Moral vs. Legal

Legalism frustrates humanity’s need for a moral life.

I was deeply shocked when a good friend of mine, a leading philosopher and medical ethicist, told me that if President Lyndon Johnson were in his cross hairs, he would be morally obligated to pull the trigger. I recoiled at any such suggestion despite my deep opposition to the Vietnam war.

But what about other cases? There’s always good old reliable Hitler. First of all, you couldn’t know in advance about the actual extermination of the Jews. His statement of intent many times doesn’t rise to the level of “retribution.” Retribution is a post facto response made within a legal context by a responsible authority. But after the fact, if a person was alone with him would they be morally justified taking justice into their own hands. If Hitler was no longer in a position to do harm, probably not. However, if he still had authority and ability to order more Jews to be killed, then certainly yes. But what if he told you that he would not exercise this power? STOP. These cases could go on ad infinitum and in the process totally eviscerate the meaning of “morally.”

Now for a more difficult case. President Harry Truman decides to drop two atomic bombs on Japanese cities killing thousands of civilians just to avert the heavy losses to American troops having to conquer Japan on the ground. History tells us that Japan was ready to surrender to the Americans just as soon as the Russians entered the war in the Pacific. Assumptions are too ephemeral to be a basis for moral judgement, as are foresight or hindsight. Nor can we claim that the technological difference between a nuclear bombing and a rain of conventional bombs creates a moral difference. Even in a just war, killing “innocent” civilians deliberately is immoral. I’ve used quotation marks to question the exemption of civilians who politically support the war, buy war bonds, or work in the armaments industry. There is nothing moral about a just war that carpet bombs civilian areas.

Civilian resistance to a military draft as “conscientious objectors” is a moral position that has legal standing…sometimes. Muhammad Ali was not allowed to claim this status for two reasons: he was a Black Muslim and he earned his living by physically hurting others who voluntarily got into a boxing ring with him. Courts are empowered to read the minds and hearts of men.

In today’s volatile situation, the hardened political differences between left and right have been elevated to “moral status” and individuals feel justified in dispatching with each other violently. Extremists will consider as a moral act the assassination of leaders, legislators, officials and judges who do not support their positions. The legalists and the religionists need to come together to thwart any such developments. If we are morally engaged in our daily lives, then no ideologues or autocrats can use psychological and rhetorical tricks to confound us.

I know this topic deserves a book or at least an article in The Atlantic Monthly. Yet I will risk a little philosophy by pointing out that “legal” is relative and “moral” is absolute. For example, it is immoral to inflict pain in any degree to elicit information, whether you call it torture or “enhanced interrogation techniques.”This was never considered when Bush 2 got some dipshit lawyer to craft an argument for its legality in Guantanamo and in secret US-proxy torture chambers abroad. The minute you accept a pain scale as a threshold for morality, you have accepted an Orwellian worldview in which the individual is just an instrument of the state.

Like other empires, we live in a society of legalized immorality with a history of mythologized immorality. Such is the result of engaging in constant wars where violations of human rights abroad are fed back into our own moral mechanisms. An egregious exception is when careless drone attacks kill civilians and the drone operators are not charged with “negligent homicide.” We never seem to let our sense of morality or legality leapfrog to the battlefield.

The morality of a nation resides in the moral consciences of its citizens. It percolates up; doesn’t drip down. Living a moral life covers all situations from the bedroom to the boardroom. We should not vote for politicians who are rubber stamps for the military budget and who are against legislation that supports humane treatment of all citizens. Nor should we work for companies that poison the environment or make war more efficient. Nor should we tolerate unjust and unfair treatment of our fellow citizens.

The earth is a bountiful place and each human being is entitled by birth to an equal share. However, we have economic systems that enable some individuals to enlarge their shares. Such being the case, no person’s snare should be allowed to fall below that which ensures a healthy, fulfilling and stable life. That’s why solutions like a universal basic income are a moral imperative if we are to maintain a socially responsible.capitalism.