Objective Morality

The term “Morality” and its variants are frequently used in discourse, but it's not often clarified what they mean and there is significant miscommunication on the subject due to different assumptions. What we mean when we use the term “morality?” is a question that seems easy or obvious to most people to answer, but establishing a clear definition can be less so.

The average person can look at things like mass shootings, racism, or extreme tragedies of the past and easily understand these things as immoral despite being unable to articulate how it is known they’re immoral (or on the other side, look at volunteering, curing disease, etc. and know they're right without being able to explain clearly). This is due principally from people carrying only an intuitive understanding of morality without grasping the underlying mechanics. These are very important questions to ask to resolve contradictions, conflicts, and explore implications -- this is what will be answered here.

Note that for this article, we are going to be almost exclusively discussing SECULAR morality; It's not going to be going into the problems with religious morality, nor is it going to delve into critiques of other ethical ideas. Religious morality and other ethical schools will be addressed only briefly by comparison, but that isn’t the main topic of this article. This article outlines the objective basis for secular morality, and the proper metric to use to gauge ethical and unethical behavior.

Defining Morality

So, before we actually get into anything, we first have to establish a few definitions. What is morality? What does that combination of sounds even mean? Words point to concepts, but it isn't entirely clear what the concept is, since words are just arbitrary combinations of mouth sounds.

When the concept of something is created, as long as it isn’t fundamentally inconsistent, it technically exists. So the concepts of a square circle, a shape that is both 100% circle and 100% square, or a married bachelor, or a TOOL fan who isn't a virgin, are not logically possible, so these concepts don’t exist. Concepts of what is right and what is wrong exist to, provided that we can demonstrate them to not be logically incoherent.

What these words refer to is generally decided by some sort of consensus by the users of the language. Like how the word “Chair” refers to the concept of an object that a human being can sit in with at least some lumbar support. While there are some semantic disagreements, morality is generally agreed to refer to the concern with what is right, and what is wrong.

But this creates another question: What IS right or wrong? What defines those two things? The definition of morality isn't really disagreed upon, but what's right and wrong certainly is. What would be the definitions for these?

Historically and descriptively, the basis of morality, and what is decided as being right and wrong, is the Golden Rule.

The Golden Rule

The Golden Rule is defined as follows:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

The definition case can be argued strongly for and use historical references in cultures, religions, and philosophical reflections, as well as broad common usage for an undercurrent to the meaning of morality. When morality is discussed, the concept of the Golden Rule is almost always the first thing that comes to mind, and therefore why it has been come to be defined as the core definition of morality.

It is present in all of the world's major religions and cultural traditions in one way or the other, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and even Taoism and Confucianism. Analyzing their scriptures reveal sentiments that share the same fundamental concept with the Golden Rule (Namely, treat others the way you want to be treated). And, given that almost 90% of the current human population espouses some sort of religion, they would also agree with the simple notion that the Golden Rule is defined in their religion as morality. And yes, I did reference Wikipedia a lot for these.

• Christianity

Jesus strongly espoused altruism and loving thy neighbor, and looking through the Gospels will find plenty of quotes that are either indicative or explicit mentions of the Golden Rule.

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

-Matthew 7:12 (NIV)

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

-Luke 6:31 (NIV)

He answered, “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

-Luke 10:27 (NIV)

• Judaism

The first Abrahamic Religion, the Hebrew Bible (which is very similar to the Old Testament in Christianity) has a few mentions of the Golden Rule, as well as quotes from notable Rabbis and other Jewish figures.

You shall neither take revenge from nor bear a grudge against the members of your people; you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

-Leviticus 19:18

“What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. This is the whole entire Torah; the rest is its explanation. Go and learn.”

-Hillel the Elder

“Love your neighbor as yourself...This is a great general principle in the Torah.”

-Rabbi Akiva

• Islam

"None of you will believe until you love for your brother what you love for yourself."

-Hadith 13

That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind... Seek for mankind that of which you are desirous for yourself, that you may be a believer.

-Muhammed

• Hinduism

One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma. Other behavior is due to selfish desires.

-Brihaspati, Mahabharata 13.113.8

This is the sum of all duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.

-Mahabharata 5:1517

If the entire Dharma can be said in a few words, then it is—that which is unfavorable to us, do not do that to others.

-Padmapuraana, shrushti 19/357–358

• Buddhism

Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.

-Udanavarga 5:18

Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.

