Why be Good?

A Little Book Of Guidance

Robin Gill

• Publisher: SPCK Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780281076567
• eBook ISBN: 9780281076574
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Ethics & Religion

Most of us think we know right from wrong, even if we have no particular religious faith.

But where does that knowledge come from? Is it something we're born with? Or is it something we learn from the culture in which we grow up?

Robin Gill examines the major reasons that people give for trying to lead a good life, and considers what is distinctive about the teaching of Jesus on this vital subject.

1

Because some things are evil

Alex Garland’s much praised 2015 film Ex Machina concludes with a moral dilemma. From the outset the film is concerned to test whether a humanoid robot, played with aplomb by the Swedish actress Alicia Vikander, can pass the test of being able to think for itself. Slowly it becomes evident that this human artefact can indeed do so and is fully sentient. But is it/she actually moral? In the much-debated final scene the robot appears to kill not just the scientist who had created and then threatened to destroy her, but also the well-meaning visitor who has fallen in love with her and has just helped her to escape. Apparently she kills without any moral discrimination. She may well be sentient but it is not evident that she is actually moral.

Fans of the film debate whether or not the visitor might actually have survived after all. If there is a sequel doubtless we will discover. Less noticed by the fans is the title Ex Machina. Some readers may be familiar with the Latin tag deus ex machina, literally ‘God from a machine’. In Ancient Greece the plots of plays could sometimes become so entangled that the directors had to swing in a god (using a wooden machine) to resolve them. In the modern world deus ex machina has become a tag identifying a particularly poor argument that, say, uses God inappropriately to resolve a problem. Perhaps this was in Garland’s mind. After all, at the outset there is an observation by the visitor that the scientist has been ‘playing God’ in creating this humanoid robot. Perhaps this scientist/god had neglected to give his artefact a moral sense.

This speculation apart, we probably don’t need science fiction to remind us that some humanoids appear to be devoid of a moral sense. Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Stalin: The court of the Red Tsar offers a deeply shocking example from real life, as its blurb suggests: ‘In this history of Stalin’s imperial court, the fear and betrayal, privilege and debauchery, family life and murderous brutality are brought blazingly to life.’1 Stalin’s murderous brutality spread outwards from his own family and close colleagues to millions of his own people. Anyone offering criticism, political opposition or simply non-compliance was threatened with extinction. Indeed, Stalin soon learned that extinction was the most effective way to end dissent. He seemed to be at least as devoid of moral compunction as Ex Machina’s humanoid robot.

The Mafia contract killer Richard Kuklinski (1935–2006) is another example of someone seemingly devoid of moral compunction. After a quarter of a century of contract killing he was eventually convicted of five murders and imprisoned for life but not executed. While he was serving his whole-life sentence he was able to give extensive interviews to journalists and criminologists. In these he confessed to the murder of more than a hundred other people, including a policeman. He claimed to have proved his worth initially to the Mafia by calmly killing an innocent pedestrian when ordered to do so by a Mafia boss. He apparently took particular pride in devising different methods of torturing and murdering his victims (including the use of a crossbow to kill a stranger simply to test out its effectiveness). He was so prolific a murderer – both for the Mafia and for his own satisfaction (often just to settle petty personal grudges) – and so morally unconcerned about his actions that he inspired a film and voyeuristic book about his life based upon hours of his prison interviews. How could he have been so morally indifferent about his monstrous actions?

John Webster, one of the first British soldiers to witness the horrors of the Belsen concentration camp, died recently aged 93. His Times obituary recalled:

Noticing a group of white buildings through the trees that, as he put it ‘looked not quite right’, he turned off down a track to investigate . . . He found an empty pit 25 yards long and nine feet deep, then another, a few yards farther on, filled with skeletal bones. Beyond the pits were the first group of emaciated survivors, still and silent in their blue and white striped pyjamas or rags of civilian clothes, looking at him with unseeing eyes, many of them too traumatised to show any joy that their incarceration was over . . . Asked in old age about his reaction to entering Belsen in 1945, he replied: ‘To see human beings reduced to this state, and to think that other human beings had done this to them, well, I still try to make sense of it. What did it mean? You can’t explain the inexplicable.’2

For quite a while in mid-twentieth-century philosophy it was fashionable to argue that morality at base is simply about personal taste, feelings or preferences. On this understanding there is nothing that is objectively good or bad. There are just some things that I feel to be good or prefer or that are to my taste and other things that are not. But are these three egregious examples really just a matter of personal distaste? Obviously I would prefer them not to have happened. And they do give me (and doubtless you as well) a very nasty feeling. But is that enough?

Of course there are some trivial things that we tend to get morally indignant about. Hairstyles or table manners are good examples. They differ very widely across time and across different cultures, yet feelings about them are often very strong. Moving swiftly on one occasion from China to South Korea and then to Japan, I discovered that eating rice with chopsticks was deeply problematic. The length and style of the chopsticks differed markedly from one country to the next, as did the table manners expected. Having longer legs than most of the local people and being unused to sitting cross-legged on the floor I found it very difficult to deliver any rice to my mouth using these varying chopsticks. In China it appeared to be acceptable to pick up your rice bowl and scoop its contents into your mouth. I could do that. However, before attempting to do the same in South Korea, I asked my host if this was acceptable. He told me politely that it was extremely rude. So uncrossing my legs and leaning forward instead I could just about eat the rice, but unfortunately the waitress tripped over my feet sticking out from the other side of the table. My witless table manners left a very poor impression.

The length of men’s hair can also evoke strong feelings of distaste, sometimes because it is too long and sometimes because it is too short. Long hair mimicking fashionable sev...

Table of contents

• CoverImage
• About the author
• Also
• Title Page
• Imprint
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Because some things are evil
• 2. Because if I scratch your back you will scratch mine
• 3. Because it is our duty
• 4. Because God is good
• Notes
• Further reading