better served by doing so.”
(Ibid. p. 26)
The internal moral yardstick, the conscience, cannot work
like an objective standard of measurement for all situations
because, first of all, the conscience IS conditioned by our
society, (introjection is a reality) and secondly, because there
is a higher standard of measurement, the yardstick of love,
and this yardstick has a sliding scale. If we set the limits
of a moral meter bar without reference to real life, there will
be a situation that it cannot measure. Which is precisely why
the International Bureau of Weights and Measures changed from
a platinum bar to wave spectrometry as its standard of measurement.
In order to send and exploratory satellite to Saturn, the accurate
distance cannot be measured by a platinum stick. This analogy
applies to the 10 commandments. It does not reduce the 10 Commandments
to 10 "suggestions" but it holds them up to a higher
standard, the law of love.
For example, in the face of the Nazi atrocities the Lutheran
Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer chose to violate the 6th commandment,
"Thou Shalt not Kill", and he twice, unsuccessfully,
tried to assassinate Hitler. Said Bonhoeffer from his book Ethics,
"The question of the good is posed and is decided in
the midst of each definite yet unconcluded unique and transient
situation of our lives, in the midst of our living relationships
with people, institutions and powers, in other words in the
midst of our historical existence. There is no good without
the real." (Ethics. p. 191)
Notice, contrary to popular belief, the situational perspective
on ethical decisions does not throw out responsibility. As a
matter of fact it increases responsibility therefore making
it harder. Bonhoeffer could have said, "It is immoral to
kill therefore I will not kill. I will remain morally pure despite
the fact that a madman is loose." This would have been
morally consistent, but irresponsible.
Again from WW II, The English Archbishop of Canterbury, William
Temple, said it most succinctly; "Our obligation is relative
to the situation, but our obligation in the situation is absolute.
(Italics mine) We are obliged to tell the truth but if a murderer
ask us his victim's whereabouts our duty might be to lie.”
(Fletcher, Ibid. p. 27)
"A cartoon in a magazine once showed Moses scowling, holding
the stone tablets of the 10 Commandments and an eager stone
cutter saying, 'Perhaps you will let us reduce them to one:
'Act responsibly in love'?' It was meant to be a dig at situation
ethics" (Ibid. p. 28) but stated exactly what Jesus called
for, to love God with all one's heart and one's neighbor as
one's self.
Another way to look at this is using the analogy of football
or baseball. The rules, or the moral yardstick, would say, "Punt
on the fourth down", or "take a pitch when the count
is 3 balls and no strikes". Observing theses rules distinguishes
the seasoned player from the novice. But there are situations
where they can and must be broken if the game is to be won.
"Christian situation ethics [is not a yardstick] but
a [three step] method that proceeds first from the basic idea
of love of God and neighbor to, [secondly,] the wisdom of the
church and culture which contain many general rules like the
10 commandments to, [thirdly,] the moment of decision in which
the responsible self [H.R. Niebuhr] in the situation decides
whether the rules and commandments are loving or not. To legalists
[who start and end with the 10 commandments] this may sound
like throwing the baby out with the bath water.” (Ibid.
p. 33)
To put Christian situation ethics all together let us take
the controversial issue of abortion. It is timely in that we
are 31 years from Roe vs. Wade. In 1973 the US Supreme Court
struck down a Texas abortion law as vague and overbroadly infringing
those plaintiffs' Ninth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
But let's take our example out of the US. Ireland has an anti-abortion
amendment in its constitution. In a famous case in February
of 1992 the Irish Supreme court issued a permanent injunction
preventing a 14-year-old rape victim from traveling to Britain
to have an abortion. Let us see how this issue would be handled
by those who use a "yardstick" understanding of morality,
versus those who use the ethics of responsible love.
The logic of the Irish Supreme court position is that the
taking of fetal life is an act of murder, forbidden by the 10
Commandments. While the rape is not condoned, the pregnancy
of the 14-year-old is seen to be a hidden blessing from God,
something good, a baby, coming out of something bad, a rape.
Those who take this stance also say that all pregnancies are
to be accepted regardless of the extenuating circumstances of
rape, incest, or fetal deformity. In other words, the workings
of nature are virtually the actions of God.
On the other hand, the situationalist, using the ethic of
responsible love, would look at this situation and conclude
that at best this Irish supreme court case is morally ambiguous.
The ambiguities to this case are:
1. It is morally difficult to kill germinating life.
2. The mother is possibly too young to successfully carry the
fetus to term.
3. Or maybe she is too young to be a mature mother.
4. Further, there is no guarantee that the fetus will be physically
or emotionally healthy given the genetic history of the rapist-father.
5. What about the personhood of the fetus? Biologically takes
4.5 months of gestation for the neo-cortex of the brain of the
fetus to show reasoning capacity. But heartbeats are detectable
much earlier. Abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy is
not the same as abortion in the 3rd trimester.
6. Pregnancy should be a joyous occasion and not the result
of a rape.
7. An abortion amendment in the Irish constitution takes away
the personhood of the 14-year-old. She is given no choice in
the matter.
8. Lastly, why bring into our over-populated world a child that
is not wanted.
Following the 10 commandments in this situation would support
the Irish Supreme Court. So what is the act of love of God and
neighbor in this situation? That is a good question. I will
not give my answer but suggest you puzzle this one over lunch
today.
Using the ethic of responsible love is more complex than using
a simple yardstick.
Is there a moral yardstick? Yes. It is called the 10 Commandments
Should we use them? Only as part of our moral method. The yardstick
is not the method. Responsible love is the method.
As Jesus said, "You shall love the Lord your God with
all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind.
And You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these hang
all the yardsticks." Amen
Will we always make the right choice using Jesus' ethic of
responsible love? This brings us to next Sunday when the topic
is: God and Nat King Cole.