-Dhammapada Chapter 10, 130

• Zoroastrainism

• Baha’ì

• Sikhism

Seeing how omnipresent the Golden Rule is in religion, it might do nothing but vindicate the notion that it's an idea that's only made valid by religion and has no usage in a secular context. But it's important to note that just because the religions of the world agree with the idea, that does not automatically mean it requires there to be a God (remember, Buddhism and Confucianism support the Golden Rule too), nor does it even necessarily imply it. In the quotes listed, there isn't anything in it that says God is needed to care about others. It may have been commanded by God which one can argue demonstrates that it's something only religion could fulfill.

But then we'd be getting into Euthyphro's Dilemma; Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods? If it's the former, then the Golden Rule is a concept that is independent of any God. If the latter, that only shows that it's God's arbitrary will. That again doesn't necessarily mean you need a God for this particular thing, just that it commands you to do it because he says it's good. It would have the same weight to it as Steve telling you to do so because Steve likes it. Is Steve necessary for you to give five bucks to charity?

It's important to highlight this because it demonstrates that such a concept was recognized as morality in all of the Old World. It's very likely in the New World there were understandings of it, however; The Great Law of Peace, a constitution established amongst the Iroquois Confederacy (better known as the Six Nations), is claimed to have been summarized by this quote:

Respect for all life is the foundation.

Unfortunately, there exists very little documentation on the ethical and traditional views of these peoples due to the highly effective cultural genocide committed by the European explorers, and since it was almost entirely oral tradition (much of which was also lost when over 90% of them were killed off by infectious disease), this sort of thing is simply lost to time, however with what little we do have there's still some limited evidence suggesting they had concepts similar in nature to the Golden Rule.

Usage Historically

Of course even despite all of the cultures and relgions and whatnot that defined morality by the Golden Rule, anyone even remotely well-versed in history very well knows of the atrocities and discrimination of other groups that are exhibited by many civilizations throughout history. The Golden Rule wasn't so much "Do unto others as you would have them done unto you," it was more like "Do unto other white men as you, a fellow white man, would have them done unto you, and keep blacks as slaves and treat women as inferiors."

This can be argued against as an example of having a different intepreation of the Golden Rule, but a sentiment like this leaves out crucial context. The reasoning for these actions sprouted from not only not understanding the moral worth of people outside their own culutures (virtually every ancient culture was xenophobic), but also a profound ignorance of the natural world, and fearing the supernatural's actions if it wasn't pleased. It's more a showcasing of their ignorance rather than the invalidity of the Golden Rule.

As our circle of compassion grew however, and as we began to gradually understand the moral worth of other human beings. Not only that, but our understanding of biology has improved considerably since the 19th century, giving us the ability to emprically prove there is no moral difference related to sex, gender, skin color, nationality, etc. We know fully well the arbitrary nature of these types of discrimination.

As applied to animals

And of course, as that circle of compassion expanded, in modern times most people and philosophers understand in one form or another that animals have moral worth, and animal ethics is a topic that goes back thousands of years.

As is commonly understood, Hinduism and Buddhism (at least the Mahayana view) both actively endorse Vegetarianism (now, whether or not proclaimed adherents of these religions will actually practice it is a different story), and both of these religions predate Christianity. Hinduism endorses vegetarianism due to the doctrine of having compassion for both humans and animals alike, and similarly, in Buddhism, vegetarianism is endorsed in the interest of Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra, which in simple terms is the consideration of all sentient beings (sounds like... the Golden Rule).

There also exists speculation amongst scholars that the historical Jesus may have been a Vegetarian (or at the very least a pescetarian), but this is not widely accepted. Christians (well, those who're actually familiar with the deeper cuts of their own Bible, which are a vanishingly small percentage of them) may point to verses from Corinthians that endorse the consumption of animal products, namely:

Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience...

-1 Corinthians 10:25 Note that Corinthians does not consist of any of Jesus's teachings, as they were written by Saul of Tarsus (Saint Paul), who was vehemently opposed to Vegetarianism in early Christianity, referring to those who ate only vegetables as those of "weak faith."

If you remember from your history classes, before Paul became a apostle for Christianity, he actively persecuted Christians, and not like in the bullshit modern Pureflix movie type persecution of Christians where atheists are meanies, he violently persecuted Christians "beyond measure." After he had his conversion (which was probably due to a seizure in actuality, instead of some vision he had), he tried to take Christianity for his own and corrupt and misconstrue many of Jesus's teachings.

Corinthians also gave us gems of misogyny, such as this:

Let your women keep silent in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.

