Tonight I was going through some of my old stuff and I ran across a diary that I had made last year when I was starting my first (and only) semester as a graduate student at Pepperdine. It was in response to a less than satisfying classroom experience with a pretentious prick professor:
Here it is, almost a year ago to the day:
My first class this morning was Great Books, taught by Professor Kauffman. It was a good experience, overall. We talked at length about defining “the good” as well as the reality or illusion of objective truth. My roommate and I, as if we needed the help, we were immediately dubbed the “thumpers”—though not in so many words. I was directly asked, by Professor Kauffman, to describe the genesis of my morality—where does it come from? My response was faith, my morals are rooted in my faith in God—the morality of the Bible, essentially. He then asked me if I would abortion illegal in America if I had my druthers; I swallowed hard and answered in the negative. My roommate answered the question essentially the same way, although replacing the negative reply with a positive one. The frustrating part of this interplay was the fact that I was not able to qualify my remarks.
I firmly believe that we cannot legislate morality. The problem in this country is not that abortion is legal, but that people increasingly desire the eradication of human life before birth—by majority for the mere sake of convenience. This mindset is one that can never, by policy, be vanquished. Overturning Roe versus Wade will only serve to stimulate the hanger economy in the United States and abroad.
I have to believe in objective morality. More importantly, perhaps, I want to believe in it.
Without objective morality my faith is rendered meaningless.
Things in life are almost never black and white, cut-and-dried. That being said, however, they do, in varying degrees, stem from basic objective principles. These principles are difficult to apply uniformly in all situations—this is the very nature of the ethical binary. This difficulty of application does not, in my mind, contravene the existence of objective morality. While abortion is most assuredly immoral, couldn’t it actually be moral in very specific situations? Probably so. Much in the same way, War is almost always worth eluding; but, it has been necessary at varying times in world history. War is not moral in and of itself, but it could be.
It is only by the strength of objective morality that this world has not fallen into chaos.
What say you?
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2 comments:
I agree with your comment about subjective morality 100 per cent. In my view, to legislate morality is impossible. Our society merely punishes for what we consider (subjectively or objectively) immoral behavior.
In the case of abortion, I've always felt like Christians have concentrated their efforts on making abortion illegal as if that would really accomplish anything. The problem is that many people do not place much value on their life or the lives of others. There is no legislation that can account for that.
What would our country look like without legalized abortions? The carnal instincts of these frightened and depraved parents would be manifested in back alleys and highway rest stops. Is that what we want?
Those who can afford to go elsewhere to get an abortion will go elsewhere, and those who cannot will do it like they did in medieval Europe.
Making abortion illegal in the United States, in my view, would be symbolic at best and regressive at worst. And, on top of that, it will never happen.
As Christians, we should concentrate on being examples to others and to remind this crazy world just how precious life really is.
Honestly, I wasn't making a case for or against abortion. I am obviously against it. I was simply trying to make the case to my classmates that abortion, as an issue, is truly moot at this point. It is simply a symptom of our depraved society. It's not a battle that we are going to win.
To ban abortion would be symbolic at best. This is not to say that symbolism isn't important because it most certainly is. However, as long as the majority of people in this country are in favor of abortion in one way or another, we will have to live with it. Even Chief Justice John Roberts, a devoted conservative, considers it to be settled law.
I don't know if making abortion illegal would be enough to convince a woman to go through with her pregnancy or not. My gut feeling is that it would have little affect. And I do not think that I am going out on a limb to think that people would take matters into their own hands. This is certainly an issue that is worth considering in my mind. Abortion will not go away just by virtue of any legislation and it could actually become more dangerous and gruesome than it already is. I don't think that is a red herring. I think it's a fact.
Again, we are talking about something that is legal--settled law--and what could forseeably happen in the wake of a constitutional ban.
Also, as a sidebar, moral people often do not follow the law. Have there not been circumstances in history in which following the law of men has been clearly immoral?
So, I guess my thesis is that Christians have poured too much energy into the mere prospect of a constitutional ban on Abortion. It will never happen.
A good question might be: Why am I spending more time and energy talking about it!?
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