Hypocrisy: The New Morality
By Chad A. B. Wilson
Published October 23, 2006, 10:06 am in Ethics, Morality, & Justice.
Poor Mark Foley. Poor, poor Mark Foley. This guy just can't get a break. Sometimes I feel like he's getting raked over the coals for something that is a private matter. Other times, well...
The Joys of Moral Relativism
In general, I don't care what people do in their private lives. I will be friends with someone who visits prostitutes, does drugs, practices homosexuality, is a member of a religion I don't agree with, or heaven forbid, watches bad movies. But I still judge them on these things. What I judge is not their ability to be a good person, but their ability to be a good judge, a person whose judgment I can trust.
And that's what I want in a politician. Isn't that what we all look for in politicians? If someone says they believe in things just like I do, yet they DO other things that I would never do, then I may not be able to trust them to make the "right" decisions, meaning the decisions that I would make. And that's what we elect politicians to do in the first place. That's why we have different parties that (hopefully!) represent different viewpoints. In a democratic republic, we elect people to represent our viewpoints and we trust that they will do our will when it's time to make decisions.
The Basis for Judgment
We only have one thing that we can base our judgment about someone on and that is their previous actions. And when I talk about judgments and decision making here, I mean through all aspects of life. If I'm Catholic, and someone is protestant, I may not make a big assumption about how the prostestant will make decisions regarding many issues. But if I'm agnostic, and the person is southern Baptist, I may make some assumptions. Or if I believe in public education and a person sends their children to private schools. Or if I won't go watch Employee of the Month and someone else will. These are all actions that involve decisions.
So first, there are previous decisions regarding other issues. As I already said, if we want someone to make the decisions we would make, we have to trust the person is "like us," or that they have made decisions similar to ours in the past.
Second, there are previous judgements based on the same situations. If someone has made a decision in the past that is similar to a current decision, we can hopefully trust that the person will be consistent.
And it is this consistency that has helped define people in our society. If we don't have a genuine sense of morality, then we can own truly judge people on their own consistency. For instance, I don't think I can judge whether (let's choose a banal example here) homosexuality (nope, too loaded), umm, Islam (nope, too dangerous), umm, libertarianism (nope, I CAN judge that), umm, public libraries, there we go, are good or not. If I happen to think public libraries are a good idea (and I do), then that's just great for me. But if someone else--John, for example--thinks they're a bad idea, then I want to know why. John says that it isn't the local government's job to provide materials for the public. Mnay people do not use the service, and those people should not have to subsidize the people who do use it. Therefore, these services should be made private (like they used to be) and people can subscribe to them. Sort of like Netflicks.
I actually respect that argument. There is logic to it. My own reasoning tends in the opposite direction, but I still respect that argument. And heck, John seems like a smart guy.
It's Consistency that Matters
The trick, however, is to be consistent. If John makes any other argument that says that government funding is good under X circumstances, then I'm suspect. He had better have a darn good reason why government funding is bad in one case and good in another. So if John believes in public schools, public funding for the arts, tax breaks for religious organizations, etc., he's in the area of hypocrisy. Sure, the argument can be made that some of these things are good and some are bad, but John had better have a reason for one and not for the other. If John can do that, then his judgment holds up. Even though we may not share the same viewpoint, I may become convinced that his way is right, and I may even elect him to some public office. Why? Becuase his reasoning is consistent.
And consistency is our new morality. We have no other way to judge something absolutely. We can only judge a person on his or her external consistency. Now, if a person holds an internal view of morality (and most of us do), then we can judge someone based on our morality system. But this really is difficult. I happen to believe that file sharing on the internet is wrong. I don't download illegal music or movies. But if someone else does, and they have a valid reasoning for their actions, then I won't hold that against them.
I know murder or something like that will come up here. It always does when a type of moral relativism is espoused. But I'm not talking about moral relativism. The person who breaks the law is punishable under law. But it doesn't mean that he or she has done something immoral. Think of the file-sharing example. Anyone who downloads music is subject to disciplinary actions, certainly. They have broken the law and are subject to the law's punishments. We all agree to that by virtue of being citizens of this country. But it may not be wrong in and of itself. What is wrong is the inconsistency. Someone who says that we should obey laws and then breaks one will probably claim that the law isn't right. But unless you're Martin Luther King, Jr., you're probably walking on the grounds of hypocrisy.
And that's what gets me about Mark Foley.
Like I said: I really don't care too much about Foley's personal life. In reality, I don't think what he is accused of is all that bad. The emails are pretty innocuous. It's the supposed instant messaging that is the most damning (and weird). You can find a transcript of it on any newservice, but it's not for the faint of heart. It contains a lot of stuff about masturbation and other weirdness. If this conversation were between two consenting adults, I wouldn't give it a second thought. But the fact that it is between a minor and a Congressman upsets me. The Congressman is in a position of power (great power, actually, especially for a former page who probably desires a recommendation letter from this person to get into a university or law school). And the boy is under the age of consent. Therefore, it becomes actionable from the government's standpoint.
What seems to really upset people, however, is the fact that Foley was the chairperson of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus where he, according to the Houston Chronicle, "had introduced legislation in July to protect children from exploitation by adults over the Internet. He also sponsored other legislation designed to protect minors from abuse and neglect."
I think that's why he's censured so harshly. The House has censured members of Congress for this same thing before, and those previous censures invovled actual "relationships," to use Clinton's non-phrase. Here, they are a few instant messages. They're still wrong, however, because Foley was the person in the House whose job it was to protect minors from people like that that, or from him, or you know what I mean. It is the hypocrisy that gets us.
In the absence of a moral reference point, it is hypocrisy and consistency that defines morality. Maybe now we need to decide whether that's a good thing.
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