-1 Corinthians 14:34-35

Makes the "Saint" in Saint Paul appear to be sort of a misnomer. But we're getting off track.

Let's also not forget to take a look at philosophy. Throughout history, philosophers such as Plato, Jeremy Bentham, Voltaire, and more recently Peter Singer are all known for taking stance on ethical issues and actively practicing vegetarianism and supporting it as a part of an ethical lifestyle.

But everyone has different interests!!!11

A common criticism of the Golden Rule is the claim that since we often have opposing preferences, we ideally shouldn't do unto others as we have them done unto ourselves. This is an age old claim and isn't seriously used or argued for in this day and age. Those who still think this is a valid critcism aren't very familiar with the whole debate on the topic, and often will obnoxiously and ignorantly claim "Everyone has different interests tho," dust off their hands and declare the argument won.

This critcism has already been addressed on the Wiki (and by many ethical philosophers over the past hundred damn years), but to reiterate, the Golden Rule is self-correcting in this regard. We all want people to consider our interests and the Golden Rule says that since we should do by others how we want them to do by us, we should in turn consider the interests of others. We want others to take into account our considerations.

If you really want to be pedantic and sure about it, we can rephrase it in terms of the Platinum Rule:

Do unto others, wherever possible, as they would want to be done to them.

It can help avoid confusion, but really, it's redundant since the Golden Rule already strongly implies something like this. In fact, the self-correcting nature of the Golden Rule arguably edges out the limited phrasing of the Platinum Rule, since the former considers how we should ideally treat others based on their circumstances. For example, a child playing with a ligher and an aerosol spray and might want to be allowed to keep playing with them, although if we shared those circumstances, we'd have a different interest in mind; If we were in the position of the child, we'd like to have the fire extinguished for our own good. Again, we do based on the respective needs of other sentient beings, as that's how we'd prefer being treated ourselves.

As applied to animals

Animal ethics is a topic as old as time

However, it can also be derived constructively independently from that if we understand morality as a value system. When we speak of objective value systems, as opposed to subjective or arbitrary ones, there are not many apparent ways to construct them. You can't just make a value system out of bricks, as you might a brick house. An value system can only be constructed from values. An objective one then has to deal objectively with available values to construct itself. Like by accounting for all values, rather than arbitrarily excluding some (like the value non-human animals put on their own lives).

The Is-Ought Problem

A very common criticism of objective morality is the Is-Ought problem. The Is-Ought problem proclaims that an ought can not be derived from an is, or in other words, there's a difference between what something is, and how something ought to be.

How do we value Preferences?

Now sure, the preference that this sentient being has may be arbitrary and subjective, but whether or not that preference is fulfilled is objective. So, for example, your desire to not get punched in the face is subjective, but if Ol' Chuck were to go and punch you in the face, he is objectively violating your desire to not get punched in the face, is he not?

Of course, not all preferences are equal, and they conflict all the time. The murderer’s preference to kill his victim conflicts with his victim’s preference to not be murdered. When it comes to cases like this, we have to see who values their preferences more. So in the case of the murderer and his victim, as much as the murderer wants to kill his victim, the preference of the victim to continue living and not feel the pain of being killed is in all likelihood valued far more. Death in many instances is the ultimate violation of preferences, as it violates all the other preferences the person has in order to stay alive. We might value a lot of things, but the thing sentient beings almost invariably value beyond all others is being able to be alive, and no matter how much the murderer wants to kill the victim, his desire to kill is outweighed by the victim’s will to live.

You can probably think of other examples. Like slavery; The slave owner certainly preferred owning slaves to his economic benefit, but we can all agree that his slaves’ desire to be free is much stronger. Ultimately, what the slave owner really wanted was cheap labor, and having slaves was certainly cheaper than the other options at the time.

Same thing applies when we consider the preferences that pertain to the individual. For example, let’s take two preferences Joey has; The preference to not have his foot get stepped on, and the preference to not have his dick chopped off. While he does have both of these preferences, he would much rather have his foot be stepped on than have his dick cut off. Might be different depending on the person, but this is how he values these preferences that he has.

Context is everything; What might be unethical to do to me might be ethical to do to someone else. The homeless guy who lives in the corner of the subway car shoving his fingers in your ass for a quick sex run is very different from your doctor shoving his fingers in your ass to see if you have prostate cancer. Neither is pleasant, but since you have a preference to be in the know of whether or not you have prostate cancer and since the Doctor is the only man for the job, that outweighs the preference to not have anyone's fingers in your dirty stinky anus.

