Eating of the Tree: The phenomenology of the moral moment

I would like to compile a set of examples of experiences that convey the moral problem, by which I mean the irresistibility of believing in moral truth when (1) in fact there is no (such thing as) moral truth and (2) the belief that there is causes serious problems in human and group (on up to international) relations. These examples will also suggest an amoral solution to the moral problem. 

Here is one such example: 

The dogs are barking. Day in and day out, day and night, two white dogs owned by a neighbor down the street bark and bark and bark. All the rest of us on the block are annoyed, some seriously (especially on summer evenings when you are trying to get to sleep with the windows open), and several have asked that the dogs be kept indoors or else trained; but the neighbor has ignored us. Some of us have then complained to the dog warden, who has visited and even remonstrated with the neighbor more than once; but ultimately to no avail. I suppose the treatment of the dogs is not considered inhumane; and perhaps the decibel level breaks no noise ordinance and the law does not apply to the mere ceaseless presence of a noise? 

The moral problem rears its ugly head when the barking is experienced as unacceptable, unendurable. It may seem to some of the people who feel this that their feeling has to do only with the noise, the barking. But my sense is that what is really rousing some of us to the point of fury (or perhaps astonishment) is the neighbor’s indifference to our convenience … ultimately, to us. Our personhood as beings whose feelings matter is being ignored, dismissed. Only the feelings of the neighbor in question matter … to him, and for him it would be an inconvenience to bring the dogs indoors or whatever. (Although, indeed, he doesn’t even care about himself, in the sense that his life might go better if he was not alienating his neighbors.) 

This is so infuriating that in the middle of a sleepless summer night one could want to murder this man … or his dogs (not out of anger at the dogs but to “show” the neighbor, get revenge) … or at least feel that he deserves to die, however far that feeling may be from actually motivating one to be the instrument of that death. Anyway, it is the intensity of this feeling that I am taking to be paradigmatic of the moral problem in its purity and noxiousness even to the point of dangerouness. 

So consider what has happened, or the analysis. There is a desire, a simple, nonmoral desire … to have peace and quiet on the street where one lives. But by some conceptual alchemy this nonmoral desire generates, or is itself transformed into a moral judgment. The judgment may even be impersonal in essence: It is that the street ought to be quiet. This seems “proper,” “right.” It is not just one’s personal, subjective, contingent desire anymore, but an objective truth about Reality: that everyone who wishes it is entitled to live on a quiet street. But from this it follows that everyone is also obligated to maintain that quiet. Here, then, is where the personal element enters the moral scene, for now a person like the neighbor becomes a violator of a moral imperative and therefore a doer of wrong, and perhaps even bad as a person. And this in turn elicits the sorts of feelings that can be directed against a person who is doing something immoral or is themself immoral -- disapproval, condemnation, anger, hatred, contempt, etc. -- as well as the desire that the person be punished in some way. So in sum: What was originally a nonmoral desire (for peace and quiet) becomes a sense of an impersonal moral universe (the street where you live ought to be quiet), which sets the stage for a moral unsettling of the universe (barking dogs) and then a moral judgment upon an action (wrong to leave the dogs out) and a person (bad for doing wrong), and finally an emotion directed against a person (disgust, hatred, etc.), with the potential for a retributive action (call the police, etc.). 

But why is this a problem? Because the entire sequence after the original nonmoral desire is illusory, and the feelings and actions that result are net harmful to human well being, that is, the kind of life and world most of us would prefer. 

I can also put this in allegorical terms. The moral moment recapitulates the Fall. Every time we make the mental move from a desire to a moral judgment, we are taking a bite out of the apple. Thereupon life becomes a hardship. 

And the solution to the moral problem? Very simple (that is, to characterize if not always to implement): Don’t bite! Or non-allegorically speaking: Recognize reality. The moral feeling is “just a feeling,” as opposed to an epistemic state, that is, a state of knowledge about reality. The neighbor is doing nothing wrong – no more than he is displeasing Zeus, as Euthyphro characterized impiety in the eponymous Platonic dialogue -- by leaving his dogs outside all day and all night or not training them, etc. Nor is the neighbor doing anything wrong by ignoring our convenience and peace of mind, or even our personhood (not to mention his own happiness). Therefore the neighbor does not deserve any kind of “punishment,” nor even scorn. 

You may even experience an astonishing revelation, namely that at some level a complete relativity obtains. For consider that, by conceptualizing the situation as a conflict of desires, you might discover that what it all boils down to is, not that your neighbor is a jerk, but rather that your neighbor likes to leave his dogs outside and you want peace and quiet, and your neighbor cares more about leaving his dogs outside than he cares about annoying and alienating you, while you care more about having peace and quiet than you care about annoying or alienating him. 

And if you can pull off this cognitive “trick” of disabusing yourself of the moral conviction that overlies the desire and recognize it for what it is , namely, a strong feeling of a particular sort, then something “magical” may happen: The barking won’t bother you as much … maybe not at all. Furthermore, you need not feel you are living on a street with someone whom you “must” conceive as an enemy. 

And if the barking still does bother you to some degree, as well it might, then you will be in a better position to do something about it, for several reasons. First is that you would be able to continue the discussion with the neighbor without animosity. If he is still unbending, and the warden and police still lack authority, then, without the impediment of your own moral resistance to yielding to evil or accepting unfairness, you can go about devising some practical means of buffering the sound into your home or yard or sleeping quarters. 

There is no guarantee here of a total solution. But, as I say, at the very least you have removed a key source of your own agony … and surely made for a more peaceful (if not quiet) neighborhood.

 

Addendum 

It is appropriate to give the dogs the last word (or bark). This from a spokesperson: 

The barking dogs are needing or wanting something. I'll bet it's a walk or activities. It's a quintessential suburban type of problem. For Joel and the other neighbours, they Gotta Cope. A petition, a compromise, a noise ordinance. And don't resort to Ordnance. Haw. 

My two dogs will bark. Here in my remote redoubt, my retreat, my dogs won't bother a near neighbour, which they had done. We promptly brought them in before, when they started up. Tried to be a good neighbour. Squirrels drove them into a barking frenzy. Here in Virginia below the Blue Ridge there's no squirrels. 

-- James Clauson