Two Roots of Morality

Conviction, Observation. This post is the consequence of ricochets from two different blog posts I read in succession this morning. One is the fascinating story of the origins of the U.S. civil service on Siris (link), another is a comment on death on Maverick Philosopher (link). The first deals with corruption, the second with the strongly held beliefs of some that this life is all there is; on death we just go poof. It struck me reading these, in turn, that both morality and faith may have deep or shallow roots. Deep here means “inner” and shallow “outer.” I abbreviate these two roots further by using conviction for the first and observation for the second.

Conviction is a peculiar sort of—what? Feeling, state? I know it when I have it. A syllogism may have a compelling quality, but that compulsion or agreement falls short of conviction. I’ve met irresistible syllogisms I did not agree with—because at least one premise lacked something. A conviction, by contrast, is powerful even if the person who holds it cannot unpack it. Conviction, therefore, seems to arise from some inner intuition reaching us from a source that cannot be denied. A morality rooted in conviction is merciless—you violate it knowing full well what you are doing; you’re going against your own, firm judgement; and you know it.

Observation produces raw data. It’s what we see out there. A morality based on it produces an ambiguous picture. Lots and lots of people confirm a certain behavior; but others, and very often those who appear to be most successful, violate it. An outwardly-oriented person, essentially a stranger to him- or herself, in effect lacks morality: the observations have not sunk deep enough; the self has not engaged them effectively enough; the intellect has not examined them; they have not become internalized enough to evoke the intuitive judgement. Such people behave in response to stimuli; that something like “morality” is out there is, of course, also a social observation, but if their behavior violates it, there is justification for it. Others are doing the same.

Observation also shows that people die and don’t come back. The heavens do not cleave routinely to reveal a beatific vision. What purpose may be visible in reality is not exactly on the surface. It takes heavy digging. And living on the surface, what we see is what we get. Not so if we look deeper; and then conviction rises.