Preferences Vs. Pain

Note that preferences differ from pain. It’s common to take a more hedonistic approach to ethics, which places considerations on pleasure and pain. The thing is, pain is not a universal moral metric to use; It should only be considered when the being in question has a preference to not feel pain. Granted, that applies to the vast majority of at least moderately sentient beings; However, this doesn’t mean it’s completely universal. Is it morally permissible to kill someone just because you do it painlessly, in their sleep? What about people who are unable to feel pain? It’s an actual condition, Congenital insensitivity to pain. Would it be fine to inflict harm on these types of people? Probably not, since, although they’re unable to feel pain, they very likely still have the preference to not have their bodies be harmed. Kicking someone in the balls who can’t feel pain would be more ethical than kicking someone in the balls who can feel pain, but doesn’t mean it’s harmless.

And hey, some people WANT to feel pain, for whatever reasons that may be, maybe they’re pushing themselves at the gym, or that’s a certain kink they have, but either way, that’s their preference. Sure, in 99% of cases moral beings have the preference to not feel pain, and it’s something that’s reasonably assumed in most moral decisions, but given the inconsistencies, it isn’t the proper metric to measure moral actions.

As applied to animals

This is incredibly important to highlight, as it pertains to animal rights.

Animals, especially the ones we breed and slaughter by the billions, are sentient, therefore have interests which are deserving of our consideration. The only people who still deny this in a modern first world country are willfully ignorant or just not mentally compotent, OR are practicing yellow journalism.

Animal sentience is not a controversial issue. Animal cognition has been studied, though it is true that certain animals have more intelligence than others, they all have certain levels of sentience, and therefore, moral value.

The level of cognition is actually how we decide how much moral value beings have; Since morality is based on the preferences of sentient beings and how much those beings value those preferences, things like intelligence and cognition are what we use, since there’s a direct relationship between how much a being is able to have and value their respective preferences with their level of intelligence. Call it ableist, but this is the only non-arbitrary and mostly consistent metric to use in order to determine moral value, though there are some pretty big diminishing returns to it. What we mean by that is, the moral gradience between an insect and a mammal is massive. The difference between mammals, or highly intelligent life, however is less significant.

And a big thing people forget is how much of an impact language has on developing intelligence. Without language, we wouldn’t be much better off than chimps. So who knows how many other species could be at our level if they were able to create and develop language? Species that are able to develop language are generally the same as far as more consideration is concerned. Of course, there are exceptions to this, when we consider how much the being in question violate the preferences of others. So for example, while a being like a psychopathic serial killer likely has far more cognition than a housefly, given the harm he caused, the housefly would be the one with more value, since its lived a neutral existence, maybe slightly positive since it might’ve helped pollinate, while the existence of the serial killer has had a negative effect in the world.

Ascribing moral value based on intelligence

Basically, you’re left with three options. You can A) Ascribe moral value based on intelligence, B) Say that intelligence is not morally significant and all life has equal value, from a head louse to an elephant to a human, or C) Be a speciesist and say that a sentient being’s moral worth is based on species membership. Or, you can base it on something equally arbitrary, such as the color of the animal or where in the world its from.

There are diminishing returns to intelligence; Once a species has the ability to use language, the intelligence gap between other species that have language isn’t as dramatic. Without language, we wouldn’t be that much better off than chimpanzees in terms of intelligence.

Most animal species have little or no sentience, which would be the invertebrates. Mammals in particular have higher levels of intelligence, but also others such as octopi, crows, and of course the species on Earth with the highest level of intelligence, humans. These sentient beings have a very strong capacity to value their preferences, and at a certain point their ability to value these preferences begins to have a diminishing return to it.

Of course, in the wild, morality isn’t something that is necessarily thriving. You might say that since many animals in the wild aren’t considering the interests of other sentient beings, they aren’t deserving or moral consideration. But in actuality, whether or not a being acts morally or amorally doesn’t matter. What does matter is that it is a sentient being with interests that have to be considered.

I’ll give you another hypothetical of competing interests. Let’s say you’re stranded on an island with a live cow. The cow is able to survive fine off the grass but there ain’t any food for you to eat. In this case, you would be justified in killing the cow for food, since your preference to stay alive outweighs the cow’s preference to stay alive. One of you is going to die, so the choice has to be made. However, let’s say if on this same island with the cow, you were also stranded with a crate of canned beans that can last you for a whole year. In this case, killing the cow for food wouldn’t be ethical, because at that point, it isn’t really a matter of eating, it’s wanting to eat certain foods. However, your preference to eat steak does not outweigh the cow’s preference to not be killed.

