My Struggle with Morality

Whilst watching the brilliantly crafted film “Shutter Island” directed by Martin Scorsese, I became interested in the conversation between Leonardo Dicaprio’s character, Teddy, and John Carroll Lynch’s character, Deputy Warden McPherson. The following conversation took place between the two, after Deputy McPherson had finally met up with Teddy, whom had been searching the island for clues regarding the intentions of the mental facility:

Deputy McPherson: God loves violence.
Teddy: I, I hadn’t noticed.
Deputy McPherson: Ha sure you have, why else would there be so much of it? It’s in us. It’s what we are. God gave us violence to wage in his honor.
Teddy: I thought God gave us moral order.
Deputy McPherson: There is no moral order as pure as this storm. There is no moral order at all. There’s just this: “Can my violence conquer your violence?”
Teddy: I’m not violent.
Deputy McPherson: Yes you are. You’re as violent as they come. I know this because I’m as violent as they come. With the constraints of society were lifted and if I was all that stood between you and a meal you would crack my skull with a rock and eat my meaty parts. Wouldn’t ya? Naehring thinks your harmless and can be controlled but I know different.
Teddy: You don’t know me.
Deputy McPherson: Oh I know you. We’ve known each other for centuries. If I was to sink my teeth into your eye right now, would you be able to stop me before I blinded you?
Teddy: Give it a try.
Deputy McPherson: That’s the spirit.

Deputy McPherson closely resembles the “Sophist” in his belief that ethical values are solely dependent upon the common values set in place by society. For McPherson there is no moral order, and in the absence of a moral authority put in place by society, each person will obey their instincts to survive. I admittedly believe that a strong argument can be made to strike down the notion of an absolute truth within all people. The idea that humans are a blank slate when they are born, and then trained to have a select amount of beliefs has always been tempting to me, yet seemingly still incomplete.

I am bothered by the idea that there is no intrinsic moral order that everyone with functioning facilities will share. There must be a fundamental set of principles that we as rational beings conclude to be imperative to life. I imagine at one point in the human history, people’s mere goal was to survive on a world that was in constant fluctuation. Essentially whatever means that were necessary to survive were accepted. Violence was certainty necessary for humans whom lacked social order to survive. As beings with an unparalleled intellect, a general set of rules concerning morality must have been mutually developed over time. The dynamics of human relationships are heavily reliant on the relational aspects between humans, therefore order is necessary. Humans were equipped with rationality, to have an eventual development of a common morality.

All people are born with preferences. A natural way of thinking and decision making are basic values that every person has. A definite moral order was not set in place from the beginning, with everyone accepting a finite list of things that were and were not morally acceptable. There is a certain level of moral order that has not been tapped into until humans were able to synergize modern intellect, and morality. As humans evolved intellectually, they saw the need to put in place moral order so that we could live in a much more unified way. Now when humans are born into a time where there is a set of rules and guidelines one must follow to function in society, they have the choice to follow these rules or not, all depending on their preference. What is conceived as morally permissible is different for each person depending on their own natural inclination, but now it is also subject to the limitations of society.

Virtue can’t be taught in the sense that our preferences can’t be taught to us. Once morality is taught to us on a very basic level, we make decisions to follow it or not based on preference, but once we make our decisions having been informed of it, there is usually no going back. You are born with a perspective on things that I believe can allow you to be moral or not.