In morality, I began with the definition: “any question about morality is asking ‘what is the right way to live?’”. I went on to argue that there are no universally derivable rules or morals—no action is inherently right or wrong. I argue elsewhere that no one has a duty to do anything. And yet I feel a strong sense of right and wrong that extends beyond my own desires. In morality, I resolved this discrepancy by deriving weaker, technically non-universal morals that assume one wants to be successful, which seems to require survival. This granted me the ability to call something immoral if it works against survival. I was keen to point out that this “is not a strong definition of morals; it does not define what our morals are precisely, it defines the type of thing morals are”. I offered this weak solution as the end of the path.
I was wrong.
I had noted Daniel Quinn’s argument that “there is no one right way for people to live, any more than there is one right way for people to live, any more than there is one right way for birds to build nests or for spiders to spin webs” (My Ishmael, 188). I also explained that Quinn is “emphatic that the way most people are currently living is wrong”. But I missed a key insight: the way most people are currently living is wrong because they believe that there is one right way for people to live. Fundamentally, our righteous quest for expansion and conquering errs because it assumes that universal righteousness is possible. This impossible righteousness drives us to annihilate and discriminate against other cultures. Our way is right, so it would be wrong to leave. We are therefore obligated to dehumanize the unemployed and criminalize suicide in order to prevent exit. We must expand endlessly; any life not living the right way is our failure. These actions destabilize our civilization while eliminating alternatives. Our belief that there is one correct way to live guarantees our death. The concept of a correct way to live—what I defined as the essence of a moral question—thus itself becomes immoral.
Rightness is wrong.
Wrongness is permissible: some things are still valid while others are not. The issue arises with the assumption of uniqueness: that the rightness of one thing implies the wrongness of all others. Unique solutions permit only monocultures. Monocultures are inherently anti-robust, inclined to failure. Thus the single correct thing—the only thing which can be said to be the single correct thing—is multiculturalism. Multiculturalism, the celebration of many possible solutions, is inherently robust. It aligns with survival, and so allows for success.
This is not optional at any level. It is imperative for us to internalize this swiftly on a global scale. It is also important personally, to not assume that there is one correct way for a workplace to operate, or that because something works for you others’ alternatives are wrong for them. I struggle to apply this internally; my cultural proclivity to monoculturalism searches endlessly for the best way, the natural way, the healthiest way, the life hack that I’ve been missing all this time. My error lies in the search itself.
We have sinned. But the solution is not perfection, it is to abandon perfection altogether. The only solution is that there is no one solution. Morality is wrong.
chris mcelroy 