The problems with Subjective Morality (may move this to its own article?)

This is where the problem with subjective morality arises. If morality is something decided by culture or the individual, what utility do you expect that to have? If we’re going to say that morality is dependent on culture, on what grounds can we criticize say Nazis in what they did during World War 2, or how women and gays are treated in the middle east, and in most parts of the world even? Hell, on what grounds can we criticize ANYONE who holds traditional values that are antithetical to equality and progress? We condemn them just based on our opinions? Why should they have any value? Opinions should be reserved for things like film and games and music stuff like that, not figuring out what the right thing to do is. If you say female genital mutilation is wrong, what’s stopping someone from saying “yeah, well, you know that’s just like your opinion man?”

Or you can bite the bullet and say that yes, even if we think it’s wrong, what groups like the Nazis did is still morally correct since morality is objective, in which case, good luck defending that position, and figuring out how to address the concern of them going against the culture of the people they were oppressing.

Argument from culture

That isn’t even the only problem with deciding that morality is based on culture. Why is culture even relevant? If you really think about it, basing morality on culture ultimately leads to subjective morality pertaining to the individual, which is also known as naive moral relativism. For example, let’s quickly grant that morality is decided by culture. OK, which culture? Western culture? Sure, they generally have the same values of things like freedom and democracy and what have you. But wait, there are dozens of countries in the west, and all have different views on what’s right and wrong. OK, so let’s settle for country, that’s something that’s agreeable, sure. But wait, what about a country like the UK, which is really made of four countries, that all disagree with each other? Just look at their election results for Brexit and recent elections. Clearly, Scotland and Northern Island have very different standards for what ought to be done compared to England and Wales. And even looking at each individual country, you’ll see there are some areas that voted very strongly for Brexit, largely in the rural parts, and areas that voted strongly against it, largely in the urban areas.

If you keep doing this sort of regress, you’ll eventually realize that culture just isn’t a useful metric to use to decide morality, since individuals within a culture tend to have a different idea of what that culture thinks is the right thing to do, and besides culture is a vague and arbitrary line to draw. The UK is only one example, this type of disagreement within culture is a nearly universal thing, and I’m sure you can come up with a few examples right now (US states, counties, municipalities).

And what if we were to apply this idea to other ideas, that culture is a deciding factor? If we apply it to science for example. Aristotelian physics was so fucking wrong on many levels, yet, that was the dominant school of science in Europe and even other parts of the world up until Galileo and Newton. Or what about history? A lot of places in good ol’ Dixie claim that the Civil War was fought over “State’s Rights,” don’t they? Do ideas have any validity because they were decided by culture? If not, why would it still apply to morality?

Moral Relativism and non-religiosity

So all in all, moral relativism renders morality completely useless, as it would be if the same standard were applied to science. But, it still remains a prevalent idea in most atheist and skeptic circles.

It's most noticeable amongst non-religious people, where there seems to be this idea that objective morality is solely a religious idea, which is why they’re so dismissive to it, which makes them subscribe to moral relativism. Now sure, while objective morality is something that is present in all major religions, that doesn’t mean that it’s an inherently religious idea, nor that non-religious people who believe in an objective morality are still clinging on to religious thought. Saying those types of things is frankly rather ignorant about the arguments made in favor of a secular objective morality.

Mind Dependence

Views on things such as in the natural sciences are what we would call objective, while it's the opposite for the arts. The social sciences lie somewhere in the middle of the continuum.

It's understandable defaulting to subjective morality once you relinquish your religious views, but it becomes easily shaken when one realizes that it would render morality utterly meaningless. A common criticism you’ll hear from moral relativists comes in the form of how the terms “objective” and “subjective” are defined. It usually comes down to the simplistic definitions of objective and subjective, with “objective” being defined as something that is mind independent, with subjective being something that is mind dependent. These seem like fair and reasonable definitions on the surface, and they are serviceable when it comes to typical day to day conversations.

The problem is, whether or not something is mind-dependent is not really all that relevant to something being objective. There are tons of things that are mind-dependent that blur the line being either objective or subjective; Take things like neuroscience or human psychology; These things are certainly mind-dependent, but are they really things you would call subjective? Or just take the social sciences in general. Or take something like economics; This is a field that certainly requires humans with minds to exist at all, but is it a subjective thing?

