To Be Honest

In a secretly recorded phone conversation during the college admissions scandal of 2019, one of the parents who was considering bribing his daughter’s way into an elite university said to the scheme’s mastermind, “To be honest, I’m not worried about the moral issue here. I’m worried about … she gets caught doing that, she’s finished.” This seems like the epitome of an attitude, and a person, to be scorned. It seems downright delicious in its sliminess, indeed doubly so. For not only is morality being explicitly put aside, but the father refers to his own honesty in revealing this intention. It’s pretty much the same as saying, “Believe me, you can’t believe me” … like the liar of the liar paradox, who says, “I’m lying.” 

            But as an amoralist who thinks morality is bunkum to begin with, and even advocates forswearing it, I must consider how I would prefer to see myself and others frown upon, and express our displeasure with, behavior like the father’s (not to mention, whether we would do so at all). For I too am “not worried about the moral issue.” Yet I don’t want to live in a world where people are behaving the way he did, or have that kind of attitude -- in a word, are “like” that father. 

            The moral issue is bunkum for multiple reasons. First of all, even in moral terms it is difficult to make the case for blaming a person for doing what he could not help but do, and if one is a physical determinist, as any science-minded person would seem committed to being, one must admit that the father could not have done otherwise than he did (since none of us ever can). 

But even putting that consideration aside and looking only at the particulars of the case, we may pose questions like the following. Was the father doing anything all that different from what wealthy donors do who want their children to attend a certain university? And what about the built-in advantage to students whose parents can afford to pay the full cost of their attending the college of their choice? And more generally, is it wrong to “compete” for advantage by nonacademic means when various other nonacademic considerations may be brought into play in college admissions, such as alumni/ae parentage? And more generally still, are the academic measures used to judge an applicant’s suitability for college, or a particular college, necessarily related to the qualities and achievements of a college graduate that would most benefit society? Maybe the graduates of some of the elite institutions tend to go on to careers that promise them personal success at the expense of others or the environment, or at least fail to contribute to the world in any meaningful way. 

            In the end I think all moral deliberations end in mush like that … and I didn’t even bring up the meta-ethical critique of morality as such (q.v. for example J. L. Mackie’s classic monograph, Ethics). 

            But what am I saying, then: that I have no objection to people behaving like the parents in the admissions scandal? No! If anything, the opposite. My main gripe with morality is precisely that it does not achieve the ends of ethics as effectively as would some (though not just any) nonmoral(ist) alternative (such as the one I have dubbed “desirism”). Indeed, I think morality – or, strictly speaking, the belief in morality -- contributes to the woes of society and also of our personal lives (q.v. many article and books I have written making the case). My complaint is analogous to the atheist complaint that belief in God has been a scourge to society and individual lives, at least relative to some (albeit not just any) atheistic alternative. 

            So, to repeat my opening question: How would I prefer to see myself and others frown upon, and express our displeasure with, behavior like the father’s, given that I don’t want to play the moral card? Well, I think the procedure for arriving at my answer is to ask myself, first, what are my overall considered goals and values relative to the situation, and then what are the most practical means to achieving them (consistently with my goals and values)? Answering these questions would answer the question about my preferences, since these questions are framed in terms of my own desires. 

            My overall goals and values are nothing unusual, at least for a stereotypical liberal like myself. Naturally I would like to live in a world where people are honest as a rule, and where institutions like universities are relevant to creating a society that is itself liberal, rationally ordered, and culturally rich. But it would be a society without moralizing or other absolutizing. People would of course have different preferences and beliefs, but they would recognize that all disagreements with others had no other basis than that: that is, there is no God (literally or figuratively) who stands outside of our various preferences and beliefs to decide which ones are right or true. So while disagreements would remain, and even very deep ones, the general level of negative feelings would be diminished, and ideally some disappear altogether, such as blame, disdain, outrage, even simple anger. 

At the same time, the general level of mutual respect would increase, since we would be presenting reasons for our own view that might appeal to our opponent or to third parties (and without deceiving or coercing them, not to mention invoking divine or other metaphysical sanction for our views). 

I cannot rule out that on occasion some kind of moral(ist) appeal might serve these purposes better. I only claim (and this is itself only an empirical hunch) that such occasions would be rare. But of course there would also be a transition period when new habits of expression and response need to be developed, for clearly the current default is moralist. But in my own experience of trying to live as an amoralist for a decade and more, it has proved do-able to a surprising degree.