Many of our opinions have a moral component: they depend on what we think is good, right, and fair. Such opinions are often betrayed by the word “should” and contrast with empirical statements, which are betrayed by the word “is”. For instance, “global temperature is rising” is a putative empirical fact, but “we should do something against global warming” is a morally infused opinion.
An interesting difference between statements of fact and morally infused opinions is that the former tend to stabilize over time as a result of research, while the latter typically continue to show fluctuations. Sometimes these fluctuations are massive. When reading on psychology’s troubled history with eugenics (the “betterment of the human race” through selective breeding), one of the most difficult things to appreciate is that proponents of eugenics were precisely as certain of the righteousness of their moral positions, as we are of ours. They were idealists, convinced that they were doing good. This is hard, really hard, to internalize.
A recent example of a moral fluctuation is the outrage over the song “Do they know it’s X-mas” by the Band Aid collective of the 1980s. Band Aid, at the time, was the summum of morality in the popular opinion; people like Bob Geldof and Bono were almost saints. Recent commentators, however, doubt whether Band Aid’s net value was positive. They claim that the long-term effect of Band Aid in the public eye was to create the image of an Africa that could not stand on its own feet and that needed shepherding from the West. Some argue that this imagery of the West as the helper hero and Africa as the helpless victim is part of a narrative that has done more harm than good.
I don’t know how to adjudicate such issues, but as a psychologist I do find it interesting that moral opinions can show these flips over the span of human life. What’s also interesting is that they are held with great vigor, and largely are defended in similar ways in different times, even if they are directly opposed. Friends from my youth, who were fiercely against nuclear energy and argued for keeping coalmines open, reasoned with very similar arguments and in a very similar style to my current friends, who are against coalmines and for nuclear energy.
As a result of their volatility, moral opinions are risky. They can turn against you over time. The problem is that you can’t predict how that will happen or why, so it’s almost impossible to anticipate. For this reason, I have personally come to hold moral opinions with care and a certain amount of distance. I have also found it useful to engage with people who hold different opinions, and to do so on the assumption that they may be equally intelligent and equally good people. The philosopher Nietsche stated that “the surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently”. Irony has it that Nietsche’s proposition is itself morally infused, and that he is himself a prime example of one whose opinions have been held in the highest esteem and the deepest contempt in different moral climates. You never can tell, with this type of opinion.
Many of our opinions have a moral component: they depend on what we think is good, right, and fair. Such opinions are often betrayed by the word “should” and contrast with empirical statements, which are betrayed by the word “is”. For instance, “global temperature is rising” is a putative empirical fact, but “we should do something against global warming” is a morally infused opinion.
An interesting difference between statements of fact and morally infused opinions is that the former tend to stabilize over time as a result of research, while the latter typically continue to show fluctuations. Sometimes these fluctuations are massive. When reading on psychology’s troubled history with eugenics (the “betterment of the human race” through selective breeding), one of the most difficult things to appreciate is that proponents of eugenics were precisely as certain of the righteousness of their moral positions, as we are of ours. They were idealists, convinced that they were doing good. This is hard, really hard, to internalize.
A recent example of a moral fluctuation is the outrage over the song “Do they know it’s X-mas” by the Band Aid collective of the 1980s. Band Aid, at the time, was the summum of morality in the popular opinion; people like Bob Geldof and Bono were almost saints. Recent commentators, however, doubt whether Band Aid’s net value was positive. They claim that the long-term effect of Band Aid in the public eye was to create the image of an Africa that could not stand on its own feet and that needed shepherding from the West. Some argue that this imagery of the West as the helper hero and Africa as the helpless victim is part of a narrative that has done more harm than good.
I don’t know how to adjudicate such issues, but as a psychologist I do find it interesting that moral opinions can show these flips over the span of human life. What’s also interesting is that they are held with great vigor, and largely are defended in similar ways in different times, even if they are directly opposed. Friends from my youth, who were fiercely against nuclear energy and argued for keeping coalmines open, reasoned with very similar arguments and in a very similar style to my current friends, who are against coalmines and for nuclear energy.
As a result of their volatility, moral opinions are risky. They can turn against you over time. The problem is that you can’t predict how that will happen or why, so it’s almost impossible to anticipate. For this reason, I have personally come to hold moral opinions with care and a certain amount of distance. I have also found it useful to engage with people who hold different opinions, and to do so on the assumption that they may be equally intelligent and equally good people. The philosopher Nietsche stated that “the surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently”. Irony has it that Nietsche’s proposition is itself morally infused, and that he is himself a prime example of one whose opinions have been held in the highest esteem and the deepest contempt in different moral climates. You never can tell, with this type of opinion.
