The Point of Morality and Society-Centered Moral Theory

In this section, I sketch an account of the nature and point of morality. In the next section, I argue that this account is congenial to the idea that institutional entities have moral obligations and can bear moral responsibility, such as being blameworthy.

In my view, the point of morality is to enable people to cope with what I call the “problem of sociality.” Human beings obviously are not self-sufficient. They have needs of various kinds, and cannot generally meet these needs except by cooperating with, and, at times, relying on other people. They also generally cannot achieve, protect, or realize the things they value except by cooperating with other people. Unfortunately people have conflicting interests, limited resources, and limited sympathy as well as a tendency to pursue their own advantage, and because of this, cooperation might break down or fail to develop. The problem of sociality is the problem that although people need to live together cooperatively, and would fare well to do so, there is a significant potential for conflict among them, given conflicts of interest and the like.

It seems obvious that this problem can be ameliorated if the members of society subscribe to a suitable system of norms calling for a willingness to cooperate with others, for non-interference with others, and so on. Different moral codes, were they to serve as the moral culture of a society, or were they to be generally subscribed to,³ would do more or less to enable people to do this. Further, with functional kinds, a good instance of the kind is one that best fulfills the relevant function. So, I think, the justified or authoritative moral code — the “ideal” moral code — is the one the currency of which would do more to enable society to cope with the problem of sociality than would the currency of any other code (see Copp 1995; 2007b; 2009).⁴

This, of course, is only a sketch of the theory.

We can think of a moral code as a system of standards, rules, or norms, where a standard is a content expressible by an imperative. There are purely arbitrary standards as well as standards that seem to correspond to moral truths, such as the standard that prohibits torture. The society­centered theory says that a “pure and basic” moral proposition is true if and only if (roughly) a corresponding moral standard is included in, or implied by, the ideal moral code for the society.^6,7 For example, torture is morally wrong, if and only if (roughly) a standard that prohibits torture is included in or derivable from the ideal moral code.

A moral code has “currency” in a society, or forms the moral culture, just when the members of the society by and large “subscribe” to its standards or have “internalized” them. That is, they by and large are disposed to comply with the standards, to have negative attitudes toward them­selves if they fail to do so, to have negative attitudes toward others who fail to do so, and so on. In subscribing to a moral code, a person comes to have corresponding general intentions or moral policies. For example, if the moral code someone has internalized includes the rule, “Be honest,” she will have a policy of being honest. Because of this, the currency of a moral code would significantly affect the motivations of the members of a society. This explains why the currency of a moral code can help a society to deal with the problem of sociality provided that it calls on people to behave in appropriate ways or to have appropriate traits of character.

It is important that the ideal moral code on this view is the code the currency of which in society — that is, its serving as the moral culture of society — would do most to mitigate the problem of sociality holding constant human psychology and the basic facts of our social lives. The ideal code is a kind of tool that could actually be used by people to address the problem of sociality by, inter alia, teaching the code to their children. Facts about human psychology and about our social lives affect and constrain how people teach new generations about morality and how people learn about moral matters. Limitations in human intelligence likewise affect and constrain the content of the ideal code since this is to be a code that realistically could by and large be subscribed to and internalized by the members of society. The ideal code is one that it is realistically possible for people by and large to internalize.

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