© 1991 John Hyde
© 1991 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
By John Hyde, The Institute Of Public Affairs
For whatever reasons, even the church has largely given the ‘morality’ game away, adopting the language and values of the social sciences rather than those of ethics. And no other body of thinkers and teachers has filled the gap.
There has been a drift towards nihilism — scepticism about moral principles. This has contributed our present social (including economic) woes.
The advice people receive tends to come from governments — which are ill-suited to moral instruction and to concentrate on legalities that do not distinguish between right and wrong personal behaviour. Indeed, far from being challenged to accept personal responsibility, we are offered a litany of excuses for our own failures and opportunities to avoid their consequences. Words which I admit defy precise definition, such as honour, truth, courage, charity and justice have become passe.
With all due respect to regulators, law cannot substitute for morality. Indeed, in a society that tries to replace rather than buttress its moral framework with a legal one is unworkable. There is much more to right behaviour than lawfullness.
Truth and trust are moral motivations that, try as they might, the law cannot fully encapsulate. Yet,amid moral confusion, people are turning for guidance to the letter of the law — if an action is lawful, it is okay they are saying. Well, it is not necessarily!
Like directors and investors, cabinets, oppositions and public have not been forced to think rigorously about right and wrong behaviour. Consequently, politicians’ consciences are not as tender as they ought to be, oppositions do not mount sound moral criticisms and the public, itself ill-equipped, is given no obvious moral choice.
Nevertheless, these is an uncodified thread running through society binding company directors, cabinets and the rest of us alike. In spite of the odd dilemma, it, unlike the law, is widely recognised and it, not regulation, is the real social cement. One does not have to pretend to be holier than thou in order to defend it.