The Nature of Moral Judgements

In a world that is full of confusion and contradiction, it becomes a must for each individual to define the underpinnings of his/her own adopted worldview. One significant dimension of such adoption is the nature of morality and ethics, that is to say, what one is ought to do and what is not. This question of right and wrong has occupied great minds and intellects through history. Thus, an entire literature has been produced, and still being produced today, regarding this matter. However, what is considered as one of the hottest debate in this area is whether an objective and absolute moral body exists, transcending all worldly matters, or it is just a relative set of morals that guides human actions dependently. In this paper, it will be shown why an absolute system of values is a necessity for individuals in order for them to acquire real and deep-rooted morality, and how relativism doesn’t work even though many claim it does. Then there will be a brief introduction to the Islamic moral mainstream as an example of an objective set of morals.

The recognition or the denial of the existing of absolute moral standards determines all what comes after it. And this attitude, in its turn, is determined by one’s position towards the existing of a superior and omnipotence entity that is responsible for establishing such absolute values, for there is no possibility for an absolute system to exist without the existing of an ultimate supreme being. Therefore, all attempts that try to universalize certain values without taking into consideration the notion of God would never succeed because the ontological root of such values is missing. In his novel “The Brothers Karamazov”, Dostoyevsky demonstrates this idea in a brilliant short dialogue:

“It's God that's worrying me. That's the only thing that's worrying me. What if He doesn't exist? Therefore, for an atheist to be consistent with his mindset, he cannot claim any moral absolutes that are universally valid for all rational beings. In an interview with Justin Brierley (2013), Dawkins was very honest to admit this idea. He was asked if he believes that what makes rape wrong is just as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six, he frankly answered: “yeah, you could say that.”. Since, for him, ethics must be variable and evolving as everything else in the universe. According to Dawkins again, in his book “River Out of Eden” he states: “The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

However, the question here is not “can you be a good person without being a believer?” rather, it is “can you be a good person without the existence of God?”. As God is the ultimate source of morality; regardless if a person is an adherent to a certain religion or not, God has granted all his creations with an inherent capability of differentiating between the basic moral and immoral acts, and without God and this given instinct; any moral discussion would be futile. As stated by Sartre (1980), “The existentialist .. finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it”.

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Overall, the basic principles of right and wrong are not merely relative to a particular culture or society or to subjective individual opinion, rather, there must be a certain set of moral laws that consists of such things- an absolute virtues and absolute vices; in order for individuals to function and for societies to persist.

Consequently, after constructing the ontological foundations of the question of morality, and reaching the conclusion that absolute morals are a necessity; one can start examining the sources from which right and wrong can be derived, that is to say, investigating the epistemological level of morality. Taking Islam as an instance, it has no such thing as debate about the inherent morality of particular actions. Instead, there is the divine command and its interpretations by different schools and scholars. In Islamic thought, the issue was discussed under the title “al-husn wal-qubh”.The disagreement lies in the question of whether humans are capable of differentiating between good and bad by their mere reason or do they need a certain scripture or a divine revelation in order for them to be guided.

The early Muslim scholars seem to be divided into three main groups regarding this matter. First, the Muʿtazilites, who believed that good and evil are objective qualities of things. Thereby, the divine law doesn’t establish morality, rather, it indicates it. According to them, humans are capable of distinguishing between good and evil without the need for external guidance, and each individual is responsible for his choices regardless if revelation reaches him or not. However, there is a slightly easy objection from today’s reality which rebuts their argument. Inherently, almost everyone agrees that intoxication is bad, but no one by mere reason can conclude that a small quantity of alcohol is also bad. Nevertheless, according to Shari’a; “whatever intoxicates in large quantities, a small quantity of it is forbidden.”, thus, reason has limits and it cannot reveal everything God commands, therefore, it can be said that it is sort of injustice if God judges people on the bases of reason although revelation is absent from the picture.

Whereas according to the Ash’arite scholars, knowledge is derived by reason, but the obligation is established by revelation. That is to say, “knowing that something is good is separate from knowing that it is right or obligatory.” Many other Ash’aritists argue that what makes an action good or evil is divine commands, not its intrinsic nature.