I’m Happy I’m Sad

I am an amoralist, by which I mean that I do not believe in objective values like moral good and bad and right and wrong. All of those are subjective feelings disguised as objective judgments. Thus for example, if someone declares that it is wrong to eat meat, my analysis is that that person really does not want anyone to eat or otherwise harm animals, and their dislike is felt so intensely that they feel they must be perceiving some real feature of the practice, namely, its wrongness. But that feature is a phantasm, I am now convinced, analogous to the spinning of the room we’re in when we experience vertigo. The room isn’t spinning; it is we who are having a subjective experience of dizziness. Just so, the moralistic vegetarian may be feeling real empathy and compassion for animals at their very real pain and suffering and confinement and slaughter, which feeling, either spontaneously or due to instruction, transmutes into a judgment or perception of wrongness and evil. 

And that judgment can get in the way of rationally assessing the significance of our feelings and what to do about them. So in the case of meat eating, a judgmental approach often leads to condemnation of meat eaters. But that is guaranteed not to “convert” anyone to vegetarianism. Instead a very cold-eyed reflection counsels finding a more psychologically effective way to appeal to meat eaters to change their ways. My sense is that the most effective means is simply to convince someone to watch a film like The Witness (produced by Tribe of Heart and free to stream online). My intent would be to arouse compassion, not guilt. 

That is all by way of preface to a more particular topic. Amoralists like myself are often challenged as lacking a sufficient emotional repertoire to take up the slack of their abandoned moralism. A case in point would be saying you’re sorry. Clearly an amoralist is unable to express sorrow if that means assuming guilt for having done something wrong. And this would seem to open a giant chasm between the amoralist and normal social intercourse. There are so many occasions when apologizing seems to be just the ticket, not only simply as the right thing to do, but because of its power to assuage the victim of our wrong-doing. 

I know this feeling well myself. Even as an amoralist, if somebody is responsible for causing me some kind of pain or loss, I will be put out even more if they don’t at least say “I’m sorry.” So would an amoralist be advised simply to lie or deceive with a false expression of sorrow? After all, by their lights there would be nothing wrong in their doing so, since nothing is wrong (or right). 

But a little thought made me realize that an amoralist can express genuine sorrow in the sense of being sad about the harm they have caused another person. “I’m sorry” is ambiguous between two quite different meanings. Only one of them is moralistic, implying guilt for wrong-doing. The other is simply an expression of caring and compassion. There need be nothing moralistic about that. These are spontaneous feelings or attitudes requiring no moral judgment of anything. Indeed, one can feel compassion even for someone one deems despicable. Moralists feel compassion all the time despite their moral judgments. 

My advice would be to dispense with the moral judging, whether of others or oneself, at all times, and instead cultivate compassion and reason. I for one am very happy that I am capable of feeling sad, and I am naturally drawn to other people who feel great sadness about the suffering in the world. Moralists, on the other hand, adulterate their natural sadness with judgmentalism, which can only inhibit the free and effective expression of their caring, and is in any case built on myth. 

Or so it seems to me. 

Objection. 

The moralist could well object that I have omitted an essential component of “I’m sorry” as an amoral expression of sadness at someone else’s pain. What about taking responsibility for having caused the pain? For example, suppose someone steps on your foot. What is interesting is that even if this was not done intentionally or gratuitously, not to mention maliciously, but only inadvertently, and indeed not even carelessly but by sheer accident that could happen to anyone, you will probably be miffed if the person who stepped on your foot does not say “I’m sorry” and furthermore, and more to the point, does not mean by that that they recognize their own role in the pain you have been caused.[1] 

Sure, the person could plead physical determinism and argue that, since they did in fact step on your foot, they had to step on you foot, given the laws of the universe and the initial conditions at the Big Bang. So how could they possibly be held responsible? And I do think this is good grounds for deeming moral responsibility pointless. However, I take the objector’s point that some kind of taking of responsibility seems in order. 

For example, perhaps this person has a habit of stepping on your (and anybody’s) foot out of sheer clumsiness or excitability and lack of attention to what they’re doing. Then it would be important for them not only to express sympathy for your pain but to take some kind of responsibility for being more careful in future. 

Now I could reply that taking responsibility in this way is implied by one’s feeling genuinely sad that you are in pain. For how could their sadness be genuine if it did not imply that they would strive to alleviate or prevent it if that was within their power? 

Alternatively I could suggest a third species of sorrow, which not only involves sadness at your injury but also a cognizance of one’s role in it and a sincere dedication to alleviate or prevent it in future. 

Even so the moralist might be unsatisfied. For someone might be sincerely sorry they had been the agent of grief for purely selfish reasons. Maybe the toe-stepper is seeking a lady’s favors and now fears they will be rejected for their clumsiness. But this does not in any way suggest the kind of sorrow a moralist would desire. The moralist wants his pound of flesh: genuine contrition. 

I understand this feeling. But I still think the amoralist has the resources to give what is needed. First let me note that in some circumstances, feeling sad mainly about one’s own predicament does not preclude an adequate expression of sorrow. If what one mainly wants is to have one’s toes not to be stepped on, the toe-stepper’s indicating only that they resolve to prevent it in future could be all you desire from their “I’m sorry.” So this would be yet a fourth species of sorrow, since it need not involve even sadness that the other person has been injured. 

But I also understand the desire for something more than that. Let me therefore add the stipulation that on some occasions the sorrow we would want is sadness on behalf of the person who has been harmed. Thus, being genuinely sad just because oneself may be put at some disadvantage due to the other person’s pain is not the kind of sorrow even I qua amoralist would want to hear expressed by them. I want them to feel sad for me. 

But that was already implied by my characterizing the relevant sadness as due to compassion. So while, yes, a person could feel genuine sadness to have caused pain solely or mainly because of the possible consequences for themself, that is not what I was talking about in the first part of this essay. I would now subsume such selfish sadness under the fourth kind of sorrow specified above. 

So, given the unselfish stipulation, the implication or else explicit taking of responsibility for alleviating or preventing the pain would be all that could be desired of a full-blown “I’m sorry” of the second or third kind. 

Or so it seems to me.

[1] I say this is interesting because even a moralist would expect an apology in this case, even though we might normally suppose that a person could not possibly be morally guilty if what they did was due to sheer accident beyond their control or avoidance.

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