Same applies to morality. Just because morality is mind-dependent, or doesn’t exist in the physical universe, doesn’t have any bearing on it being real or subjective. Just as in the same way that as long as there are humans, there’s human psychology, as long as there are sentient beings with preferences, there’s morality. Something doesn’t have to be built into the universe or whatever for it to exist. Life exists, and that isn’t something that’s built into the universe. It is, however, a product of the universe, and eventual and natural consequent, under very precise circumstances. And with morality, it’s the natural consequence of having these beings achieve sentience, and thus, have interests.

Why should we be moral?

So that’s our entire case for objective morality, and it should help a little bit in making moral desicions. Though it should be noted that even though if you do know all of this, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy to make moral decisions. Sometimes, you just don’t have all the information, or maybe you make an error in judgement, but it’s a step in the right direction, and it’d be especially useful for non-religous people.

Most religious apologists believe that atheists are nihilistic amoral hedonists who are more concerned with short term pleasures than actually being good people. And speaking as an atheist, they aren't completely wrong in thinking that. The stereotypical hedonistic atheist that just drinks, smokes tons of pot, gambles, has a lot of sex, well let’s be a bit more realsitic on that, chronically masturbating, that’s more accurate, and in general has a pessimistic and nihilistic view on life may not be too far off for a lot of us. At least with theists, they have an obligation to fulfil moral duties with the promises of Heaven and threats of Hell, or a consideration for a next life. That isn’t to say that most theists are exactly upstanding morality, seems to me they’re content to just slap their respective religious label on themselves and feel as though that makes them better people because they were raised on the “right” religion, but that’s besides the point.

Anyway, without a god and threats of hell, or promises of heaven, or a consideration of a next life, what incentive would a non-religous person have to be a good person? Well, nothing really, not outside of the law, anyway. You are under no obligation to be a good person, or make any attempt to be better. You can live basically however you want, be as apathetic going to all the problems going on in the world, be entirely self-interested, and be as wasteful as you can afford. No one’s gonna stop you. You can work a job that pays well but is a plague on society, like being a bloodsucking lawyer or a lobbyist for the oil industry, make hundreds of thousands off of it and not donate a cent of it to charity; Just let it collect dust in your bank account, or squander it on crap you don’t really need. You can live in a house that’s much bigger than necessary, and be excessively indulgent in your energy use, never recycle, drive a Hummer or some fancy sports car, not make any effort to cut down on animal products. Why give a shit about the environment, it’s only really going to affect the global poor, and why should you care about them?

You can vote for politicians who will cut social programs and wage wars in poor countries if it means you’ll save just a little bit more in taxes. The same politicians who will also go against science and slow down progress on fighting climate change and medicine. You can go against science yourself and fight progress on things like vaccines, GM technology, nuclear energy, and you can feel free to peddle bullshit yourself too, you might be able to make some money off of that.

You can be as racist, homophobic, transphobic as you want and make an effort to make minorities and LGBT people feel like they don’t belong in society, and hell for good measure you can deny the existence of mental illnesses, and say people just need to “get over themselves.”

It doesn’t have to stop at you; You can have kids and raise them on the same terrible values of selfishness, indulgence and apathy, and just have that cycle keep on going. Why not write a book about it, telling others to do the same? Government can’t arrest you for peddling socially harmful ideas. You can do all of that; Nothing is stopping you. Except, of course, the will to do the right thing. That’s the only real incentive you got. You can choose to work a job that’s useful for society, like a doctor, engineer and even trades like a plumber or electrician, and give some of the money you earn to charity. You can live in a place that’s well within your means, drive a modest car or better yet bike or take public transit, and do make an effort to reduce meat consumption, both for the animals and the environment. You can vote for politicians, who, while far from perfect, want to expand social aid, and at least to an extent reduce wars in other countries, even if it means your taxes will go up. The same politicians who will try to follow the science and use it to help stop climate change and disease. And hey, why not help educate people on science yourself, like posting videos about them for free on the internet?

You can work on being accepting and inclusive to people of color, LGBT people, and helping them feel comfortable being who they are, and want to help people suffering from mental health problems, and there certainly is no shortage of them.

And if you do decide to have children, you can pass on those values. You can raise your kids to be compassionate, caring, and altruistic. Hell, why not extend those values to others around right now? Friends, family, even strangers on the street. Doing all of these things will not only reduce the amount of harm you do to the world, but also help make sure that it’s a better place than when you first got here.

So, do you want to be a good person, just to be a good person? That’s up to you.

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