The Standard of Morality

I have received not a few questions and opinions regarding various behaviors, practices and beliefs which some wish to elevate as morally good acts and righteous beliefs. In an effort to address these questions in an organized fashion, it seemed to me that the following work, adapted somewhat, might be beneficial.
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In setting forth the definition of Ethics...there is a standard to which human conduct must conform in order to be morally good human conduct. What is the standard?

That is the most important question in moral philosophy. A false standard of morality inevitably leads to moral concepts and principles destructive of the moral integrity of the individual and the [human] race and opposed to the very foundations of all social order.

Despite a knowledge of the true standard, mistakes will be made and moral de­pravity will exist. But to hold to a false standard would be to justify moral depravity and render true progress im­possible. Many men of great literary and scientific ability, possessed of many most estimable moral qualities, have pro­posed and do propose false standards of morality. This is due to fundamental error regarding the existence and nature of a personal God or regarding the nature and true dignity of a human person.

The purpose of this chapter is a clear and simple presen­tation of the true standard and a brief refutation of such false standards as still exert a wide influence. We shall introduce the subject by explaining what is meant by the moral order.

1. The Moral Order

The term "moral" primarily expressing a quality of the human act, is extended to other things that are in some way connected with the morality of the human act. Thus we speak of moral habits and principles and judgments, the moral standard, the moral law, the moral order.

The moral order is the order to which human actions must conform to be in themselves rightly ordered and morally good human conduct. In what does this order consist?

Every being has its own proper nature, its own intrinsic essential perfection and its own essential end or purpose. Beings differ in their essential nature, and some are essen­tially more perfect than others. Hence between beings arise essential relations, and thus is constituted an essential and immutable objective order in which each existing being has a definite place determined by its natural perfection.

Man's place in the objective order is thus determined. By nature he is essentially and immutably inferior to God, equal to other men, superior to the brute animal and all irrational creatures. In man the soul is essentially superior to the body, and reason is essentially superior to bodily sense.

Moreover, there are other relations founded on the essential nature of things that enter into the life of man, e.g., parent­hood, citizenship, etc. There is an essential, immutable relation between the parent as such and his child, between
the citizen as such and his State or Country, between the husband as such and his wife, between the subordinate as such and his legitimate superior, between State and State as such. There are essential relations founded on the es­sence of every valid contract made between person and person.

Man, endowed with reason, perceives the objective order of which he is an integral part. He perceives it as an exist­ing order established by a supreme power. He perceives it as the plan of a supreme wisdom, decreed and sanctioned by a supreme will for a supreme purpose. It indicates to man the way towards the fulfilment of his own supreme destiny as a part of the existing order. No man who has come to the normal development of reason can, except through his own fault, be ignorant of the more general re­quirements of this objective order.

Man's will is free. In the exercise of his free will he can conform his action to the order of supreme wisdom, thus freely acknowledging his own position in that order and the relations that exist between him and other beings. Such action is in harmony with his essential nature, befitting him as a man, morally good.

He can deliberately refuse to acknowledge these essential relations. If he does, his action is at variance with essential order, a revolt against supreme wisdom and will. It does not tend to promote but to frus­trate the supreme purpose for which man exists as a part of the existing order. It is opposed to his essential nature in virtue of which he occupies a definite position in the ordered universe. It is unbefitting him as a man and morally bad.

The order based on the essgntial nature of things is, therefore, rightly called the objective moral order. In it man possesses an objective criterion of what is morally good and what is morally bad.

It is as immutable as are the essential natures of the beings that constitute the uni­verse of being. The universal conviction that has ever pre­vailed regarding the essential moral badness or moral good­ness of certain acts is founded on the knowledge of the objective moral order.

Many of the essential relations that exist between beings are so evident that even the most de­praved savages could not fail to recognize that there are actions absolutely forbidden and others absolutely demanded by the Supreme Orderer of the universe.

And we are per­fectly conscious that it is the same translucent objective evidence that motives our judgments regarding the essential moral turpitude of blasphemy and murder and treason and perjury and calumny and impurity and ingratitude. We clearly perceive that no law or lawgiver or custom or convention or develop­ment or condition of things could make them good.

It is the province of special ethics to study in detail the requirements of the moral order. But to show more clearly that it is a criterion by which man should be directed in the conduct of his life, a standard to which human action should conform, we add here the following brief considera­tion.

As God is man's infinite Creator and Lord and Highest Good, what does essential order demand of man?

Evi­dently that he formally acknowledge God's infinite excel­lence and dominion and his own absolute dependence and subjection, that he give to God honor and reverence and loyal unstinted service and love and gratitude, that he make earnest persevering effort to know what God demands of him.

As the spiritual immortal soul is essentially superior to the material corruptible body, what does essential order demand?

Evidently that the lower faculties and appetites in man be made subservient to his higher spiritual faculties and aspirations. As all men, without exception, are equal in essential perfection, fellow servants in the same divine service, created for the same supreme purpose and destiny, what does essential order demand of man?

Evidently that he should love his fellow man with a love similar to that with which he cherishes himself, that he should do to others as he would others should do to him, that he be just to them and respect their rights.

And so we might ask ourselves what is demanded by the essential relations that exist be­tween man and the material things of earth, between parent and child, between husband and wife, between employer and employee, between the professional man and his client, be­tween a college and its students, a church and its members, between citizen and State, between State and State, between Church and State, between family and State, between man and his own life and bodily members and natural faculties.

In each instance we should first seek to know the end or purpose of the relation established and the means required for the due attainment of the end.

Finally, were we to take cognizance of the positive facts made known to man by supernatural revelation and to con­sider that, in the order actually established, its Supreme Author and man's infinite Creator destined man for super­natural glory, endowed him with supernatural gifts, pro­vided him with supernatural means and placed him under positive command to make use of the means provided, it would be incumbent on us to ask what essential order de­mands of man in view of the supernatural perfection thus bestowed and the supernatural relations thus established.

At one point only does this last consideration fall within the scope of the natural science of ethics.

Ethics teaches that one who has come to realize that God could and probably did so order things, should make a prudent earnest effort to know whether He has done so, and should be guided in the conduct of his life by the knowledge thus acquired.

This is the evident dictate of right reason. Essential order evi­dently demands it.

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Coming next, The True Standard and False Standards.

Adapted from Moral Philosophy
by Rev Charles Coppen, S.J.
(© 1924)